The Year of 52 Adventures

Autumn blew the quilt right off the perfect bed she made

“To accomplish great things we must not only act, but also dream; not only plan, but also believe.” (From an introductory speech at a session of the Académie Française, December 24, 1896)” ― Anatole France, Works of Anatole France

Time has past but this site is just as welcoming as when I left it last. In all honesty, it’s hard to come back here. To be reminded of the risks and recklessness that permanently imprint all of 2010 in my memory. Because I want that again. I want to feel alive and adventure-full and interesting and capable. I want to run screaming from my desk job and pick up an axe and work as a lumberjack. Or swim with the dolphins in some exotic locale. I never did milk that spider or join in on a wine crush. So it’s painful, being reminded of what was – seeing that 2010 was too many years ago and that the momentum died.

Well it’s all great and good to get nostalgic, but I’m going to spare you further complaints. This stems – the site visit, the thinking, the brooding – from a deep seeded restlessness. My husband has been away on business in a foreign locale. He’s waist high in work but I can’t help but envy the adventure potential. He’s living abroad! He can try new foods and see the world from new angles! And even while he’s pulling all nighters and begging, imploring really, to come home, I want only to join him and soak up some other sun. That helps with sleeping – dreaming of another life, thinking of all that could be if I would just get up and be it – but in the end I’m awake more than I am asleep and if I want to make beautiful my everyday I should do just that.

First, the list. I’ve done this before and I’ve no shame in constantly amending and revising and striking through all the things I’d one day like to do. I don’t think bucket lists are for the birds. Or, if they are, I think they are for the colourful quirky toucans, or the high soaring hawks. They are for the birds that make a mark in the animal kingdom and I’d love nothing more than to have their wingspan. So I put together a bucket list – initially of things I once wanted – a carbon copy of lists of old. This got tedious because I kept striking through so much of the list sequence. I’d see that I wanted to trapeze swing, only to cross it off the list because I’d been there, done that. Well that gave me pause. And pride. I’d done so much! For the life that I was leading in comparison to the life I now live I’ve collected experiences and anecdotes and smiles and sobs at an inordinate pace.

So I owe it to my collective past, to the friends and blog community who cheered me on to not only list what can be, but what was. As intimated by my favourite movie in my favourite way, ” the book says we may be through with the past, but the past ain’t through with us” and how fortunate for me! If the past is indicative of what the future holds, I best insure myself, because it promises to be a wild ride.

• Write and finish a novel
• Publish
• Officiate a wedding
• Host a murder mystery dinner
• Ride a train cross country
• Zip Line
• Ice Fish
• Renovate a house
• Fly in a hot air balloon
• Master a second language
• Learn to make my own fondant
• Build a piece of furniture
• Go carolling
• Participate in a triathalon
• Go on an African safari
• Take a volunteer holiday
• Learn to sail
• Memorize a Christmas tale to recite each year
• Take a trip with friends to another country
• Start my own business
• Mentor a writer
• Give a Ted Talk
• Be a guest of ‘Fresh Air’
• Maintain a vegetable garden
• Pare down my possessions
• ATV in the desert
• Take a cooking class
• Build and design a doll house
• Cycle the east coast
• Send a gift to a friend every New Years Day
• Summit 3 mountains
• Tune up my bike (myself)
• Attend a film festival
• Attend Formula 1
• See fire festival in Kyoto
• Release a lantern in Taiwan
• Attend an Olympic Game
• Watch and cheer on the Tour d’ France
• Learn to build a fire
• Stay overnight in a tree house
• Go to the airport and book a flight with no destination in mind
• Swim with the dolphins
• Learn to blow glass
• Make a quilt
• Get hypnotized
• Bury a time capsule
• Buy a nice camera and photograph all that I love
• Get CPR certified
• Be an extra in a movie
• Donate my hair
• Visit every US State and territory
• Bury treasure – leave a map and clues
• Plan a reunion
• Have a family
• Snorkel
• Tomato fight in Spain
• Dance on the streets of Paris for Basteille Day
• Surf

• 
• Trapeze Swinging
• Skydiving
• Public reading (poetry AND fiction)
• Horseback riding through the Andalucian mountains
• Biking tour of La Jolla
• White villages of Ronda
• Overnight climb of Mt Fuji
• Live in a foreign country
• Get married
• Host thanksgiving dinner
• Run a marathon
• Complete a corn maze
• Ride a roller coaster
• Eat Sushi
• White Water Raft
• Jump off a 15 foot stone embankment into river water
• Get a tattoo
• Participate in the Warrior Dash
• Move cross country to participate in a political campaign
• Sing on stage
• Certified in Domestic Violence Advocacy
• Attend a Buddhist retreat – stay in a temple (Koyasan, Japan)
• Shoot guns in Texas
• Cut down my own Christmas Tree
• Participate in the Polar Bear Plunge (11 F outdoor temperature)
• Snow Shoe in VT
• Work for Walt Disney World (lumberjack on Splash Mountain)
• Start my own campaign (52 Adventures)
• Motorcycle around an island
• Co-pilot a plane
• Take my pants off on the subway (get photographed and printed in news)
• Participate in 3 day, 150 mile, relay
• Ride 50 miles by bike through Western MA
• Release messages in a bottle at sea
• Present Green Tea at Tea house (Miyajima)
• Jump on the glass shelf at the Willis Tower (103rd floor)
• Be a guest on live tv
• Stay in a capsule hotel (Tokyo)