This post was prompted by a woman I know. She’s adventurous, a planner-panster on steroids who never shies away from the difficult things in life. She wrote this post
Honestly, her list! I’m breathless!
So I thought hard about my stage in life – and decided that I too would make a list.
What I learned was that in Jo’s list, she moves ever onward. Mine is more static and I wonder if it’s an age thing. She’s in her 40’s and I’m not.
Interestingly air-travel doesn’t feature in my list. Most people of my age seem to flee the island frequently, with ill-concealed readiness and relief (with bragging rights). Am I too comfortable on my little island? Does being comfortable mean that I don’t to have make an effort? If I’m slowly fulfilling my list, does that not equate to being productive and positive? And where does being content fit on the list?
My list:
1. Learn to accept that life is short and it is what it is – VERY important. There’s a reason for writing this at Number One.
2. Be like the terrier – wake up every day with the idea it’s a new day to be filled with stuff to enjoy and expand my mind but be content with the small things.
3. Be an exciting grandmother to my little grandson. Bribery is everything.
4. Enjoy and love my family (doesn’t really need to be on a list but they are the backbone of my life and deserve recognition).
5. Circumnavigate Maria Island – weather is crucial given lack of rightside balance. So it has to be spontaneous, even if the middle of winter.
6. Climb Mount Maria or at least as far as ligaments and tendons will permit.
7. Walk the Southcape track.
8. Go sailing once more for the memories. Again, it has to be a certain sort of day given my health variable…
9. Touring and picnicking on the backroads with the terrier – it doesn’t matter where, as long as it’s a backroad and the picnic set is in the back of the car.
10. Garden, garden, garden … and make and spread compost everywhere!
11. Plant another 1000 trees on the farm.
12. Visit ‘Wychwood’.
13. Attend Longford Blooms again.
14. Attend Melbourne International Flower and Garden Festival again.
15. Glass house in the orchard from foraged window-panes and doors, so that I can become a more adept ‘potting and cuttings’ person.
16. Learn to build shed on own. (It can’t be that hard). I can hear husband laughing, and not with me but at me!
17. Preserve and conserve more from the fruit and veggie garden.
18. Convert to ‘renewables’.
19. Walk walk walk! Keep walking! (Which means new runners.)
20. Moving degree of difficulty upward in ballet class.
21. Attend more ballet concerts.
22. Do Australian Ballet Costume/Set Tour in Melbourne.
23. Visit NGV in Melbourne more often.
24. Be inspired by new people and make sure I keep contact with the ones that matter.
25. Do self-defence course.
26. Swim all year round.
27. Learn a new embroidery skill.
28. Writing!!!! Recharge target of one book annually. Written 14+ and have at least another 6 ideas. Get writing, woman!
29. More 12th century research on monk scribes, illumination and German and French monasteries.
30. Expand Substack…
And most important of all, spend as much time as I can with the love of my life - my husband.
That’s it.
That’s my list. Staid. Unadventurous. It raises questions about how much I’m actually getting out of life. How much I’m extending myself.
And yet my days fly by and I have a level of contentment.
Is that enough?
My Time:
We went away for a picnic. The sky was so fiercely blue that it pierced my soul and the amber and garnet of the Huon Valley was perfection. I wanted to fill my handbag with the jewel colours and take them home.
We ate by the river, and it might as well have been satin, it was so calm. We drove further and had coffee and sweet-nothings of heavenly quality at a little café called Communion in Geeveston and which is owned by the daughter of
I had the welcome chance to meet Mrs. Apples and Elderflower herself which was special. We chatted books and book-marketing and living away from the Big Smoke.
We took backroads and looked across precious coves where the only sounds were the shriek of seabirds and the rattle and clang of halyards against aluminium masts.
I think
would call our day a coddywomple and that’s perfect for the kind of meander that it was. I can now place one more tick against Number 9 on the list.
I haven’t done much walking because I injured the sesamoid area of my foot – soft tissue damage and strained tendons and ligaments from over-extending in the garden (if it had been at the barre, I would have understood, but in the garden?)
And we have finally returned to the cottage after two weeks in the city.
Its polished floors gleam, the little copper sauce jugs shine subtly. The lawns are carpeted in gold and there are trug-loads of tommies, apples and pears to pick. I have eggplants and zucchinis as well, and the pumpkins are not far off. Tiny birds have repopulated. At the moment, they’re sending showers of last night’s sparkling raindrops cascading to the ground – silver eyes, honey eaters and fantails. And in the orchard, small cheeky luminous green and fast (Swift or Musk Lorikeet? I think Swift) parrots.
We walked last night and saw wallabies, paddymelons, bandicoots, rabbits and for a short time before the mizzle descended, the diamond pricking of stars in a stupendously black sky, something we don’t see with clarity in the city.
Once again, I’m content…
Reading:
In print, Raynor Winn The Salt Path. Quite gruelling and I am looking forward to getting beyond Chapter Four.
On Kindle: Finished Forest of Foes by Matthew Harffy (always 5 stars) and have moved on to The Beekeeper’s Promise by Fiona Valpy which I like.
On Audiobook: Sam Neill as per. It’s hard not to view him as a super neighbour. No ego, perfectly dry wit, ANZ humour – what’s not to like? I think I could be friends with him. But then I thought Richard E. Grant and I could be friends after I read his memoirs. Maybe I’m just a sad old groupie when all is said and done, although I think not.
But back to The List…
As Lady Jo says: ‘Fashioning up a 25 year plan … sounds … overwhelming but it shouldn’t be. If you know where you’re going, then you can aim all (the) decisions you are faced with around it. And it’s only a ‘rough’, organic, loose (plan), and we all know everything changes over time…’
My problem is that I don’t know where I’m going except that in my 70’s, I guess it’s a one-way ticket. So I want time off to dream and to enjoy what’s left of life, without too much responsibility and tension.
Have we earned that, my husband and I? I think he has in spades.
Me? Not so sure.
My song for this week? Couldn’t go past this one:
Oh I love this. And all of those things. Well pretend you have 12 months to live. Honestly think about that. What would you do first? Then do that. Make booking, see people, start classes . See the woodwork thing? I’m organising a workshop. Just in the basics. I’ll tell you when it’s running. You’ll have to bring a share plate but it’s not expensive but the Chap doing it is so so amazing. Go you for doing this.
Such a beautiful post, Prue! I’m so excited about your list. Jo’s too, was wonderful! Right, if you’ll excuse me I’ve a list of my own to write...! 😊