I know where the term “bucket list” comes from. When a person dies, his body often jerks violently as life leaves him, causing the bucket that (in olden days) lay at the foot of the bed for bodily wastes, to be kicked over. Sure, that’s easy, but why would one leave a bucket at the foot of the bed? Why not put it on a stand or chest a little removed? Maybe beds were made differently back when people died at home. Not that most of us would know much about any of this, because almost all of us will die in a hospital bed, gray and gasping and only occasionally conscious. I have not seen the last minutes of a life, although my sister described the violent jerking of my father’s body in death agony over the phone in real time. Not fun, and another story, but I have seen many people in the last days of their lives and it is hard to imagine many of them doing much of anything. My mother-in-law almost disappeared before our eyes, asking in a moment of consciousness, “What’s happening to me?” That still gives me the chills.
Anyway, as in most things, we have vulgarized this unpleasant experience to make it more – well, palatable doesn’t seem to fit the bill, but let’s just say more “real,” as in this-worldly. And so we got the expression, and then the movie that made the expression a topic of discussion, much like a game of rummy on a boring winter’s night. What’s on your bucket list? What, that is, do you really want to do or have before you kick the bedpan, screw the pooch, auger in?
Boy has that changed with age. I have written before that what I wanted most in 4th grade were high-explosive fireworks (M-80’s, cherry bombs) and what I wanted to do most was travel the country or the world to anywhere but central Connecticut. Later it might have been to live in a house in the New Mexican desert with a hot chick and a bale of high-grade weed, to, you know, lay around the chanty and put a good buzz on. Then, to travel to the Amazon jungles to live with Indians, which, shockingly, I did. Then to get a great job at a prominent university and travel to exotic places at government expense. Then to sell books and maybe live in Montana near other big-selling authors. Hawaii wouldn’t have been bad, either. And always throughout, I can say with honesty, that I wanted to and expected to see the face of God in one way or another, something that may or may not have collided with the other goals on my bucket list.
Well, of course they would have. God and a hot babe, the two of us high as a kite in hot tub? Not exactly your everyday monastic experience. That’s too easy, however. What really was at the base of those former bucket lists? And what is there now?
Back then, we can say I was inspired by the anticipation of physical pleasure. But now it has become, if not more complicated, more subtle.
Surprisingly, I have become comfortable with middle-class American existence. I cannot buy most of what I would really want, or could but at too great a cost, like a high-end classical guitar or a winter home in Costa Rica, but I really don’t care. I can’t think of any one thing or place that I would like to have or experience that would make it on a “last wish” list. The base needs on my Maslow pyramid are fulfilled and what the hell else do I need as far as places and things go? I’ve been to and owned already, and no longer really want to be to or have. Fly to Bali? Too many tourists and a hell of a flight, especially now with masks. A mansion? Are you kidding? I would spend my whole time trimming the hedges and washing the floors. Sure I would still like that expensive guitar, but I would fear dropping it or it being damaged by a quickly changing temperature, and anyway, I would probably soon discover that I am not skilled enough to really make it sing. No, too many hassles or care needed for all of that travel and stuff. Remove them all from the bucket.
Those are all things or places or bodies that I can use, and those, for the most part, do not really cause the intense longing that they once did or might have done. Still, there are some possessions and experiences that I would like to have, the kind I suspect many of us older folks might want to have. Let me begin with respect.
Let’s face it: once at a certain age, no one wants to be you because you’re old and ugly and can’t even manage to turn around towards the back seat of the car to see if you remembered your cane. Women only look your way to see if you’ve fallen over or if it was you who passed gas on the way to the counter. Men hope you will not use a check book at said counter and take up 10 minutes of their precious time to pay for that mega-container of Metamucil. Grown children start to wonder how much time and money they will have to spend on you before you, well, kick the bucket, and no one wants to hear how much bubble gum cost in 1963, or how much better American Culture was before San Francisco spiked the Bay with LSD.
Ah, but we old folks can have respect and adulation and admiration for things done in the past. Some would never be on an older person’s bucket list, such as service in Vietnam or pulling people from a burning building. Others, though, would be, especially wealth and power. Oh, how some of the old love wealth and power, the old men and women who sit at the top of financial empires or Senate committees! But those things and acts that give honor now would be from bucket lists past, and a bucket cannot alter time. No, when the final act arrives, we will not be able to garner that wealth and experience that will fill a bucket. Too late on those.
But there is always physical health. I had an uncle who ran marathons into his early 70’s, until his knees went and he started peeing blood. Still, he would swim Narragansett Bay in Rhode Island every morning into his early 90’s, at least a half-mile each way in a strong ocean current. That got my respect, but I cannot put that in my bucket, either. No amount of push-ups will get me to that level now, but I suppose I can outlast my old – and I mean old – friends from high school. That would be like being able to drink more at the frat party back in the day, but nah. Living too long stresses the family and the savings account, and besides, one only gets respect for that when dead, as in, “I have good genes. My (father, uncle, great aunt) lived to be 97 and drank like a fish and smoked like a chimney!”
