In a few years (and a week), I hit the half century mark. It’s a time for reflection, for figuring out what I want to do with the second half of my life, with the last couple decades of my career, and generally build upon the foundation I’ve built during my first five decades.
In the six months before I turned 30, I started a list of things I wanted to accomplish before I left my twenties. I have absolutely no idea what was on that list, but I’m confident it exists in a notebook somewhere, either here or in boxes at my parents’. I’m also positive that I didn’t accomplish half of it, in part because I left it too late to do the things that were harder and required either planning or real change.
So, I’m going to make a list for my birthday next week — a list of 50 things I want to do before I turn 50. I’m going to leave some of them blank, so that the list can grow with me, but I feel confident that if I put pen to paper or fingers to keyboard I can come up with a list that gives me a path forward. I’m not a huge list follower (my weekend plans lists are more things for me to consider doing, but not expect to complete), but I think writing things down can be a healthy exercise. If nothing else, doing it will allow me to give voice to some of the things that I would like to do with my life, but haven’t given corporeal form to — and the time to actually accomplish them. (For instance, I’m clearly not traveling internationally in the next six months, but I do think my passport might be expiring this year and now would be a smart time to get it renewed.)
Do you have a list of things you’d like to accomplish by your next birthday (or the next decade change)? If so, do you have them written down somewhere, or are they just inscribed in your mind? Or do you tend toward just going with the flow?
An old friend and I took a long walk last night and by the time I came home, I was so chilly and tired that my cocoa, the last chapter of my book, and the comfort of the couch did me in.
But in the interest of sharing something, here’s some of the rabbit hole I fell down today — covers of Beatles songs by artists I like:
Pomplamoose: “Something”
Brandi Carlisle: “All You Need Is Love”
Lake Street Dive: “Don’t Let Me Down”
Do you have a favorite Beatles’ cover?
Category: arts. There is/are Comments Off on beatles covers for a saturday.
1. Rudi arrived home just after I returned from my snowy walk, so I didn’t have to do any of the shoveling.
2. Because the Capitol grounds are now behind razor wire and because it’s been two years since our last snowstorm, the P Street “Beach” was packed with sledders.
3. My warm weather walk on Saturday included stops at two bookstores — the new cookbook shop, where I picked up Snacking Cakes, and the used Adams Morgan shop that changed hands last year, and which has added new titles to its stock. I came away with a middle-grade fantasy novel blurbed by Madeleine L’Engle, a pamphlet on identifying trees in the wintertime, and the aforementioned poetry collection.
How about you? What’s been beautiful in your world lately?
Category: three beautiful things. There is/are Comments Off on timing, the beach, and impulses.
I’m remarkably pleased with the heel turn on sock #1. I really don’t think I could have timed the color changes better if I’d actually been trying.
Recipe for Persuasion is good so far, as I would have expected from a Dev novel. It’s a loose adaptation of the Austen story, featuring Ashna and Rico, who must team up for a Cooking with the Stars piece despite having been an item in the past.
Once upon a time, bloggers used to share poetry on February 2nd to mark St. Brigid’s Day and the Imbolc festival, which span the first couple days of February and mark, like Groundhog Day, the midway point between the Winter Solstice and Spring Equinox.
Largely, the practice has faded away, but I’m fond of it, so I’m sharing a poem with you today anyway. I picked up iNK BLOTS, Vol. 1, by the local D.C. Poetry Collective at Lost City Books on Saturday, as I (and everyone else in the city) was out and about soaking up the rare bluebird day.
Daisies
~Vadim Kagan
Who writes of daisies at a time like this,
When worlds are quickly coming to an end,
When states of fear replaced the state of bliss?
But daisies are still beautiful, my friend,
And golden is the dandelion wine.
Who writes of daisies as we lose the fight,
When thousands and thousands are dead,
When states are failing, falling left and right?
But daisies are still beautiful, my friend,
And golden is the dandelion wine.
Who writes of daisies when we live online,
And die with cabin fever taking hold,
But golden is the dandelion wine
And daisies are as beautiful as ever —
Let’s write of daisies. They might save the world.
This week’s Top Ten Tuesday topic from That Artsy Reader Girl focuses on books from my to-be-read list that were written before I was born. Here are ten I’ve been meaning to read for a while:
The Odyssey by Homer (I’ve had a pretty copy sitting on my desk for several years. Maybe 2021 is the year to crack it open.)
The Sagas of Icelanders (I dragged this ~800-page tome with me to Iceland thinking I’d hunker down and read myths from the 1200s while on vacation there. I did not.)
Walden and Civil Disobedience by Henry David Thoreau (Karen and I were supposed to read this together a decade or so ago and I totally kept flaking on her. I’ll get to it someday.)
The Enchanted April by Elizabeth von Arnim (My two best college friends and I watched the movie, a travel adventure set in an Italian castle, a quarter century ago and I’ve been meaning to get back to it for a while. Maybe this year I’ll check out the source material, which dates from the 1920s.)
Cakes and Ale by W. Somerset Maugham (Don’t you want to read it based just on the title? Add to that it’s a satire skewering the literary world of London in the early 20th century and I’m doubly in.)
Cold Comfort Farm by Stella Gibbons (This routinely makes it onto lists of underappreciated, humorous novels of yore. There’s also an edition with Roz Chast illustrations, which tempts me even more.)
The Tenant of Wildfell Hall by Anne Bronte (I’ve long meant to read all the Bronte novels, and this is my college roommate’s favorite of the bunch.)
The Pickwick Papers by Charles Dickens (While I’ve intended to read this since I first devoured Little Women in elementary school, I haven’t tried since middle school. I can probably get through it now.)
Around the World in 72 Days by Nellie Bly (A memoir (based on the newspaper columns) of a journalist’s attempt to beat the 80 days it took the fictional Verne hero to circumnavigate the globe. Who doesn’t want to read a travelogue of a cutting-edge Victorian era newspaperwoman?)
