life lists

ok, so.....i have been weeding in the hot sun, and pondering these life lists that one hears so much about..ellen has one....there is a current american express ad series that lists crazy things such as parachuting or helicopter-skiing, or reading moby dick and/or ulysses (read the books;will never bother with the crazy dangerous stuff).....or do a marathon (done that)....or get a master's degree (did that a long, long time ago)....and it wouldn't include learn french....i've been trying to do that for 30 years....and while i have made modest gains, i am not sure that i'll ever be able to say that i have mastered that language...c'est la vie.....i have come to several astute conclusions about such lists....first, there is a difference between things i want to do before i die and things i would do if i knew i was dying.....on the things to do before i die list there would be places to visit......like tuscany....but even sayng visit tuscany is not quite as specific as saying that i would love to rent a villa and take cooking lessons and maybe help with a grape harvest......that would be pretty cool.....and i want to not only visit vienna, but take a hovercraft to budapest for lunch......and see the bust of queen nefertiti in berlin......i not only want to visit new zealand...i want to hike across and see some of the places filmed in lotr........and i'd love to take a sailing vacation around the greek islands.....but life lists are not all about travel.....i'd really like to train my right brain so i can use my left hand more efficiently.....just moments ago...as i weeded dead and dying lilyofthevalley from the front/side bed.....i was reminded that i cannot yank weeds nearly as strongly with my left hand as i can with my right......and this had more to do with fundamentals than mere strength...i do not naturally grasp the weeds with the proper angle....something that one just does with the dominant hand without ever thinking about it.....curious for a person who writes and eats left-handed, and cannot begin to grasp a pencil with the right hand......so....my life list involves such small yet vastly personal accomplishments.....i really do want to sort and catalog all of the old photographs stashed around this house.....that would be an accomplishment worthy of an engraved announcement, eh?......and i want to install drip-hoses around my planting beds so i do not have worry so about watering during these drought conditions......curiously, regaining my girlish weight isn't anywhere near the top of my list.....given that lists are what is important to us personally rather than what seems important to others.....but i digress from point number 2...that my list of what i would do if i knew i was dying would be vastly different from list number 1...'d knit sweaters and afghans for yet to be thought-of grandchildren.....just they could have something i made just for them...because i knew before they were even a glimmer in someone's eyes that they'd be special and i'd wish i'd known them.....i'd make a point to make peace with the handful of folks out there with whom i have yet to make peace.....and i'd be going back to my favorite places.....hopefully with loved ones.......forget italy and new zealand...what if i find that they weren't what i'd dreamed of?.........i'd be renting a nice apartment in paris, hopefully one with an aga stove, with room enough for my favorite people and i'd be shopping at local markets and cooking wonderful meals, and drinking far too much of the wines of many regions......and spending entire mornings or afternoons in single museums, reading about each and every painting.....and i'd sit in cafes with my coffee or wine as if i had no better place to be.....and just watch the world go by......and eventually i'd/we'd have to go home and face the music.....it would be with new memories of old favorite places.....and sometimes old means best.......