On Buckets

I've reached the point in my life at which I seriously think about my bucket list but, at the moment, I find it devoid of dreams under my control. That is, I'd love to have my autistic son break free, and I'd love for the world to be a better place and safe for all. I'd love to somehow keep the squirrels out of my bird feeder. But I have no power over those things.

A few weeks ago, on impulse, I set out to climb a small mountain that had always been in the back of my mind, somewhere I had always meant to go, a dream I meant to conquer. So I did it. A couple years back I went sky-diving, something I'd never expected to do. After it was over the instructor asked me what else was on my bucket list, and at that moment I couldn't think of anything. Can't now, either.

I know it's not travel. I've walked the Great Wall and climbed the Eiffel Tower, seen the Grand Canyon and Mt Rushmore, the Tower of London, wandered the Rocky Mountains and the Smokies, explored Afghanistan before it went to Hell, been to South America and eastern Europe. Not that there aren't places I've never seen, but no place that lures me. The closest in that sense would be the furthest, e.g. Australia and New Zealand - and Alaska. But I don't feel it in my gut.

Maybe I'll get a motorcycle, but that seems a bit on the dangerous and expensive side. Maybe a biplane ride, or a guided fishing expedition. None that really trips my trigger. Even the idea of publishing a book no longer grips me.

And you know what? For that I am extremely grateful. My health is good, and in a world full of chaos and killing, I can sit in my quiet kitchen and write this, and I can glance out my window and watch a blue jay and a downy woodpecker gathering seeds from my feeders, and I can ponder what I want to do next. No boss anymore, except my better half, who's at work.

In a way it seems I've done a full circle. Back in my misplaced youth I once tried to live on nothing, and more or less succeeded -- found an apartment rent-free in exchange for minimal maintenance, got food stamps and unemployment money. And got so bored I went back to school and day-to-day America and more or less "made something of myself." Now I've gone through all that and have a chance to do nothing again.

Maybe that's all I'll do. As Janis Joplin sang, "Freedom's just another word for nothing left to lose." I'm free because I have nothing, all of nothing, at my disposal. And that's a lot.