When I was very small, just old enough to know there was a joke I wasn’t getting, my parents went to see It’s a Mad Mad Mad World, which is a madcap movie, the all-star cast of which reads like a board from the old vaudeville days. In the opening of the movie, Jimmy Durante dies on dusty roadcut, literally kicking a bucket down the hill as he dies.
That’s one saying whose meaning I will never forget. My mother may never forget trying to explain the joke to me while quieting my younger brother, who apparently screamed through the entire movie. He always was a little slow on the uptake. . .
Like everyone, I have a list of things I have always wanted to do someday. When the “someday” feels uncomfortably as if it might pass unheeded, one begins to realize that, although many of those dreams may never have come to be, the hope one holds out for the future is a hope that keeps the present doable.
In no particular order, some of my dreams include the following:
- I’ve always wanted to spend a year at Gallaudet , becoming really proficient in American Sign Language.
- I want to see the night sky far from the cities, so that I can finally see the stars again. It has been too long.
- I’d like to go back to Colorado, where I spent the first 22 years of my life. I don’t know if I want an extended visit or to live there permanently, as I very much enjoy the Pacific Northwest, but a part of my heart is still there. I dream of spending a winter in a small, cozy cabin near Independence Pass. I wonder if they have WiFi there?
- I’d like to go to the wilderness, perhaps on horseback or perhaps via canoe. Some of my fondest memories involve canoe trips to the Boundary Waters Canoe Area. In the early 1980’s, we could dip our cups over the side of the canoe for a drink. Ten years later, the giardia was too present to make that safe. Still a beautiful place. And, oh, the skinny-dipping!
- My repeated adventures living in my vehicle had their genesis in my dreams of traveling the US in my camper van. These dreams leave no room for heat, cold, unfriendly towns or mechanical trouble. They’ve kept me going through many a winter night, curled up with a road atlas and a Fodor’s Guide.
- I’d like to become a competent rider. As disabilities take their toll and the diagnoses become more scary, this dream feels less likely to happen than it did a year or so ago. The memory of riding the trails deep into the beautiful San Juan National Forest, with my legs long in the stirrups and my seat deep in the saddle make me know it is possible to find that feeling again. Besides, I’m no longer so pigeon-toed that I’ll catch the toe of my boot in my opposite bell-bottom and go flying when hurrying towards the stable. Age has its perks.
I’d also like to see a Broadway show or three, learn to sing, become a photographer, spend an autumn in New England, or go to the Greek Islands (Mamma Mia!, here I come!). My heart wants to rescue and rehabilitate any variety of critters, although horses and dogs are closest to my heart.
I’m sorry I never was a parent, and hope someday to become an honorary grandparent. I’d like to teach, perhaps in a riding school or a senior center’s computer lab. I wish I’d known, when my mom used to encourage me to become a librarian, that librarians in the 21st century would become experts in technology and online research, not just the dusty tomes of the dreaded Dewey Decimal System.
I don’t know which of these dreams I’ll be able to fulfill before I emulate Jimmy Durante, but their presence has some part in keeping my spirit alive.
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