So now we get down to brass tacks, as in, “for my bucket list, I would like an easy death. Dying in my sleep after a day at the golf course would be nice.” No respect there, but we are at least back to the physical side of the bucket list. Having seen too much of the lingering modern way of death, an easy death is not such a bad thing to fill the bucket, but there is a caveat. According to Elizabeth Kubler Ross, in the long run, it is preferable for the dying to know they are dying so that they have a few months to set things in order. You can pay for that great niece’s education in nursing and tell your children that you’re sorry for being a jerk for this or that, or even – and in this my father would have rather died – tell people that you love them. This is a sorting out that can lead to much more than respect. It can lead to a sense of a complete life better than a last bungee jump off a bridge over the snake river, or a final consort with a high-end hooker in Vegas (all clean and legal, of course, but what do you care at that point?) In this, this sorting out, I can sense a better way to fill the final bucket, but it is not front and center to me just yet. After all this jabber in this essay, I still have the feeling that my bucket list has not been fulfilled.
From this, then, I have to remember what was always present in all the passions and highs and lows of trying to work out a good life: experiencing the presence of God. This is not an idle notion to many of us, for fully 40% of Americans say that they have experienced exactly that. My guess would be that this is on the low side, as many would not want to speak about it or have tucked the memory back somewhere behind the pursuit of a present-day bucket list (buy that lottery ticket!) It may not be a conscious “tucking,” as I forget those experiences on a daily basis and turn back to the more pedestrian bucket list of having a good walk or a nice meal. However, every time such a feeling arrives, it is abundantly clear that all the other stuff is secondary -to -nothing in comparison. In those moments, the truth is so obvious that THIS has always been the only thing on the list and that all else has been nothing more than a blind attempt to fill our inborn bucket, that “God-sized hole in the heart.” It is a truth that I can write about even though it is seldom experienced. I still want that great classical guitar, but something knows better.
I have not seen the Bucket List movie, but I bet it ends with the old geezers realizing that it was the people in their lives that filled the bucket, not the fun and fancy things in their lives. Of course they would be right, but why people? What is it in people that we do not see until we are nearing death? Could it be our shared emptiness and longing that has always been pulling us together in a quest for God? Could it be our shared adventure in working out, like old comrades in arms, this ultimate campaign of our lives? I’d bet it is.
So I guess it is you and me together who fill up our bucket of wishes, all of us all along on the road to Oz, all of us finally understanding that Kansas has always been the home we needed and wanted most. All along is has really been about you and me and Auntie Em and a shared need as long and wide as the limitless prairie.
I know where the term “bucket list” comes from. When a person dies, his body often jerks violently as life leaves him, causing the bucket that (in olden days) lay at the foot of the bed for bodily wastes, to be kicked over. Sure, that’s easy, but why would one leave a bucket at the foot of the bed? Why not put it on a stand or chest a little removed? Maybe beds were made differently back when people died at home. Not that most of us would know much about any of this, because almost all of us will die in a hospital bed, gray and gasping and only occasionally conscious. I have not seen the last minutes of a life, although my sister described the violent jerking of my father’s body in death agony over the phone in real time. Not fun, and another story, but I have seen many people in the last days of their lives and it is hard to imagine many of them doing much of anything. My mother-in-law almost disappeared before our eyes, asking in a moment of consciousness, “What’s happening to me?” That still gives me the chills.
Anyway, as in most things, we have vulgarized this unpleasant experience to make it more – well, palatable doesn’t seem to fit the bill, but let’s just say more “real,” as in this-worldly. And so we got the expression, and then the movie that made the expression a topic of discussion, much like a game of rummy on a boring winter’s night. What’s on your bucket list? What, that is, do you really want to do or have before you kick the bedpan, screw the pooch, auger in?
Boy has that changed with age. I have written before that what I wanted most in 4th grade were high-explosive fireworks (M-80’s, cherry bombs) and what I wanted to do most was travel the country or the world to anywhere but central Connecticut. Later it might have been to live in a house in the New Mexican desert with a hot chick and a bale of high-grade weed, to, you know, lay around the chanty and put a good buzz on. Then, to travel to the Amazon jungles to live with Indians, which, shockingly, I did. Then to get a great job at a prominent university and travel to exotic places at government expense. Then to sell books and maybe live in Montana near other big-selling authors. Hawaii wouldn’t have been bad, either. And always throughout, I can say with honesty, that I wanted to and expected to see the face of God in one way or another, something that may or may not have collided with the other goals on my bucket list.
Well, of course they would have. God and a hot babe, the two of us high as a kite in hot tub? Not exactly your everyday monastic experience. That’s too easy, however. What really was at the base of those former bucket lists? And what is there now?
Back then, we can say I was inspired by the anticipation of physical pleasure. But now it has become, if not more complicated, more subtle.
