Bucket Lists and Other Thoughts

A friend sent me this:

We shall not cease from exploration
And the end of all our exploring
Will be to arrive where we started
And know the place for the first time.
                     T.S. Eliot “Little Gidding” Four Quartets.

T.S. Eliot has long been a favorite poet of mine - I find much truth in his poetry and essays - made my students struggle through some of it for their own sakes. Remember "The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock"?
Eliot's "Little Gidding" passage is a profound statement about the meaning of life and how it ought to develop: more powerful than most concepts such as the bucket list. Of course, it would depend if that bucket list changes as we change.

I know this - very few items I had on my forty-year-old's list remain there today. Most of them were still there at sixty, but in my heart I knew I might possibly be fooling myself  to think I still wanted to learn Mandarin,  climb Mt Fuji, or marry again.

Wanting to achieve my PhD, and see my collection of poetry published, and my novel - oh, and my memoir as well, why not?, still lurk on my list while a scoffer I choose not to confront sits on my shoulder and laughs loudly, "What, are you - nuts?"

What's on your lists? The concept seems to vary with language. Spanish speakers call the bucket list either Ahora o Nunca, or Antes de Partir, that is "now or never" or "before leaving." Germans say Das Beste Kommt zum Schluss - "the best comes at the end."  The French concept appeals to me most - San plus attendre - "without further waiting." Because I didn't heed that imperative, items had to be dropped off. Incidentally - my list is mental, always has been. If you've written yours down - maybe you'll do better with it - actually checking off items.

Written or not, everyone needs a list. It helps you prioritize the events in your life even thinking about it. 

Fire Alarm Box

1936, Queens, NY.  I was five years old and spending the early morning in the bakery shop where my daddy was the baker.  I loved those mornings.  My mommy, a nurse, had to be at the hospital and I got to play around the bakery. Such good yeasty smells and wonderous stuff to eat. 


But I wandered out on the street. No one around - really early.  And there was that curious red pole I adored on the corner. I wanted to climb up and sit on top of it.  And so I tried. I pulled a lever thing to boost me up, and it moved down.  Instantly the red pole made a loud ringing noise and I understood I had disturbed the universe.


Even as I was running back to the bakery I could hear fire engine sirens coming, and I knew I was the cause of it all.  I can remember being so frightened and telling my dad, sweaty-faced, sliding trays of rolls out of the oven, that I had done a terrible thing.  He told me to stay in the shop, told me it would be all right, even as fire engines were arriving with great bluster.


My dad stood in the doorway of the bakery, me cowering behind him, and told the disgruntled firemen searching the neighborhood for signs of a fire and complaining of hoodlums who set off false alarms that he had not seen anyone pull the handle. 


It was only later I learned about the intricately layered morality of telling lies, the illegality of  bearing false testimony to public officials, and the fines imposed for sending false fire alarms.  A five-year-old, I was grateful my parent saved me - and that intrinsic value remains with me.


As an older person I've learned to consider the fractures that may have occured in persons' lives with whom I'm dealing.  But we experienced ones are often not so humanely dealt with by those less experienced  humans.  A pity for us.

Are there Fire Alarm Boxes on corners of Queens anymore?


This blog is about piping the plenty we have, no matter how "old" we might be! I would welcome any comments, examples, suggestions

Awake!

To Awaken an Old Lady
                   William Carlos Williams


Old age is
a flight of small birds
skimming bare trees
above a snow glaze.
Gaining and failing
they are buffeted
by a dark wind –
But what?
On harsh weedstalks
the flock has rested,
the snow
is covered with broken
seedhusks
and the wind tempered
by a shrill
piping of plenty.


If I should ever be asked to name my favorite poet it would be William Carlos Williams.  Certainly, no one will ever name me, and I finally accept that although I have loved poetry all my life - but only latently written it. What did I expect?  I accept the rich rewards of loving poetry without standing on the stage with those poets who enriched my life.  Actually, I am there, all of us who love poetry are there. Millions of us.  Blessed by poetry, but invisible.


Life is poetry (poetry is life), and its layered priorities might make us invisible.  I never thought about being an old person when I was young. I could die young, of course, or just go on being young in spirit forever.  Fortunately, I could choose the latter.


And it worked fine well into my seventies.   But lately I've noticed I seem to be deconstructing into invisibility in the grand scheme of things: at my job (yes, still working, loving it), in church, in family. Nope - invisibility is not gonna be for me.  I'm not going gently into that dark night.


This blog is about piping the plenty we have, no matter how "old" we might be!  I would welcome any comments, examples, suggestions.