the list

The decision to go to India was the only one with a coherent plan, and before I left I spent innumerable days thinking of what to bring and where to go and what I would be doing.  Very responsible of me.  The idea to even go to India had been in my mind since I was 16, when I fell in love with Buddhism and longed to go live out that dream in some fashion or another.  And three or four years later, I finally made it, moving my life to Kolkata to study and work and understand India.  After five months of that I ventured over railway tracks into the heart of the Himalayas and Nepal and realized just how important those mountains were to me. Are, to, me.

So there was India and then Nepal.  Followed by Peru and Bolivia.  And, lastly, Mexico.  And the realization now that since I first left the country three years ago, I have spent over a year on the road.  While somehow managing to graduate college and hold a job teaching preschool.  Now I am out of school and out of that job, and am heading out again, this time without a return date.  On a whim I moved my departure date up a month, and this Friday will board an airplane.

Where I am going is still held as secret.  If you know, keep your mouth shut.

Where I will end up is a house in Pogonia, Greece, for as many months as I can manage.  And dispersed within that will be visits to friends and family in various cities in France, England, Austria, Belgium, Spain.

Why I am going is multi-layered.

On the surface is my addictions to traveling.  Then there is the connection with Abbey and Pogonia.  Also, friends on the other side of the globe that I miss.  That I love and need to see.  I plan on getting a job teaching small children.  Maybe teaching English but I would prefer kids young enough that specifying language isn’t that important. 

But the true reason of this trip is I have a list to complete. 

A list my father wrote, edited, re-wrote.  For all intents and purposes it is a bucket list.  But for some reason I hate that term.  There’s nothing on this list that has to do with buckets and “kicking the bucket”?  I’ve never actually heard anyone say that to describe someone dying that wasn’t a pet mouse or that Aunt the whole family hated.  My dad passed away last year after completing only one of his ten things, and now I am choosing to take it upon myself to complete that list.  My brother is going to work with me, and this may take years for us to actually complete.  More than half of the goals require crossing the ocean, and so, in the name of adventure and with these ambitions in mind, I am leaving.

The list, (or, the nine remaining):

- Visit Denali State Park

- Visit the pyramids in Egypt

- Run with the bulls in Pamplona

- Visit Australia, and New Zealand

- Hike the Pacific Crest Trail   (Sophie, Lea – 2013)

- Visit the great wall

- Go to France and ride the Alp D’Heuz (Davie J – join me!)

- Race in Ironman Hawaii in Kona (?!)

- Live on a beach.

A handful of ashes for each and his body will be spread to the corners of the world he most longed to see, while I learn and grow in following the steps he himself didn’t have the opportunity to walk.

And, with that, we’re off.