Surprisingly, I have become comfortable with middle-class American existence. I cannot buy most of what I would really want, or could but at too great a cost, like a high-end classical guitar or a winter home in Costa Rica, but I really don’t care. I can’t think of any one thing or place that I would like to have or experience that would make it on a “last wish” list. The base needs on my Maslow pyramid are fulfilled and what the hell else do I need as far as places and things go? I’ve been to and owned already, and no longer really want to be to or have. Fly to Bali? Too many tourists and a hell of a flight, especially now with masks. A mansion? Are you kidding? I would spend my whole time trimming the hedges and washing the floors. Sure I would still like that expensive guitar, but I would fear dropping it or it being damaged by a quickly changing temperature, and anyway, I would probably soon discover that I am not skilled enough to really make it sing. No, too many hassles or care needed for all of that travel and stuff. Remove them all from the bucket.
Those are all things or places or bodies that I can use, and those, for the most part, do not really cause the intense longing that they once did or might have done. Still, there are some possessions and experiences that I would like to have, the kind I suspect many of us older folks might want to have. Let me begin with respect.
Let’s face it: once at a certain age, no one wants to be you because you’re old and ugly and can’t even manage to turn around towards the back seat of the car to see if you remembered your cane. Women only look your way to see if you’ve fallen over or if it was you who passed gas on the way to the counter. Men hope you will not use a check book at said counter and take up 10 minutes of their precious time to pay for that mega-container of Metamucil. Grown children start to wonder how much time and money they will have to spend on you before you, well, kick the bucket, and no one wants to hear how much bubble gum cost in 1963, or how much better American Culture was before San Francisco spiked the Bay with LSD.
Ah, but we old folks can have respect and adulation and admiration for things done in the past. Some would never be on an older person’s bucket list, such as service in Vietnam or pulling people from a burning building. Others, though, would be, especially wealth and power. Oh, how some of the old love wealth and power, the old men and women who sit at the top of financial empires or Senate committees! But those things and acts that give honor now would be from bucket lists past, and a bucket cannot alter time. No, when the final act arrives, we will not be able to garner that wealth and experience that will fill a bucket. Too late on those.
But there is always physical health. I had an uncle who ran marathons into his early 70’s, until his knees went and he started peeing blood. Still, he would swim Narragansett Bay in Rhode Island every morning into his early 90’s, at least a half-mile each way in a strong ocean current. That got my respect, but I cannot put that in my bucket, either. No amount of push-ups will get me to that level now, but I suppose I can outlast my old – and I mean old – friends from high school. That would be like being able to drink more at the frat party back in the day, but nah. Living too long stresses the family and the savings account, and besides, one only gets respect for that when dead, as in, “I have good genes. My (father, uncle, great aunt) lived to be 97 and drank like a fish and smoked like a chimney!”
So now we get down to brass tacks, as in, “for my bucket list, I would like an easy death. Dying in my sleep after a day at the golf course would be nice.” No respect there, but we are at least back to the physical side of the bucket list. Having seen too much of the lingering modern way of death, an easy death is not such a bad thing to fill the bucket, but there is a caveat. According to Elizabeth Kubler Ross, in the long run, it is preferable for the dying to know they are dying so that they have a few months to set things in order. You can pay for that great niece’s education in nursing and tell your children that you’re sorry for being a jerk for this or that, or even – and in this my father would have rather died – tell people that you love them. This is a sorting out that can lead to much more than respect. It can lead to a sense of a complete life better than a last bungee jump off a bridge over the snake river, or a final consort with a high-end hooker in Vegas (all clean and legal, of course, but what do you care at that point?) In this, this sorting out, I can sense a better way to fill the final bucket, but it is not front and center to me just yet. After all this jabber in this essay, I still have the feeling that my bucket list has not been fulfilled.
From this, then, I have to remember what was always present in all the passions and highs and lows of trying to work out a good life: experiencing the presence of God. This is not an idle notion to many of us, for fully 40% of Americans say that they have experienced exactly that. My guess would be that this is on the low side, as many would not want to speak about it or have tucked the memory back somewhere behind the pursuit of a present-day bucket list (buy that lottery ticket!) It may not be a conscious “tucking,” as I forget those experiences on a daily basis and turn back to the more pedestrian bucket list of having a good walk or a nice meal. However, every time such a feeling arrives, it is abundantly clear that all the other stuff is secondary -to -nothing in comparison. In those moments, the truth is so obvious that THIS has always been the only thing on the list and that all else has been nothing more than a blind attempt to fill our inborn bucket, that “God-sized hole in the heart.” It is a truth that I can write about even though it is seldom experienced. I still want that great classical guitar, but something knows better.
I have not seen the Bucket List movie, but I bet it ends with the old geezers realizing that it was the people in their lives that filled the bucket, not the fun and fancy things in their lives. Of course they would be right, but why people? What is it in people that we do not see until we are nearing death? Could it be our shared emptiness and longing that has always been pulling us together in a quest for God? Could it be our shared adventure in working out, like old comrades in arms, this ultimate campaign of our lives? I’d bet it is.
So I guess it is you and me together who fill up our bucket of wishes, all of us all along on the road to Oz, all of us finally understanding that Kansas has always been the home we needed and wanted most. All along is has really been about you and me and Auntie Em and a shared need as long and wide as the limitless prairie.
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