I'm doing 42 things
I completed this goal a while ago, but didn’t post my list. Here it is:
1.The sound of rain. The smell of rain. Running around in the rain. Rainbows & mist.
2.Moonlight walks or rafting or swimming at night.
3.Storms, wind, isolated places, cliffs, mountain tops, open plains.
4.Walking.
5.Water: rain, well, pond, lake, sea, river, tears.
6.Staring into fires.
7.Toasting marshmallows.
8.Finding frogs in the backyard – a good sign. Jars of tadpoles. Watching them turn into frogs.
9.Young/baby animals: ducklings, puppies, chickens, kittens, piglets, lambs, foals….
10.Nature, wilderness, parks, gardens.
11.Playing the piano. Feeling the sound resonate through my body – like an aural wash. Especially playing it late at night, in the dark.
12.Hearing the Dalai Lama giggle.
13.Singing, or playing an instrument to animals: I’ve played/sung to chickens, ducks, cats, dogs, horses, donkeys, sheep, birds.
14.Singing – along to my favourite records, for hours and hours, when no-one is around. It just feels good. Something to do with the resonance of sound throughout my body.
15.Watching ants carry away crumbs.
16.The smell of sun on clothes hung out to dry.
17.Puppies, kittens, chickens, ducklings, lambs…their crazy shenanigans.
18.Making daisy chains.
19.Baking things eg. Making cupcakes for friends.
20.Dinner parties, tea parties for small groups of family or friends.
21.Laying in tall grass, cloudgazing.
22.Picnics.
23.Libraries, second-hand bookshops, attics, op-shops, markets, museums, junk yards. Record stores, musical instrument stores. Rummaging, discovering.
24.Red lipstick, red nailpolish, red hats, red shoes or scarves.
25.Winter. Spring.
26.Bees. Fresh honeycomb. The smell of wild honey.
27.Bags of grains, seeds, spices, herbs at the markets.
28.Growing own food and eating it off the plant eg. Standing in garden at dusk eating snow peas.
29.Sound. The sound of rain, sea. Creaking old tin buildings, distorting into the night air. Wind wailing in the sheoaks. Bees humming in the sun. The tuneful gurgling of magpies, and tweeping and song of other birds at dawn and dusk. Frogs drumming away in the night. The sonorous purr of the cat on my pillow.
30.The smell of fresh coffee beans, tea leaves (especially early grey), chai, fresh bread.
31.Sunday roasts. Granny’s rhubarb pie, and apple pie with cream. Mangoes.
32.British comedy: Red Dwarf, Black Adder, Monty Python’s Flying Circus, The Goodies, Black Books, The Young Ones….
33.Dreams: I have vivid, lucid dreams, that keep me entertained. It’s like taking a free, crazy, absurd, adventure.
34.Exploring places. Farms. Beaches. Empty woodlands. Old mining camps. Deserted homesteads. Ghost towns. Dumps. Vacant run down buildings. Lanes & city alleyways. Just travelling and roaming in general.
35.Reading. Discovering things I didn’t know.
36.Board games. Video games. Old-fashioned toys.
37.Collecting things. Natural history. Old things. Collecting insects.
38.Creating things: I like to try everything. Origami, kites, feltmaking, bush basketry, embroidery, candlemaking, paper polyhedra, sculpture, knitting, print, woodwork, papermaking, weaving, pottery, drawing, painting, printmaking, photography.
39.Keeping a visual diary.
40.Ancient history.
41.Having fun with friends at their exhibitions.
42.Daydreaming. What if…conversations or rants with siblings or friends.
43.Surprises. Handwritten letters and packages in the mail. Giving people little presents, suprises, or letters.
44.Home-made things.
45.Night-time, dawn, dusk.
46.Barbequed food (rustic/campfire – not on compact portable metal bbqs.)
47.Long baths with bubbles, oils, music, candlelight.
48.Screaming, singing, babbling nonsense, in the middle of nowhere.
49.Being silly.
50.Juxtaposition. Contrariness. Defiance – especially of oneself – for instance making myself do opposites, writing with the ‘wrong’ hand, deciding that the thing I’ve decided most upon is what I won’t do.
