When I sent my list of 75 favorite books to my sister Laura, who suggested it, she chastised me for leaving out Steinbeck and books from childhood. I was chagrined at having forgotten Steinbeck (Grapes of Wrath, Winter of Our Discontent, The Red Pony) and had thought about The Little Colonel's Hero by Anne Fellows Johnson and, of course, Little Women. Finally, though, I had to decide the list was done and would have to stay as it is: with some serious omissions. Maybe this is a case in which 75 isn't such a big number as it might seem.,
On the way to Eugene to visit friends, I drove past some horrific clearcuts, which prompted some prayers for the earth to add to the list:
May the earth forgive our trespasses against it, which are severe and legion.
May we listen to what the earth is telling us and pay heed.
May we allow the earth time to lick its wounds and recover.
May the apple limbs hang low with rosy-cheeked apples.
May the snow fly thick.
May the springs flow full.
May there be a crash in the population of the pine bark beetle.
One of the most fun things in doing this has been the connection with my friends. If Sharon challenges me to jump rope 75 times, I'll think of her with every jump. Phil suggests I take 75 swims this year, a challenge he knew I would take up with enthusiasm (though I can't swim here now; the smoke curtails all outdoor activity). My friend who loves to run wants me to run 75 yards; my gardening friends suggest I plant flowers; friends I don't see often suggest I visit friends; friends with deep social consciences suggest I volunteer 75 hours or take political action 75 times or do something similar to better the world. It's all on the list.
I wrote a second poem (73 to go!). It's called "Two Arabian Princesses."
Two Arabian princesses
As I heard the tale,
went shopping in L.A.,
dripping gold from fingertips
like water after a bath.
They bought,
I thought I heard,
sixty-five
hundred-dollar bras.
But that wasn't it. What
they bought was
sixty
five-hundred-dollar bras.
A bra that costs $500.
Is it made with the softest silk
in the kingdom?
Is it covered with exquisite lace,
tatted by a dozen hand-maidens?
Does it fit like a dream,
cup the breasts like a lover's hands,
never ride up
or pinch the under-arm
or slip a strap over the shoulder?
Do the hooks slip into eyes without a wink?
Is it as delicate as a rose petal
and as durable as the rising of the sun?
(Though why would Arabian princesses,
dripping gold from their fingertips,
care how long a bra would last?)
I want to try one on
just one, just once, just to know
what the Arabian princesses know.
But, alas! I am Cinderella in a garret room
with no fairy godmother at the window.
Wearing a $500 bra
Even for five minutes
is as remote as wearing a glass shoe
or riding in a pumpkin coach
or hearing Scheherazade
tell an Arabian tale
to the king.
Monday, July 30, 2018
Friday, July 27, 2018
I have been making progress, but in the meantime, these things have been added:
"Crafts" – #12. Press 75 flowers.
"Active"
#37. Bring home a stone from each walk you take and make a pile in the yard
#38. Stretch and dance for 75 minutes, uninterrupted
#39. Get a 75-minute massage
#40. Collect 75 items to put on an altar on your 75th birthday
#41. Take 75 naps
"Miscellaneous" –
#55. Spend $75 at the store, no more, no less
#56. Eat 75 blueberries for breakfast
#57. Count 75 sheep before going to sleep
This morning I did #56: I had 75 blueberries for breakfast. Seventy-five, I am discovering, is a big number. Plenty enough blueberries for breakfast.
I have also completed #37, "Make a list of your 75 favorite books." At first I was appalled that I wanted to put some unknown books, like Alan Powers' Living with Books, for instance, on the list. Then I realized that I wasn't making a list of "best books I've ever read" but favorite books. Then I was free. The only criterion was that my heart leapt with delight when I saw it on the bookshelf, which is certainly what happens with Living with Books, which is about the architecture in our homes to accommodate our book habits.
Here's the list. I had to cull some titles to pare it down to 75. Maybe you'll see some old friends on the list. Maybe you'll remind me of some I had forgotten. It was fun. Thanks to my sister Laura for putting this item on my list of 75 things to do before my 75th birthday.
