40 x 40

1. Reenact a scene from Anne of Green Gables in PEI
2. Take a ride on a private train
3. become a mom
4. get married
5. buy a house
6. PR on a 10K run
7. finish all thank you cards
8. go to a Raven's game
9. learn how to use all the machines at the Fabrication Lab at CCBC
10. eat placenta
11. pay a stranger's tab at a restaurant
12. make glow in the dark bubbles
13. try moonmelon (asidus)
14. put books in the Free Little Library on Ann Street
15. Write a gratitude list
16. make a clothing donation
17. watch Survivor Season 30
18. go to a gallery opening
19. play duckpin bowling
20. go on a midnight ride
21. take a trapeze class
22. make a time capsule
23. get a library card
24. Climb Mt. Washington
25. Family hike the John Muir Trail
26. Go Rim to Rim
27. Family bike ride along the Pacific Coast
28. Kayak/Camp the in the Everglades
29. Get naked on top of Acadia National Park
30. Family hike the Long Trail
31. adopt a dog
32. make scrambled eggs in an RV while going 70 mph on the freeway
33. camp in a yurt
34. learn to speak French
35. grow tomatoes
36. attend a pre-school graduation
37. go blue berry picking
38. Hike a 14er
39. remain employed after current project ends
40. be the Bad Guy and be okay with it

33 x 33

For the sake of posterity (which means: succeeding or future generations collectively), here's the old leap list:

1. go see Kandinsky's "thirty-three" in Paris, FRANCE
2. take sailing lessons for a tiller boat
3. learn to play the Turkish Marche by Mozart
4. go to one lecture per university in DC consortium
5. bet on the ponies (complete)
6. keep to a budget with a 10% margin of error for a quarter
7. visit a state never visited before (complete)
8. be on-time at work 33 times (14% of working days) (Complete)
9. go ice-skating in CANADA (complete)
10. climb a water tower without permission (complete)
11. take a swing dance lesson (complete)
12. live one day without opposable thumbs (complete)
13. climb Jacob's Ladder (complete)
14. visit a volcano (complete)
15. finish trunk projects
16. go on a shark tooth hunt (complete)
17. swim across the Long Island Sound (complete)
18. go to a rodeo (complete)
19. smell a cotton plantation
20. be a bride's maid
21. see the aurora borealis
22. pay off 1 of 8 personal/student loans (complete)
23. drink suggested amount of water daily (complete)
24. see the bat bridge in Austin, TX (complete)
25. go to an observatory to see the planet Neptune
26. go see the Dalai Lama (complete)
27. make durian fruit vegan ice cream
28. wish upon a star (complete)
29. learn to drive an 18-wheeler (complete)
30. submit a quilt to a judged contest
31. earn a promotion (complete)
32. be at ease (complete)
33. do a headstand in yoga

10. climb water tower... or scary ravine in Chile (33x33)

Here were some death-defying things we did in Chile:

Traversed an aluminum staircase and ascended a rope ladder

Crossed a bridge not made by American engineers

Climbed John Gardner Pass through a million year old scree field

beheld a glacier at the pass summit.

23. drink suggested amounts of water... while hiking Torres del Paine (33x33)

For our honeymoon, Jason and I went to Chile and Argentina. We hiked a good portion of the O Circuit in Torres del Paine. We maintained suggested hydration for the duration of the hike. We brought a Steripen and AquaMira, but by the second day we stopped using them after talking to fellow hikers who weren't using theirs.

Day 1 - Campamento Seron

Day 2 - Campamento Dickson

Day 3 - Campamento Perros

Day 4 - Campamento Pasos

Day 5 - Campamento Grey

Day 6 - Refugio Paine Grande

12. live a day without opposable thumbs (33x33)

During retreat last August, I taped my thumbs to my palms for a day. Unfortunately, I broke noble silence by writing on the tape. But I figure, if you don't want to break your silence, don't look.

