#1 Visit India
#2 Skinny dipping
#8 Wonderland Trail
#11 Learn how to play Blackbird on the guitar
#24 Fly a friend out to Seattle
Today, I talk about items I have moved from my 30 by 30 to my general bucket list. Some things just can’t be done in five years, which was hard for me to accept at first.
#1 Visit India
I heard once that white people can go to Mumbai and get paid to be extras in Bollywood movies. I would love to be in a Bollywood movie, hopefully eating hors d'oeurves in the background of a wedding scene where people are dancing.
Please recognize that I do realize that this is a white girl cliche. I’ve seen all the Bollywood movies on Netflix. I love Indian food. I think there’s even a little “Eat, Pray, Love” in this list item. But I can’t help it! I want to sweat through my clothes and gobble fistfuls of tums and eat food I can’t pronounce and dip a toe or ten in the Ganges.
I’m going to make it happen, though I’m guessing it might take a couple more years.
#2 Skinny dipping
I am a little annoyed that I didn’t do this in my early 20’s with my early 20’s body.
I’d like to say that it was for lack of opportunity, but I was the girl who spent four months in Spain and southern Europe and didn’t go topless on a beach even once! I’m the girl who shows exactly zero cleavage ever and has never worn shorts that would have had me sent to the office in high school. I can’t even go braless around the house without wearing a sweatshirt.
Maybe skinny dipping hasn’t been in the cards yet, but I’m like 90% sure this is a next decade thing.
#8 Wonderland Trail
The Wonderland Trail is a 93-mile hike that encircles the tip of Mt. Rainier. It’s hikable only one month or so of the year. It requires a permit that you enter a lottery for in March, five months before you hope to be able to hike. Anyone familiar with long-distance backpacking knows that you can carry about 5-7 days of food with you. An in-shape hiker can do 10-20 miles a day, depending on weather, terrain, and elevation gain.
I love to hike. I find peace and meditation and serenity in the fresh air on top of a mountain. I get grumpy when I keep my shoes clean for too long. I’ve spent thousands of dollars in gear, permits, lift tickets, and plane tickets) in my pursuit to get outside. I love it so much I got a tattoo of a (generic) PNW on my shoulder and Mt. Rainier on my shoulder blade.
The Wonderland Trail will definitely happen for me, hopefully sooner rather than later. It wouldn’t be the first time I took a week off to hike, but it would be the first time I did it to backpack. In the meantime, I’ll trek all over our other gorgeous trails.
#11 Learn how to play Blackbird on the guitar
I do not know how to play the guitar, but I’ve always wanted to learn. All of the music I love involves beautiful guitar melodies, like Blackbird.
A couple of years ago, my very broke family all pitched in the get me my own guitar. They got the case, tuner, capo, and DVD lesson. They even tried to trick me with a pink plush decoy that made noises and lit up.
I have a very depressing confession: that pink guitar got played way more than the real one.
Last year for my birthday, my boyfriend got me Rocksmith (like Guitar Hero, but you plug in your real guitar). He convinced me not to donate the basically unplayed guitar my family got years prior, and then got me a way to learn how to play it. It was insanely sweet and actually got me on track to learn, and bonus: it was really fun to watch him learn new songs on his own guitar.
It was while plucking a guitar plugged into an Xbox that I learned I just have no ear for music. I cannot tell the difference between the right note and the wrong one. I have hope that with practice this might change. For now, though, the guitar and accompaniments are hanging out in our closet. Hopefully a bigger space for the instruments will better accommodate learning how to play them?
#24 Fly a friend out to Seattle
I still love the idea of this one. It didn’t happen over the last few years for a million reasons (budget, timing). I’m getting to the age where about 90% of my friends have spouses and now kids.
More and more I think ‘fly a friend out to Seattle’ is going to mean ‘fly a parent out to Seattle.’ About five years ago, my parents moved to Georgia because my dad finally got a job. They haven’t been able to come home and my crazy schedule and limited budget, as well as their inability to host, has meant that we haven’t seen each other since 2011. It’s why I cling to other people’s families (especially Adam’s) and adopt any friend’s mom as my own.
So next year, I think it will come time to put my mom on a plane (even though she hates them).