I have long been against Bucket Lists partly for theological reasons. "Oh, what a shame that he never made it to Paris like he wanted to. It only shows that we should do these things while we can, because we might not get the chance later." Yeah right. I'm sure that guy who is in heaven now experiencing the Beatific Vision is kicking himself that he never saw Paris. The lists are a solid declaration that you believe you only have one life. I don't encourage them.
But I realise this going to Nantucket was part of something like a bucket list, The Cape and Islands were something that, once they came up, I realised I had never done and rather regretted that. Heh. I am absolutely against bucket lists now that Nantucket gifted me with (eventually) two months of tick-borne illness.
It made me also notice that my plan of seeing lots of stone circles and other prehistoric sites from Devon north through England and Scotland to Orkney looks a lot like a bucket list item also, as does the trip to Ireland. Norway again because of a wedding would be a different matter.
4 comments:
Two months down is a hard slog. I'm glad you're recovering.
I've not seen Stonehenge, nor the pyramids of Giza, nor the others on your list, except in pictures. Probably most of those who've seen Stonehenge have never seen Aztalan or Cahokia. There's generally something local to astonish one.
The wonders of Staffa:
Samuel Johnson and his protege James Boswell visited clan MacQuarrie on Ulva in 1773, the year after Banks' visit. Perhaps aware that Banks considered that the columnar basalt cliff formations on Ulva called "The Castles" rivalled Staffa's[25] Johnson wrote:
When the islanders were reproached with their ignorance or insensibility of the wonders of Staffa, they had not much to reply. They had indeed considered it little, because they had always seen it; and none but philosophers, nor they always, are struck with wonder otherwise than by novelty.[26]
Our eldest likes birds. He maintains a "life list", but is still ready to stop and look at a red-wing blackbird or bluejay.
I assume your eldest has the Merlin app from Cornell? Greatly helpful and entertaining. Apparently debates arise whether those identifications "count" or not, but such things seem pointless discussions to me, interfering with the fun of learning that a difficult-to-see bird has actually been nearby all along.
My wife does. Eldest has a flip-phone, on the perfectly reasonable grounds that the opportunities for distraction are too much of a temptation.
It has been great fun. It misses sometimes, when the call is too short and similar to another bird's. Once when a woman about a hundred feet away called for her daughters, the app told us it heard a trumpeter swan.
Maybe a better bucket list has items more like the step in the 12-step program where you go atone for the ways you've wronged people.
Post a Comment