“The world is big, and I want to have a good look at it before it gets dark.” – John Muir.
Consistency is something I struggle with. More than a few times, I’ve written about a topic and said something and then, at some later point, found that I changed my tune. Politics, families, relationships, jobs, and so much else can change on a dime. Sometimes, we must change with them.
The topic of a bucket list has come up before for me, and I vaguely remember writing that I didn’t believe in having a bucket list because the focus was on the end of your life. I still don’t care for the concept of planning your life based on the ever-present shadow of death. However, my daily disorganization in all things makes a list my go-to for getting the important stuff done.
So, I’ve decided to “use my words” and embrace the concept of a bucket list, but I will call it my “Do everything you possibly can” list. I’m leaving out the idea of death entirely because death is a bummer, and I don’t want to think about that part. I’d rather plan to see exciting faraway places and have amazing experiences. My list is about embracing all the fun adventures I can get my hands on and living fully. It comes with some restrictions, like a budget, but that’s part of the fun: making it happen despite limits.
As most people know, we recently had a rare occurrence of aurora borealis — the Northern Lights. Typically, they are visible only in far-flung parts of the globe, in the fall, or on dark winter nights. But on a fine, soft night in May, the lights came out to play in my little town by the sea.
While many people lament the impact of social media, in this case, Facebook made it happen for me. As I commonly do, I was sitting at home, doomscrolling my way through my feed, snacking on something I should probably avoid, when a friend posted, “Go outside, everyone, right now! Go! Northern Lights are visible!” I knew it was possible since I keep up with any space-related news, but without my Facebook feed and a crowd-sourced app of aurora sightings, I’d have missed it completely.
Ideally, the brilliant hues are seen best away from street lamps, city buildings, and other sources of light pollution, but this was an unprecedented series of celestial events. I raised my phone camera to the sky above my home, and there they were. Waves of bright green, pink, and purple were shimmering and dancing in the night sky.
At that moment, I mentally checked off a major item on my list. I didn’t need expensive plane tickets, and I didn’t have to camp out in some snowy forest in Finland. I’ve been to Iceland in the fall. One of my hopes for that trip was to see the lights, but it didn’t happen.
A journey of more than 2,500 miles away from home to an area where flashes of color from outer space happen on the regular didn’t get me the show I wanted. It was a rare confluence of sunspots and solar winds that brought winter waves of color from space to my own backyard in spring. Checking off an item on my list is a win, but how it happened made it even better.
As I ran around my street, in my pug pajamas, snapping pics, I briefly considered knocking on the doors of neighbors so they too could experience it, but I realized that I’m not Wee Willy Winky, rapping at the window and crying through the lock. It was my box to check off, my moment.
The list is still long, and I’m always adding more. That’s the beauty of a “do everything you possibly can” list; it’s never finished, and the adventures continue. Does it get any better than that?
Brenda Kelley Kim has lived in Marblehead for 50 years, and is an author, freelance writer, and mother of three. Her column appears weekly.