51.Moon and cloud, night reflections on water – especially rowing around the large dam in the middle of the night, drifting quietly among the semi-submerged trees, watching the silhouettes of murmuring ducks float over moon and cloud on the surface of the water.
52.Eating watermelon and icypoles on hot days.
53.Whenever I read Buddhist (mostly Tibetan Buddhist) and Taoist texts, I feel a clarity glad-sadness. Sort of like how I feel on a sunny but breezy day seeing a bee that I’ve followed over the field, caught by a little hopping bird. Sort of. I dunno…
54.Being around other creative people. Feeling inspired. Catching the wave. The feeling of crazy nutty hypercreativity that I get.
55.Yellow roses. The way they smell, and the tiny fluoro green spiders I always find on them.
56.Things/people that are absurd, off-kilter, flip, b-side, quirky. The ridiculous. Things that don’t make sense, that do.
57.The smell of an old horse saddle. We haven’t had horses for over 10 years, but the other day I came across the saddle we used to put on my Welsh mountain pony, Stormy. I just love the smell of it: that particular leather smell, mixed with horse and the scent of sweet hay, and earth.
58.Trips, car journeys, camping, with my brothers and sister and dad. Especially when we were little kids. Dad would have Elvis, or the Everly Brothers, or something playing in the car, and we would end up somewhere remote. Fishing and camping trips, or prospecting.
59.Breaking things. Taking things apart e.g. Old TVs, radios, clocks, watches…
60.Banter. Repartee. Being annoying. Mutual gleeful bickering.
61.Dancing outside at night.
62.Listening to elderly people tell stories.
63.The feel of night air on bare skin.
64.When everyone around the house gets that contagious mutual loopiness, and become silly and make a lot of ruckus.
65.Just stuff that is aesthetically pleasing to me.
66.Films that take me away to other lands, that are very visual and aural, or kooky in some way. That explore life from uncommon angles.
67.Watching movies.
68.Talks with kindred spirits.
69.Lush, green countryside, tall wild grass, rolling green hills.
70.Trees.
71.Birds. Birdsong.
72.The sound and feel of particular words and phrases. Propinquity. Tachistoscope. Luminescence. Ponk (the sound of this word makes me laugh every time I hear it).
73.The poetic (not just in poetry).
74.Inventing. Coming up with ideas. Brainstorming. Speculating about possibilities, things that might happen in the future.
75.Writing. Getting to know, or ‘becoming’ characters. Becoming lost in another world.
76.The feeling that takes over me when I sing, or play music. That space of being pure and in touch with something.
77.Leunig, calvin & hobbes, the far side, childhood, bjork, the land, weather, beethoven, sigur ros, haruki murakami’s books, jeanette winterson’s books, radiohead, the innerscape, the well of the muse, emily dickinson, plath, the brontes..
78.The number 11.
79.Flying kites. Doing sudoku, cryptics, crosswords and word puzzles. Jigsaw puzzles. Origami.
80.Maps.
81.Finding my cats sleeping in funny places: inside boxes, in my brothers school bag, inside drawers and empty flower pots.
82.The city at late night time or early early morning – streets mostly empty, and especially when its just rained a little.
83.Looking at old photo albums and slides.
84.Intant photos – good old polaroids!
85.Hot air balloons, helium balloons, bubbles, zeppelins (i wish i could live in one and just have a house i can float around the world in!)
86.Seeing kids riding their bikes.
87.Lighthouses and sail boats.
88.Treehouses too!
89.Having all the bills paid.
90.Sharing and exploring new restaurant meals with friends.
91.Putting together parties for little kids, friends, christmas etc.
92.Receiving suprises, little presents, being appreciated.
93.Finally getting something that I’ve worked hard for or saved for.
94.Being at concerts that make me feel like I’ve been transported somewhere else.
95.When the people closest to me are happy, or have something good happen to them.
96.Whenever I see people anywhere act upon compassion, fairness, and just an unconditional generosity of spirit.
97.Anything that gives or inspires hope.
98.When people in positions of power base their actions upon principles of compassion, fairness, and concern about our world, rather than upon the economics or business (i,e. profit) of things.
99.When there is shown a little courtesy, and respect for other people and animals and our earth.
100.Candles in a dark night, comfort in hard times, and an embrace when all I can do is cry.