I kept a journal of things I had thought about, in the form of letters to Jason while he was hiking the AT from Peru, VT to Pittsfield, MA. Here is what I wrote that day:

Hard to type with no thumbs, I'm so glad you taught me about the sliding function.  It's an interesting question,  what is your relationship to marriage? Both of us have been close to it once. Both of us come from families where it didn't last. What does it mean to be married? Not necessarily the practical or the emotional aspects to it,  but what's the first thing that comes to mind.  For me,  it's impermanence. That's what my mother's two marriages conditioned me to think first. And that she took from two men what she wanted and then when she wasn't fulfilled after she got what she wanted,  she rolled out.  I've always held some amount of respect for her for doing that. She always put us children first,  or a close second to her job. And that's one lens that I see marriage through. When I look at us, I ask myself if you have an ego and sense of self which you will not sacrifice just because you want to be in a relationship (with me or otherwise)? Am I so driven by the desire to have a family and companionship that I'm willing to shred your ego and manipulate you to get what I want?  To both of these questions, I've already answered no, otherwise I wouldn't have said yes before.

But retreat is this opportunity to delve deeper and remove to distractions of next bench, another smoke, invitations to draw, plans to make for Patagonia, plans for wedding, writing you :) and try to see more. Truth be told, I keep on distracting myself with. .. writing to you, getting another cup of tea, changing clothes, making myself a snack. .. so there's that. And that's just how it is right now. Right now I have a splitting headache, smiling at my distraction/avoidance behavior. .. but at least I'm not smoking!  I've been drinking plenty of water, taking my medications, sleeping a lot, went for a run yesterday and missed yoga this morning. Forgiving myself for not being perfect. Forgiving you for not being perfect :) visualizing holding a safe space for you to not be perfect and still love you no matter what. Right now, I'm at ease. Heart rate is a little faster mainly because I'm coming to the end of this letter and that means I have another opportunity to go sit with my lenses of marriage. 

What are you're lenses of marriage?

Love and everything wonderful for your body of awesome thoughtful and loving man-ness.

 

After writing that, I went in to a sit. Got rip-shit pissed at my dad during the meditation, and left to go buy a pack of smokes. then I wrote this:

 

Had an amazing insight on my way to buying smokes.  The fear is that you could leave, just like my dad. Granted, he left because of jobs, but as a kid, I didn't understand that. You could abandon me too. And that's true of anyone for any number of reasons, but with *marriage* comes expectations (not to mention legal obligations). And I have to be okay with being abandoned. I have to be okay with impermanence. And sit through changes and compromise and negotiations with some amount of grace and equanimity. The fear is that if I don't that you'll leave. Those are the fears. That doesn't mean that I don't trust you or your intentions. Doesn't mean that I won't marry you even though it apparently scares the shit out of me. In fact I think it says a lot that a) I can share this with you, b) not shut down, and c) that I still want to marry you.

 

then we got married four months later. Living without opposable thumbs was kind of amazing.

 

 

26. go see the Dalai Lama (33x33)

Instead of completing the item to volunteer at an animal shelter (which is an excellent, if difficult, item to execute. It's surprisingly difficult to volunteer for one of them, and I tried to volunteer with four), I went to go see the Dalai Lama last Spring with Cara at the National Cathedral in Washington, DC.

 It was a beautiful day at a beautiful place. Although it was difficult to hear him, it still felt warm and glowy to be in the same room as him.

There were some interesting protests happening across the street. I had no idea that there were disagreements about the legitimacy of the Dalai Lama, but there are. "The International Shugden Community accuses the Buddhist holy leader of discriminating against the religious practice of the Buddha Dorje Shugden. "A mother goes out to buy food for her children and are turned away from the store because she practices Dorje Shugden. People are thrown out of hospitals," protester Rebecca Foley told WUSA9."

29. learn to drive an 18-wheeler (33x33)

Last Spring, I learned how to drive an 18-wheeler! It wasn't originally on my list, but I took off keeping up with pen pals since I'm not about to post pictures of postcards and letters. just seems like a lame item when compared to driving something that weighs tons.

Jason took me to his work and offered to teach me how to drive his truck! Granted, I never took the truck out of second gear... and only went the length of the storage yard parking lot... but it was way cool.