My Boots

I own lots of boots. Actually, I own more boots than regular shoes. I don't know why. I have boots for almost every occasion: snow boots, rain boots, hiking boots, walking boots, shit-kicking boots, fuck me boots, dress boots, work boots...about 30 pairs all told. But when I look at my collection of boots, there is one pair I don't have: me boots.

I would love to have a pair of boots I can just be me in. All the above boots are pieces of me, but they don't explain who I really am. Of course, maybe I don't know who I am either. Who am I? Everybody. Nobody.

I found a pair of boots last week that I think are me boots. Thick black leather, a walking heel, up to the knees, with buckles. I spent a few weeks looking at dozens (well hundreds really) of boots of all different sizes and shapes but when I saw this pair, I knew I had the right ones. Now if I could just get UPS to drop them off at my house, I would be golden.

The Bucket List

A few months ago, some friends and I talked about making up a bucket list of twenty five things to do before we died. I was the only one that actually ended up doing it and I wonder at the meaning in it. Am I too focused on my own mortality?

I do live closer to death than most, which could be cause for my dwelling on living now. My husband is cop in a town whose crime statistics rival those of Baltimore and DC (and whose prime location between the two captures spill over from both sides)and he comes from a family of cops and firefighters. He has been attacked, injured, shot at; I have received those 3AM phone calls that you know, on first ring, since you are sleeping alone, bode nothing good. Additionally, I have lupus. While I have few symptoms in the day to day of life, it is like living with a time bomb. One can hear the incessant ticking of time passing and hopes the ticking never stops.

So I do think of death and dying often, of the time I have left and what to do and not do with it. And I know two things, in all this dwelling - I want to live and I want to live well. And well has nothing to do with collecting more toys; I'm trying to get rid of the toys I have now. I want to see the world, be in the world, not to change it, but to understand it.

So here are my twenty five things:

1. Learn to ski. I hate snow and I hate the cold, but I would still love to be able to say I've done it.
2. Scuba dive. Not a resort course but a true open water certification. I went helmet diving a few months ago and my claustrophobia didn't bother me. This shouldn't be a problem.
3. Jump out of an airplane. With a parachute. the hardest part will be stepping off the edge. The falling will be easy.
4. Get a boat captain's license. This will take a few years. One needs 365 days on the water. I have about 20.
5. Get a motorcycle license.
6. Live on a boat for a year in the Caribbean. Being a redhead, this one won't be easy. And of course, dodging hurricane season makes an entire year a little tricky. But a year would give me a chance to really experience each island's culture and lifestyle.
7. Spend four months touring Alaska by boat. Or six.
8. Pierce a part of my body that is not my ear. This was much more interesting to me six months ago. After talking with a few people, I'm definitely having second thoughts. I didn't say though, I had to keep it. So it stays on the list for now.
9. Walk on the great wall of China.
10. Go on an African Safari to photograph lions and giraffes.
11. Visit Iceland. Three weeks would do it.
12. Visit Antarctica to photograph penguins. Prohibitively expensive and the boat trip would be nauseating (literally), but its kind of the Mount Everest of photography.
13. Photograph Baobab Avenue in Madagascar. The most beautiful trees in the world. Yes, the redwoods are incredible, and I will return to them, but this is a dream.
14. See Stonehenge in person. Something calls me there and I have been told its not all that, but I'd like to form my own opinion.
15. Visit Easter Island. I am completely fascinated by man and what he/she can accomplish. And why - what made them build?
16. Climb to Machu Picchu. Once I can get beyond the altitude sickness.
17. Watch a volcano erupt. from a safe distance of course.
18. Go to Churchill, Canada to photograph polar bears. Or anywhere in Canada that has polar bears.
19. Visit the Scottish Moors.
20. Consult the Oracle of Apollo at Delphi.
21. Tour Petra. Again, the man creating thing.
22. See the Aurora Borealis.
23. Cross the international dateline so I can relive the same day again. If its a good one.
24. Search for the remnants of Dracula in Transylvania. you know we all have dreams of immortality.
25. Swim to the Soggy Dollar Bar in Jost Van Dyke (from a boat of course).
*26. This is a pipe dream, hence the star - Pilot a boat from Canada to Greenland. Its a long dangerous trip, but someone's got to do it!

Bucket list things I've completed:
College Degree
Learn to ice skate
tour Alaska
Stand at the edge of the Grand Canyon
Visit Yellowstone Park
Get a tattoo
Walk among Redwood trees
Own a Jeep Wrangler
stand at the edge of a cliff without pooping my pants
photograph a bear in the wild

As I knock things off the list, I will have to find new ones to add. I'm hoping I'll be able to replace at least two by the end of 2010. I figure, if I do at least two a year, my list will be renewed every thirteen years or so. No better way to live than to have something for which to look forward.