The Bucket List . . .

I have decided to write a bucket list. I may seem a little young for this endeavor, but one never knows what the future may hold. Besides which, life is just so SHORT. And I want to really live.

This is in no particular order.

1. Live in a commune, surrounded by sun and the presence of friends.  To learn how to dig in the earth and grow bright red tomatoes and shiny green spinach.  Write poetry in the presence of growing red roses.
2. Spend a year in a convent.  Work with my hands, give glory to God.  Seek peace in silence and solitude and the rule of community.  Live within the beauty of stone walls.
3. Write a novel.  Find a story that burns in my spirit, and forces itself to be told.  Capture reality within the gently rolling letters of the English alphabet.
4. Work in an orphanage, in India.  Let the complex and tattered world fade away, until there is nothing but the sacred, simple, and profound duty of loving, and holding, a child.  
5. Get a masters in dance therapy.  Chanel my love for dance into a healing art; help children remember joy.
6. Adopt a child.  Or seven.  Share what I've been given with those aching for a home.
7. Get a D.Phil. at Oxford.  Spend long hours in the Bodleian library.  Live amid the aged stone, the coffee shops, and the books.
8. Get a masters in theology and the imagination from St. Andrews?  Unsure about this one, but it seems appropriate to the study of Charles Williams.
9.  Spend six months to a year on the Oregon coast, taking long walks on the beach, sitting by the fire, and writing intensely.  Convert to polyphasic sleep.  
10. Teach at Fox?  I'm not sure that teaching is really my passion, but there are some professors who'd I'd do anything (well, almost anything =) to work beside.
11. Visit Iona.
12. Live in Jerusalem.
13. Rent a flat with some friends.  Have afternoon tea, and artsy decor on the walls.
14. Teach in Korea, because, well, why not?
15. Find someone to travel the world with.  Someone who understands the conflicting currents that run through my soul.  Who longs to live a life of compassion and is unafraid of the unknown.  Someone who wants a partner and not a picture.  Marry that person.  Love them forever.

And that's it, for the very brief moment.