Snow, Photo by Hannah Barth

There’s a certain amount of harm we cause ourselves always being grown up and tampering our desires with reality.

At the urging of a couple books and online articles I’ve read in the past months, I finally started a Bucket List, or a list of things I want to do before I die. One of the reasons for starting this list was to re-energize; to remember that feeling of being a kid and wanting with abandon because it’s inspiring. There’s a certain amount of harm we cause ourselves always being grown up and tampering our desires with reality. That’s why most of us travel: to escape the everyday and feel like we’re checking off some of those things on our own Bucket Lists.

In writing out my wants I started listing things like “Gift wrap my own presents” and “Learn how to bake better” and my energy was suddenly doused by feelings of mediocrity. “Climb a mountain” and “Own a house abroad” were things that belong on a bucket list; things to be accomplished. But handicrafts and adult ed suddenly struck me as terribly mundane, and worse, even silly. What kind of a person would I be if I let my aspirations go the way of a Home Economics class and not out somewhere in the Wild Beyond?

Group of Youngsters, Photo by Hannah Barth

I’ve been living abroad for two years now, and fighting the desire to come home – to “settle” – in New England, is something I’ve been doing for a while and am only coming to terms with now. I’ve built my life upon being Hannah the Traveler and have given very little thought to who Hannah the Person is. But the truth is that I want to take a computer programming course and tend my own garden just as much as I want to safari in Africa and learn organic farming in the rain forest.

I think every person is equally formed by the experiences imparted on them as a child and by the experiences they chose themselves as an adult. My childhood took place in rural Maine. Its key players were a mother who loves her quaint little front porch and garden, a father who has no desire to venture past town lines, and an uncle who gave up the city life for a cabin without indoor plumbing in the woods.

…I have a real desire to check “Visit the Ben & Jerry’s Ice Cream Plant” off my list.

These simplicities are as much a part of me as my decision as a teenager to study abroad in South America and my career move into a Turkish folk dance company in my twenties. Although I’m happy where I am now, living and working abroad, I have a real desire to check “Visit the Ben & Jerry’s Ice Cream Plant” off my list.

© Gretchen for TravelBlogs, 2010. |
#2: Visit The Ben & Jerry’s Ice Cream Plant |
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Post tags: Bucket Lists, cultural experiences, Ice Cream, Introspection, living abroad, Settling Down