Travel used to be on my bucket list, but like you, not so much anymore. I'm grateful I've traveled a bit in my life and seen other parts of the world. I'm looking to travel more now on the inner planes and experience a consistent state of fundamental well-being and love and compassion. Good for me and good for the world. And I can do it wherever I am. There's so much to experience within us! And that doesn't preclude grieving and other so called negative emotions. I'm not into the spiritual by-pass. Just more balance.
I love your last question - an echo of Mary Oliver! That's what it really boils down to for me as well. I am a decade younger and am also thinking as you are. It's not about accumulating experiences as some sort of contest but rather what will make me happy? How do I want to spend my time and my resources? Choosing wisely based on who I know myself to be now and not who others expect me to be. Plus, as you say, there are some places I wanted to visit years ago but now, for various reasons, no, I missed the window. And that's okay.
Where do you currently live? If you ever want to visit Tulsa, I'd love to meet up with you. And Tulsa is a pretty cool town. Art Deco buildings, Black Wall Street, lots of art and live music, Woody Guthrie Center, Bob Dylan Center, amazing parks, Route 66. But it's definitely not a place on most folks' bucket list :) But maybe someday... Sicily? !!
I watched the movie ', Bucket List, again. It made me think about what I want to do and what is possible. I have traveled, created my dream to be an artist and art teacher, rode horses, motorcycles, golfed and more. Now I am happy to kayak, paint in and out of my studio. I want to hike more. Do simple happy things with friends and my husband. I am exploring new interests. Travel again some day.
I am living my bucket list. Quire a few years ago I returned to the cabin in the Maine woods where I'd lived with my husband. The property was eerily quiet. His rusted and rambling Lincoln Continental was parked in the driveway and the air inside was stale, while the air outside was so still that I wondered if there were any molecules of oxygen left in the atmosphere. I found Hank dead on the floor of the kitchen. Our pitbull, Elvis was still standing near the lifeless body, presumably guarding him, because Elvis took his "job" seriously, and was a helluva good guard dog. This was the moment when life pivots and changes, and the trauma forever changed my life, changed me. I realized that "someday" never comes. SOMEDAY IS NOW..At that heartbreaking moment, filled with the devastation of loss and grief, I simply walked away from my life as I'd known it. I left everything behind, and have no idea what happened to the properties I owned, the debts I'd paid, or the people I'd known. I just abandoned the "American dream" I'd been sold, and for which I'd been paying dearly. The American Dream means endless toil and insurmountable debt. Hank and I were together for twenty years. We never saw each other, barely knew each other, because we were always working, sometimes two or three jobs at a time during "the season." We were preparing for our retirement years, when we could finally start living. But when Hank died, I learned that you can't ever get back TIME. Life passes by us in a blinding speed of light. Materialism is completely useless because you can't take it with you. The hard reality is that we're born naked and afraid, and we die alone with nothing to comfort our passing. My father died in my arms, of lung cancer. I was the only one there. I doubt that my presence comforted him. And in the end, he was just weak and afraid, not the holy terror I'd known and both hated and loved at the same time. Life is often cruel and no one escapes their fate, even in death. I choose to live. I choose freedom. I choose to love humanity, while often hating humans. I am on a lonely road and I am traveling. In the past decade I've lived in Australia, Spain, Ecuador, Galapagos Islands, Ireland, Croatia, Albania, Turkey, and Honduras. In the US I live out of my suitcase, and work seasonal jobs at expensive resorts, or I just follow the sun and go where the wind takes me. I've visited or lived in most of the US states, with the exception of Alaska, Hawaii, the Dakotas, Louisiana....I'm currently living in Acadia National Park on Mount Desert Island, on the coast of Maine. This is one of the most beautiful places I've ever been The air is beautiful and the light is a photographer's dream. Georgia O'keefe felt that way about New Mexico. I've lived in New Mexico, an hour from Taos. But O'keefe never came here, or she would have stayed here, because this place dwarfs any place I've ever been in the US, although Highway 25 from Denver to New Mexico is the most beautiful road in the United States. I hope we meet someday, Annabel. I've been entranced by your writing, as I was by Taos News before the Pandemic and while I was living in New Mexico a few years ago. You're only a few years older than me, and I've been surprised during the past few months, to discover that we have so much in common, have so many shared experiences, without knowing each other and never having met. I'm going to be sixty years old in December. I'm planning to go on an adventure. Thinking about Sicily and then sailing to Greece, and finally busing to Shkoder Albania, where I lived for a season a few years ago and where I have friends. But who knows where the time goes? Life is beautiful. Live your dream. Live long, and prosper.
Part 2: .I'm currently living in Acadia National Park on Mount Desert Island, on the coast of Maine. This is one of the most beautiful places I've ever been The air is beautiful and the light is a photographer's dream. Georgia O'keefe felt that way about New Mexico. I've lived in New Mexico, an hour from Taos. But O'keefe never came here, or she would have stayed here, because this place dwarfs any place I've ever been in the US, although Highway 25 from Denver to New Mexico is the most beautiful road in the United States. I hope we meet someday, Annabel. I've been entranced by your writing, as I was by Taos News before the Pandemic and while I was living in New Mexico a few years ago. You're only a few years older than me, and I've been surprised during the past few months, to discover that we have so much in common, have so many shared experiences, without knowing each other and never having met. I'm going to be sixty years old in December. I'm planning to go on an adventure. Thinking about Sicily and then sailing to Greece, and finally busing to Shkoder Albania, where I lived for a season a few years ago and where I have friends. But who knows where the time goes? Life is beautiful. Live your dream. Live long, and prosper.
