Bucket List

I didn't mean to let so much time pass by without posting.  I've been writing things in my head, and sometimes even speaking them out loud (especially while I'm driving), but haven't really felt motivated to sit in front of the computer and type them out.

Eddy and I went out last weekend with some friends.  Sitting outside around their fire pit, the night sky stretching wide above us, each cradling a mug of coffee, and having our moods mellowed somewhat by a glass or two of wine, our conversation turned towards middle age, growing old, and eventually, dying......

My friend asked each of us what was on our "bucket list."  I haven't gotten around to writing my bucket list (although I do have a list of things to do before turning 50) but I have some hopes and dreams knocking around in my head.  I'd like to make a positive difference in a lot of lives.  I know that sounds altruistic, but it isn't really because besides helping me sleep well at night, it's one way I feel I can go on existing after my body gives out.  And I'd like to do some self-centered things, like start my own business and be a participant in a really great small vocal ensemble.

But what I'd most like to do is to go on a trek to some of the most ancient and spiritually significant spots around the globe on a sort of spiritual journey of my own.  I'd like to spend a couple of months where my only focus is inward and I'm completely free of any sense of responsibility.  I sometimes feel a sense of desperation to get started on this journey before it's too late.  But then, I tell myself, other people have gotten it all figured out and they didn't have to take a vacation from regular life to do it.

Maybe my life is just too cluttered with "junk" (both literally and figuratively) to be able to mentally relax into that meditative state where God can find me?  (Or rather, where I can find God)

In the meantime, I've developed a talent for enjoying life's great and small pleasures while ignoring the critical concerns.  If you follow my "what I'm currently reading" tag, then you are aware that I've been reading Puccini's Ghosts for over a week now.  Usually, I tear through a book in a day or two and it isn't that this book isn't good.  It's just that I keep getting blindsided by sentences that make me close the book and think for a while.  Like this one, "Moderate sensual pleasures can, with practice, assuage intangible miseries."  I like this quote and have certainly found it to be true in my own life (although the effect is only temporary).  In fact, I have become so good at assuaging my "intangible miseries" with moderate sensual pleasures (such as food, or a soak in a hot tub) that I'm always caught off-guard when they manage to assert themselves back into my consciousness.

More often than not, I feel as if I'm wasting my life away with the business of ignoring the critical concerns and I sometimes wish I could donate my future to someone who would do something useful with it!