Things Worth Doing

Maggie started this and I haven't been able to stop thinking about it. So, without further ado, here are some of the scenes I hope to relive as my life flashes before my eyes:

1. Camping in Southern Utah with friends and the dogs; no one else around for miles.

2. She-crab soup in Charleston, S.C.

3. Sunset on the beach on Hawaii, staring as I hard as I can at the horizon to try to catch the green flash.

4. Dancing as if my life depended on it.

5. Any of various caffeine rituals I have had over the years.

6. Watching the path of moonlight across my bed under the skylight; not being able to sleep because the light was so bright, but not minding because the full moon was so stunning.

7. Racing wagons fast down the steep hill of the sidewalk on our street.

8. That party we threw was a terrific success.

9. Riding bikes to the Saturday morning farmer's market, the breeze in my skirt.

10. Taking a standing-room-only train to Karlsruhe, Germany to sit on the ground outside the town zoo with hundreds of multinational strangers staring at the sky and sporting funny sunglasses. Feeling awed as the clouds parted just in time to reveal the total solar eclipse.

11. Making out with a stranger.

12. Dogs, mountains, me. 

13. Phoning my singingest friend from La Scala opera house.

14. Turning twenty-something (24, maybe?). First/only real birthday party I ever threw myself. Friends and family, little kids and pets and everybody all gathered in my own backyard. They like me, they really like me!

15. When I wake in the morning next to my new forever lover he opens his eyes, sees me, and sighs, "Yay!"

16. Christmastime evenings when the only light in the room comes from the tiny colordy ones on the tree.

17.  Walking Prancing out front door and down the steps of my high school right in the middle of 5th period while the rest of the class was in chemistry to be picked up by my older boyfriend in his car so we could go make out at his apartment.

18. Turning twenty-one in Paris on Bastille Day.

19. Bedecking the Girls' Hideout at the cabin with a literal carpet of moss.

20. Returning to The Hideout the next day to discover that deer had been by in the night to appreciate our decorating scheme- by sleeping in it.

21. My very own puppy!

22. Walking at sunrise over prairie hills; a tiny plane flies low overhead- it's a friend of ours! We can't see him in the tiny yellow plane in the giant outrageous pink-orange sky, but I know he sees us and is waving down hello.

23. Sunday afternoon naps.

24. Paddling across the lake, the water under the canoe is so blue that, peering over the side I can see clearly every fish, every stone in the white sand.

25. Sipping a cocktail in my pajamas on the balcony of my apartment downtown, recalling that as a kid I had a fantasy of what "adulthood" would be like and this is exactly it.

Comments

[Em]

Different older boyfriend, Ma.
The one I'm talking about you liked!

[Tricia]

God knows... I love #17!

[SpleenMa]

Having that dark-eyed, conehead baby placed on my chest and falling in that kind of love.

Then, years later, while reading the riot act to the older boyfriend after following them in his car, having the with-itude to warn him, "If you want to spend time my sixteen year old daughter, you'd BETTER make friends with ME!"

[Em]

Do it, guys! It's kinda satisfying, and not as easy as it looks.

Laura- I can think of lots of others that would probably overlap for us. We should swap notes some time.

Gar- Yours can sound cool, just don't forget to include "ArtBitch crossword puzzle races at the Rose" like I did. Remember the Rose, Gar. Coolness will follow.

[Laura]

Oh yeah, I'm alive...thanks for the reminder. My mind is racing for simular things...has found some and has borrowed some of yours.

[gar]

awesome em. i will have to do this sometime.

although yours will sound a lot cooler than mine i.e. laughing really hard with nar about "love lift us up where we belong" being our song on acid.

-gar