Making A List & Checking It Twice

If I close my eyes, I can still see her leaning over the kitchen counter. Her mom jeans are rolled at the ankle because she couldn't find a petite size at JC Penneys. Painted chickadees dance across her Christmas sweatshirt.  Her blue pen hovers over the notepad. In teacher-perfect swooping cursive she writes:

1. Pork loin
2. Potatoes
3. Pie crust
4. Frozen squash
5. Rhodes rolls
6. Pistachio pudding (sugar free)
7. Maraschino cherries
8. Walnuts
9. Mini marshmallows
10. 1 can of crushed pineapple

Then, she reaches for her purse that weighs as much as most people's carry-on luggage. She makes sure she has her checkbook and pops half a stick of Doublemint gum into her mouth.

"Are you ready?" she asks. 

Mom. 

My mom taught me to make lists. She made shopping lists, Christmas lists, to-do lists, classroom supply lists, and reminder lists.  

When you feel overwhelmed, make a list.

                                                                              -Mom 

So when she died, and I was overwhelmed with grief, I made a list...ten...fifty...one hundred things I missed about my mom. But now, I don't think I'm overwhelmed with grief, or life for that matter. In fact, I'm kind of underwhelmed. Somehow, in all of my list making, I've been lulled into the day-to-day mundane orderliness of life. I have many grocery lists, to-do lists, and lesson plan lists. All of these have expected outcomes. 

There's nothing exciting or sexy about buying sugar at Kroger's next Tuesday. The outcome is predictable. I will write sugar on my list, drive 2 miles to Kroger's, scoot my cart to aisle 5, place 5 pounds of sugar in my cart, wait in line at the self check-out, scan it, pay, and lug it back to my car. Or more realistically, I'll forget to write it down, and I'll have to borrow a cup of sugar from Cindy next door. There's no wonder in any of this except to wager how far down in the recipe it will take me to discover I forgot to buy sugar.

I'm pretty good at tackling big efforts because I'm an all or nothing kind of gal. I've trained for marathons, five months of training in fact, and then finished the races.  After the marathons were over, I stopped running, until the next race. Often times, I have difficulty with the day-to-day efforts that are needed to sustain permanent focus.

If I was dieting, I'd be that dieter who engages in superhuman feats of restraint and record keeping. I'd be the Weight Watchers superhero and with her cape billowing out behind her while she stares down a plate of doughnuts. When what is really needed is small day-to-today micro efforts: Cut out the coffee creamer, push the bread basket to the other side of the table.

Because my momma taught me to, I've created a list. There are 12 things on my list, one for each month. This isn't my typical list of resolutions. These are things that I've wanted to do for a long time, but the paralysis of day-to-day life or my irrational fears have kept me from tackling them. This list is more of a pathway to change. It's made up of micro and macro movements. Some of these will be easier than others, but that's not the point. I turned 50 a day ago, and I've asked myself, "What do you want?"

And I'm not sure how to answer the question.

My list is my plan to find the answer to my questions, and it's designed to help (coerce) me out of my comfortable mediocrity. I will choose one each month and do it. 

1. Participate in an open mic/poetry slam event 
2. Practice yoga for 30 days straight
3. Learn to play my Native American flute
4. Learn to play my mom's ukulele (take lessons)
5. Join a writing group & write every day for 30 days
6. Sky dive
7. Finish one of the gazillion book manuscripts I've started
8. Submit writing to a publication
9. Learn to swim
10. Read 5 books about mindfulness/boundlessness(self-help section, here I come)
11. Take a pottery class
12. Keep a photography journal for 30 days

As I write this blog, I've been creating a mathematical equation for boundlessness. This is where I left off: 

        (Focus + Energy) = Boundlessness

I think I need to subtract expectations from the equation. If I can get rid of my expectations as I wade through my list, perhaps my paralysis, and fear will melt away. It's hard to not have expectations. I think I was born with them. They're in my DNA.

      (Focus + Energy) - Expectations = Boundlessness

Let's see what happens.