Tag: bucket list

Susan’s Bucket List!

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Susan was able to fulfill one of her top bucket list events this morning with a photo of an owl. Don’t miss her amazing pictures here.

It was one of those morning experiences in this crazy world we live in that we won’t soon forget.

A bit of background on this giant baby bird.

The older sibling fell out of its nest and was helped off the highway by a good samaritan who placed him/her in a resident’s front yard. The other sibling remained in the nesting cavity of a large decaying tree.

Per Gemini, “this bird is a fledgling or a ‘brancher’ given the abundance of downy, ‘fluffy’ feathers and the emerging adult plumage on the wings. At this stage, they have left the nest but aren’t yet fully capable of sustained flight, often spending their time climbing nearby branches or sitting on the ground while their parents continue to feed and protect them.”

We didn’t see Mom around but we were told she was WATCHING.

My lesser quality photos (compared to Susan’s photos) can be found here.

Lightly Child, Lightly.

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“You know what this entire session has been about, don’t you?”

No, I said.

“It’s about being forced to sum up. Looking at your life. Asking yourself if you’ve truly lived it. Asking yourself what you’ve really got to leave behind. This is something everybody has to face. It’s hard to face. But if you face it now, and make whatever changes you need to make, you’re going to have a shot at dying peaceful.”

— Joan Didion, in a discussion with her therapist, in Notes to John (Knopf, April 22, 2025)

Notes:

  • NY Times Book Review: “Peeking into Joan Didion’s Years of Psychological Thinking. Drawn from her previously unpublished reflections on sessions with a therapist, “Notes to John” is at once slightly sordid and utterly fascinating.”
  • Guardian Book Review: “‘I dealt with everyone at a distance’: what do Joan Didion’s therapy diaries reveal about guilt, motherhood and writing?
  • The Atlantic: Joan Didion’s Books Should Have Been Enough.”
  • Post Title & Inspiration: Aldous Huxley: “It’s dark because you are trying too hard. Lightly child, lightly. Learn to do everything lightly. Yes, feel lightly even though you’re feeling deeply. Just lightly let things happen and lightly cope with them.

Monday Morning Wake-Up Call

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“Make a list,” prods another Caitlin, so I try again and again and again. Lists of places to go. Dreams to interpret. Careers I might have enjoyed. Enormous statues I want to see. Languages I have learned and promptly forgotten. My line items are alternatively boring, plausible, unlikely and all of them seem to include an unmet Canadian need to drive a Zamboni.

What strange math. There is nothing like the tally of a life. All of our accomplishments, ridiculous. All of our striving, unnecessary. Our lives are unfinished and unfinishable. We do too much, never enough and are done before we’ve even started. We can only pause for a minute, clutching our to-do lists, at the precipice of another bounded day. The ache for more — the desire for life itself — is the hardest truth of all.

—  Kate Bowler, from “One Thing I Don’t Plan to Do Before I Die Is Make a Bucket List”. At 35, the doctors tell me I have Stage IV colon cancer and a slim chance of survival. (NY Times, August 28, 2021)

So?

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question

Quote Source: namelessin314

SMWI*: Faroe Islands

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Running, biking, walking, horseback riding, dining, community, family, vacationing – the full monty here.  The tagline for this “Visit Faroe Islands” video is “Unspoiled, Unexplored, Unbelievable.”  Let me just call it wonderful.

And if you are asking yourself, self, where are the Faroe Islands? Hit this link.  Be sure to check out the “Gallery” Tab.  Incredible photographs.

Faroe Islands