Travel used to be on my bucket list, but like you, not so much anymore. I'm grateful I've traveled a bit in my life and seen other parts of the world. I'm looking to travel more now on the inner planes and experience a consistent state of fundamental well-being and love and compassion. Good for me and good for the world. And I can do it wherever I am. There's so much to experience within us! And that doesn't preclude grieving and other so called negative emotions. I'm not into the spiritual by-pass. Just more balance.
hoping there is a lot more travel..... off to Barcelona in September and then????
I love your last question - an echo of Mary Oliver! That's what it really boils down to for me as well. I am a decade younger and am also thinking as you are. It's not about accumulating experiences as some sort of contest but rather what will make me happy? How do I want to spend my time and my resources? Choosing wisely based on who I know myself to be now and not who others expect me to be. Plus, as you say, there are some places I wanted to visit years ago but now, for various reasons, no, I missed the window. And that's okay.
Where do you currently live? If you ever want to visit Tulsa, I'd love to meet up with you. And Tulsa is a pretty cool town. Art Deco buildings, Black Wall Street, lots of art and live music, Woody Guthrie Center, Bob Dylan Center, amazing parks, Route 66. But it's definitely not a place on most folks' bucket list :) But maybe someday... Sicily? !!
I watched the movie ', Bucket List, again. It made me think about what I want to do and what is possible. I have traveled, created my dream to be an artist and art teacher, rode horses, motorcycles, golfed and more. Now I am happy to kayak, paint in and out of my studio. I want to hike more. Do simple happy things with friends and my husband. I am exploring new interests. Travel again some day.
I am living my bucket list. Quire a few years ago I returned to the cabin in the Maine woods where I'd lived with my husband. The property was eerily quiet. His rusted and rambling Lincoln Continental was parked in the driveway and the air inside was stale, while the air outside was so still that I wondered if there were any molecules of oxygen left in the atmosphere. I found Hank dead on the floor of the kitchen. Our pitbull, Elvis was still standing near the lifeless body, presumably guarding him, because Elvis took his "job" seriously, and was a helluva good guard dog. This was the moment when life pivots and changes, and the trauma forever changed my life, changed me. I realized that "someday" never comes. SOMEDAY IS NOW..At that heartbreaking moment, filled with the devastation of loss and grief, I simply walked away from my life as I'd known it. I left everything behind, and have no idea what happened to the properties I owned, the debts I'd paid, or the people I'd known. I just abandoned the "American dream" I'd been sold, and for which I'd been paying dearly. The American Dream means endless toil and insurmountable debt. Hank and I were together for twenty years. We never saw each other, barely knew each other, because we were always working, sometimes two or three jobs at a time during "the season." We were preparing for our retirement years, when we could finally start living. But when Hank died, I learned that you can't ever get back TIME. Life passes by us in a blinding speed of light. Materialism is completely useless because you can't take it with you. The hard reality is that we're born naked and afraid, and we die alone with nothing to comfort our passing. My father died in my arms, of lung cancer. I was the only one there. I doubt that my presence comforted him. And in the end, he was just weak and afraid, not the holy terror I'd known and both hated and loved at the same time. Life is often cruel and no one escapes their fate, even in death. I choose to live. I choose freedom. I choose to love humanity, while often hating humans. I am on a lonely road and I am traveling. In the past decade I've lived in Australia, Spain, Ecuador, Galapagos Islands, Ireland, Croatia, Albania, Turkey, and Honduras. In the US I live out of my suitcase, and work seasonal jobs at expensive resorts, or I just follow the sun and go where the wind takes me. I've visited or lived in most of the US states, with the exception of Alaska, Hawaii, the Dakotas, Louisiana....I'm currently living in Acadia National Park on Mount Desert Island, on the coast of Maine. This is one of the most beautiful places I've ever been The air is beautiful and the light is a photographer's dream. Georgia O'keefe felt that way about New Mexico. I've lived in New Mexico, an hour from Taos. But O'keefe never came here, or she would have stayed here, because this place dwarfs any place I've ever been in the US, although Highway 25 from Denver to New Mexico is the most beautiful road in the United States. I hope we meet someday, Annabel. I've been entranced by your writing, as I was by Taos News before the Pandemic and while I was living in New Mexico a few years ago. You're only a few years older than me, and I've been surprised during the past few months, to discover that we have so much in common, have so many shared experiences, without knowing each other and never having met. I'm going to be sixty years old in December. I'm planning to go on an adventure. Thinking about Sicily and then sailing to Greece, and finally busing to Shkoder Albania, where I lived for a season a few years ago and where I have friends. But who knows where the time goes? Life is beautiful. Live your dream. Live long, and prosper.
Part 2: .I'm currently living in Acadia National Park on Mount Desert Island, on the coast of Maine. This is one of the most beautiful places I've ever been The air is beautiful and the light is a photographer's dream. Georgia O'keefe felt that way about New Mexico. I've lived in New Mexico, an hour from Taos. But O'keefe never came here, or she would have stayed here, because this place dwarfs any place I've ever been in the US, although Highway 25 from Denver to New Mexico is the most beautiful road in the United States. I hope we meet someday, Annabel. I've been entranced by your writing, as I was by Taos News before the Pandemic and while I was living in New Mexico a few years ago. You're only a few years older than me, and I've been surprised during the past few months, to discover that we have so much in common, have so many shared experiences, without knowing each other and never having met. I'm going to be sixty years old in December. I'm planning to go on an adventure. Thinking about Sicily and then sailing to Greece, and finally busing to Shkoder Albania, where I lived for a season a few years ago and where I have friends. But who knows where the time goes? Life is beautiful. Live your dream. Live long, and prosper.