My Non-Bucket List

Last week I met someone who seemed interested in my bicycle adventures. “Oh, you have to cycle in Italy,” she told me. “Put it on your bucket list. Tuscany is beautiful and there are wonderful tours that go from inn to inn.”

I smiled. “That sounds nice.” Which is not the same as saying I’ll cycle in Italy. Because I won’t. Especially not on a group tour that takes me from inn to inn. And I didn’t even bother to acknowledge that distasteful phrase: ‘bucket list.’

I’m at that stage of life where somewhere between one day and one-third of my earthly breathes remain. Done with formal education, done with child-rearing, done with working for a living. That point when the term ‘bucket list’ stops being conceptual and takes on measurable meaning. Yet, how can a bucket list ever satisfy? If you die before it’s complete, you’ve left the world a bucket laden with unfulfilled wishes. Even worse, if you empty your bucket, you’ve got nothing left to anticipate until your final end.

I do not have a bucket list. I cannot think of one concrete activity I must accomplish or geographic locale I must witness before I die. There’s lots of things I’d like to do: have one of my plays produced; help abolish our penal system; travel to a place where my skills are needed and valued; or simply apply them locally. All things that require cooperation with other people, and therefore beyond my self-control.

Nothing on my horizon requires seeking external beauty or physical excitement. I’ve seen plenty of the world, and if meaningful opportunities present to experience more of it directly, all good. Otherwise, I’m a fan of the internet’s most positive attribute: the ability to expand my horizons from the comfort of my own home.

What I do have is a non-bucket list. All of the things I will never do. My non-bucket list grows often, and every time I shed an obligation or expectation, I’m flooded with grateful relief.

In the third grade, I wanted to be President of the United States (back in the days when that was a noble ambition). Now I know: I will never be President. Or even Vice-President. Or even a Cambridge City Councilor. I am content to never be elected to anything ever again.

During my Gilbert and Sullivan phase of junior high school, I thought I’d be a singer, or at least an actor. Now, I never want to step on-stage again. Sticking to the audience provides great solace.

I was never a good athlete; my dreams of baseball glory were always bunk. But like so many boys, they were there, tantalizing in their glory. These days, I’m happy to simply walk my steps, huff my way through Pilates, and struggle to press the same weight at the gym that I managed last week. There’s joy to be found when you get physical euphoria from mere maintenance.

As per excitement, I don’t care if my feet ever leave the ground again. George Bush may have senior sky-dived, but I will never Tilt-A-Whirl or Roller Coaster or Ferris wheel again—unless someday I have grandkids. And since I have no control over creating them, I don’t pin any hope there.

Although I’m sure there are many nice places to visit in the world, there’s isn’t a single one I ‘must see.’ Yet there are many places I will consciously avoid. I have no business going to Patagonia, or Machu Pichu, or Antarctica, or any ecologically fragile locale. Let the scientists and the film crews record their beauty and deliver me the David Attenborough version. I don’t feel the need to witness the brutality of Russia, the arbitrariness of Saudi Arabia, or the protests of Macron’s France first hand; in the past year intrepid citizens from all those places have stayed under my roof and given me first-hand insights I could not have experienced as mere tourist.

Wisteria from my own backyard

As for cycling through Tuscany with a bunch of other non-Italians simply because it’s beautiful. I’ve already cycled through Tacoma and Tucson and Tulsa and Tallahassee and Toms River. So if the gods decree that I never again cycle further than Taunton, I will acquiesce to their wisdom. Taunton is not Tuscany, but the breeze rolling south along Route 138 is every bit as refreshing.