Hating On Bucket Lists

I hate bucket lists. I hate the idea that an experience that might otherwise be considered valuable, enlightening, soul-drenching, and just plain old fun can be turned into a “to do” task and crossed off some life-controlling list when completed.

But then I’ve always hated the expression “let’s do lunch,” as people often say. As if lunch were something more like a chore that you do because you have to, rather than an enjoyable interlude whilst eating a tuna fish sandwich, or if you’re lucky, a nice chicken and cheese enchilada on a patio somewhere. In the shade.

Of if they’re in London, those same folks will likely say, “Let’s do Buckingham Palace, and after that, let’s do Trafalgar Square.” To me, it’s as if they’re saying something that carries the emotional weight of, “First let’s do the dishes, and then we can do the trash.” Oh, so Trafalgar Square is a chore now? Buckingham Palace is something onerous that must be gotten through? (Well, sometimes it is, when the crowds are a bit thick in front of the gates because Her Majesty Queen Elizabeth II is in residence, but that’s a different issue.)

Oh, I know, I know, I can already hear readers saying, “But Christina, it’s just an expression!” And indeed it is. I couldn’t tell you how long that the expression has been around, but I can imagine that it was invented in Hollywood around the mid 1950’s – and I’m totally making this up because I can see, in my mind’s eye, a beautifully svelte Audrey Hepburn (with the sleek hair, the oversized yet adorable hat, and those darling eyelashes), tipping to brush an air kiss across the cheek of a friend, and elegantly (yet without meaning) saying, “Let’s do lunch, darling. Sometime next week, mmmmm?”

So, in my rebellion against such dismissive and mindless categorizing of events, I don’t do lunch. I have lunch. Sometimes alone, or with a book, sometimes with friends, which gives me a chance to enjoy their company for a time. (I don’t do friends either; I spend time with them.) I have visited Trafalgar Square; I have seen the Queen.

On the heels of that is my darkish opinion about the proverbial bucket list. I get the basic idea of it, that there are things a person wants to accomplish or experience before they die, that is to say, kick the bucket. Okay, that’s fine, you want to see the Statue of Liberty before you die, so you put it on your Bucket List and when you accomplish that, you cross it off. Ta-da! You’ve done it!

But I’ve heard people say that they’ve crossed something off their bucket list in the same exact tones that they use to express joy at having to done lunch, or done the laundry. As in, “Oh, I’ve just crossed that off my bucket list!”

Well, good for them, but it completely sounds like they’re glad to be done with something horrid, they’re washing their hands of it and moving on to the next thing to do. As if, when all is said and done, that there will be no looking at photographs, or relishing the memory. And, what’s worse, as if the doing of thus-and-such thing left no mark upon their soul, no trace of its existence, and that the person was not, either wholly or in part, changed by the experience.

I recently went to the Lightning Field in New Mexico with a friend. This is an outdoor sculpture consisting of a certain number of rods planted with great care and exactitude in the high plains of southwestern New Mexico. You have to make reservations months and months in advance, only six people get to stay each night, and, it’s a fur piece as one of Lois Lenski’s characters might have said. It took us two days to get there, so, all in all, not a venture to be entered into lightly.

Once we got there, we were joined by two other women, and together we did not quite fill the space, neither in the lovely and rustic cabin, nor in the expanse of the sculpture itself. I felt as if we were swallowed up by the sky at all times, and tended to go out amidst the art and return to the civilization of the cabin as if returning from a journey during which we found ourselves quite lost.

I’m not including photographs taken from the website about the Lightning Field at this time; it’s illegal to take and display pictures of this particular sculpture, according to the website. Which makes sense on one hand, it’s a piece of art, but on the other, typically outdoor sculptures are available for photographs. But, be that as it may, I will abide as best I can by the Lightning Field’s rules. (I’ve written to ask if I might include their pictures, and will upload those when I get permission. In the meantime, here’s a cool lightning strike.)

At any rate, about halfway through the experience at the Lightning Field, my friend said, to one and all, “Oh, I’m so glad to be able to cross this off my bucket list!” As if this too were some onerous chore or event to be gotten through, rather than an arty, gestalt-altering experience. I’m sure she didn’t mean it that way, but I found my deep dislike of the expression rising to the surface of my skin in a fierce, unbidden rage. I was two seconds away from slamming away in a verbal diatribe.

But I kept my mouth shut and walked out into the Lightning Field to think about this, what I felt, and why I felt it. I think that it’s because I feel that time is precious, and a stolen, fleeting thing. And that when people want to “kill a few hours,” or “do lunch,” or “do” something as expansive and unknowable as the Lightning Field, I get angry. Angry because I walk through the world with my eyes as open as they can be, sucking it all in, and I don’t want to have my experience of lunch, or Trafalgar Square, or even, really, laundry, diminished to a task that is so awful that it must be listed somewhere, monitored, and then removed when completed.

Yes, it’s true that I have a list of “to do” tasks, and that does include laundry – every week, which is why I’m not even sure I write it down any more. And I also have a list of places I’d like to visit: England (again), the Smithsonian, Mt. Vernon, Yellowstone, etc. But I’m not going to do these places, I’m going to visit them, and wallow in them and walk around gawping at everything I see, and later, afterwards in my hotel room, settle my skin around what I’ve experienced. But I’m not going to, ever, do them.