The Life Experience Wish List

This week I was struck by the need for a little nourishment for my soul. The solution dawned on me yesterday when I realized it was the opening weekend at Tanglewood, the summer home of the Boston Symphony Orchestra. After failing to convince some friends to make the drive across state to the Berkshires, I called the only people I knew who would definitely want to partake in a day of classical relaxation at the symphony: my parents.

We attended the morning rehearsal, which gave us the enjoyment of a concert but with some additional insight into the performance, as the conductor regularly paused to comment and make adjustments. We then went over to a little country inn and had lunch in a small garden. Sitting in the shade of ancient maples and tall pines, I had a long conversation with my parents about the Fellowship and shared with them some of the challenges I am currently facing. In particular, I discussed my struggle with putting together the life experience wish list.

My parents seemed to understand why this little task felt so daunting to me. I have never thought specifically about the life experiences I’d like to have (somehow “travel around the world” and “learn lots of languages” doesn’t seem precise enough), so I have never prioritized them. I suppose part of my struggle with this task is that I don’t want to feel limited and that I consider this type of list to be a work in progress. However, asking my parents what their favorite life experiences had been helped me think of it in a different way. We broke down my ideas into specific experiences and then into three categories: travel, skills, and adventure experiences. Under the travel experiences, I’ve included seeing the cherry blossoms in Japan, going to Mali’s music Festival in the Desert, the World Cup in South Africa in 2010, and the international kite festival in India, which I missed by just two days when I traveled in India in January. In the skills category, I listed SCUBA diving and piano playing. And finally, in the nebulous adventure category, I included skydiving and space travel—seriously, I’ve always dreamt of orbiting the Earth from space and hopefully, affordable space tourism will be possible in my lifetime thanks to companies like Virgin Galactic.

When I got back to Boston at the end of the afternoon, I worked on further developing my list and now feel satisfied with how it is shaping up, though I still believe that it will be a life-long project.