This List Is Only Half Finished

Make impressive French cuisine and lemon desserts.

Host dinner parties and salons.

Tell The Story on stage through poignant monologues.

Help abused women.

Be yellow.

Stay red on my head.

Fifty long Sunday naps.

Love an animal more than myself.

Learn a classical instrument.

Discover it was me.

Find an old witch of the woods and become her apprentice.

Heal with heart and hands what I broke with fear.

Quit drinking.

Learn to never raise my voice.

What can’t be spoken calmly has the right to anguished tears; mourn before I speak.

Hold those who mourn (because I need to be held as I mourn).

Acknowledge the full scope and complexity of life, before I assume offenses are personal.

Tell the truth at every inconvenient opportunity.

Reconcile.

Give thoughtful gifts.

Give away what I no longer need.

Always lose sight of what I want so that what I need may find an audience in my sight.

Have faith that my life is rich and has no lack, during times when I feel lonely or empty.

Grow deeply in a love that is mutual, kind, fun, and erotic.

Ignore no parts of myself.

Always know who my five closest friends are and the reasons why.

Eat street food in remote foreign lands.

See how each place I visit in this world is connected to a place far removed.

Write about remote connection.

Find the good story in every life twist.

Write a story about fear as a friend.

Publish my writing—even the shit.

Stop fighting with Dad; the dead can’t answer.

Swim naked in Greece.

Teach my grandchildren about their ancestors and write grimoires for my granddaughters.

Keep a journal on the table and ask my friends to write in it. When I’m old, they will be my treasures.

Visit Hever Castle, the childhood home of Anne Boleyn.

Walk The West Highland Way.

Spend a month haunting Edinburgh bookstores.

Catch a boat to Skye.

Join the pilgrims on the Camino de Santiago.

Banff & Brandi 🚂

Change a life for the better.

Eat something sweet every day.

Die completely broke.

Play in the mud and run through the forest.

Put on my best clothes and go out for an indulgent meal at least twice a year.

Re-enact that wine making scene from ‘I Love Lucy’.

Be home to someone.

Honor my teachers.

Record my dreams.

This list is only half finished 🙂