75 Favorite Books
1. Abbey, Edward – Desert Solitaire
2. Abrams, David – The Spell of the Sensuous
3. Bartram, William – Travels
4. Beowulf
5. de Berniere, Louis – Corelli's Mandolin
6. Berry, Thomas – The Dream of the Earth
7. de Botton, Alain – The Architecture of Happiness
8. Boyle, T. Coraghessan – World's End
9. _________________ – Drop City
10. Bronte, Emily – Wuthering Heights
11. Byatt, A. S. – Possession
12. Camus, Albert – l'Étranger
13. Carey, John – Eyewitness to History
14. Chadwick, Douglas – The Fate of the Elephant
15. Chaucer, Geoffrey – The Canterbury Tales
16. Chomsky, Noam – Transformational Grammar
17. Coetzee, J. M. – Disgrace
18. Cox, Lynn – Swimming to Antarctica
19. Dickens, Charles – Great Expectations
20. Dillard, Annie – Teaching a Stone to Talk
21. Doerr, Anthony – All the Light We Cannot See
22. Durrell, Gerard – My Family and Other Animals
23. Eliot, George – Middlemarch
24. ___________ – Adam Bede
25. Estes, Clarissa Pinkola – Women Who Run with the Wolves
26. Eugenides, Jeffrey – Middlesex
27. Fadiman, Anne – The Spirit Catches You and You Fall Down
28. _____________ – Ex Libris: Confessions of a Common Reader
29. Faulkner, William – Absalom! Absalom!
30. ______________ – Short stories: "The Bear" and "Spotted Horses"
31. ______________ – The Sound and the Fury
32. Fernandez-Arresto, Felipe – Near a Thousand Tables
33. Fielding, Henry – Tom Jones
34. Fisher, M. F. K. – The Art of Eating
35. Graham, Katherine – Personal History
36. Hesse, Herman – The Glass Bead Game
37. Hopkins, Gerard Manley – Poems
38. Ishiguro, Kazuo – Never Let Me Go
39. Joyce, James – A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man
40. di Lampedusa, Giuseppe Tomasi – The Leopard
41. Leeson, Ted – The Habit of Rivers
42. LeGuin, Ursula – The Earthsea Trilogy
43. Lewis, C. S. – The Narnian Chronicles
44. __________ – Till We Have Faces
45. Marquez, Gabriel Garcia – One Hundred Years of Solitude
46. McGregor, Neil – A History of the World in 100 Objects
47. McPhee, John – Encounters with the Archdruid
48. ____________ – The Control of Nature
49. Melville, Herman – Moby Dick
50. Nabokov, Vladimir – Lolita
51. ________________ – Pnin
52. ________________ – The Gift
53. ________________ – Speak Memory
54. Naslund, Senna Jeter – Ahab's Wife
55. Norton Anthology of English Literature
56. Norton Book of Nature Writing
57. Patchett, Ann – Bel Canto
58. ___________ – The Patron Saint of Liars
59. ___________ – The Magician's Assistant
60. Paulsen, Gary – Riverdance: The Fine Madness of Running the Iditarod
61. Pinker, Stephen – The Language Instinct
62. Powers, Alan – Living with Books
63. Rawicz, Slavomir – The Long Walk
64. Rushdie, Salman – Midnight's Children
65. Saramago, Jose – Blindness
66. Schiff, Stacy – Vera
67. Specht, Robert – Tisha
68. Spenser, Edmund – The Faerie Queene
69. Thoreau, Henry David – Walden
70. Tillyard, E. M. W. – The Elizabethan World Picture
71. Tolstoy, Leo – War and Peace
72. Undset, Sigrid – Kristin Lavransdatter
73. Virgil – The Aeneid
74. Williams, Joseph M. – Style: Ten Lessons in Clarity and Grace
75. Wolff, Virginia – To the Lighthouse
"Crafts" – #12. Press 75 flowers.
"Active"
#37. Bring home a stone from each walk you take and make a pile in the yard
#38. Stretch and dance for 75 minutes, uninterrupted
#39. Get a 75-minute massage
#40. Collect 75 items to put on an altar on your 75th birthday
#41. Take 75 naps
"Miscellaneous" –
#55. Spend $75 at the store, no more, no less
#56. Eat 75 blueberries for breakfast
#57. Count 75 sheep before going to sleep
This morning I did #56: I had 75 blueberries for breakfast. Seventy-five, I am discovering, is a big number. Plenty enough blueberries for breakfast.
I have also completed #37, "Make a list of your 75 favorite books." At first I was appalled that I wanted to put some unknown books, like Alan Powers' Living with Books, for instance, on the list. Then I realized that I wasn't making a list of "best books I've ever read" but favorite books. Then I was free. The only criterion was that my heart leapt with delight when I saw it on the bookshelf, which is certainly what happens with Living with Books, which is about the architecture in our homes to accommodate our book habits.
Here's the list. I had to cull some titles to pare it down to 75. Maybe you'll see some old friends on the list. Maybe you'll remind me of some I had forgotten. It was fun. Thanks to my sister Laura for putting this item on my list of 75 things to do before my 75th birthday.
75 Favorite Books
1. Abbey, Edward – Desert Solitaire
2. Abrams, David – The Spell of the Sensuous
3. Bartram, William – Travels
4. Beowulf
5. de Berniere, Louis – Corelli's Mandolin
6. Berry, Thomas – The Dream of the Earth
7. de Botton, Alain – The Architecture of Happiness
8. Boyle, T. Coraghessan – World's End
9. _________________ – Drop City
10. Bronte, Emily – Wuthering Heights
11. Byatt, A. S. – Possession
12. Camus, Albert – l'Étranger
13. Carey, John – Eyewitness to History
14. Chadwick, Douglas – The Fate of the Elephant
15. Chaucer, Geoffrey – The Canterbury Tales
16. Chomsky, Noam – Transformational Grammar
17. Coetzee, J. M. – Disgrace
18. Cox, Lynn – Swimming to Antarctica
19. Dickens, Charles – Great Expectations
20. Dillard, Annie – Teaching a Stone to Talk
21. Doerr, Anthony – All the Light We Cannot See
22. Durrell, Gerard – My Family and Other Animals
23. Eliot, George – Middlemarch
24. ___________ – Adam Bede
25. Estes, Clarissa Pinkola – Women Who Run with the Wolves
26. Eugenides, Jeffrey – Middlesex
27. Fadiman, Anne – The Spirit Catches You and You Fall Down
28. _____________ – Ex Libris: Confessions of a Common Reader
29. Faulkner, William – Absalom! Absalom!
30. ______________ – Short stories: "The Bear" and "Spotted Horses"
31. ______________ – The Sound and the Fury
32. Fernandez-Arresto, Felipe – Near a Thousand Tables
33. Fielding, Henry – Tom Jones
34. Fisher, M. F. K. – The Art of Eating
35. Graham, Katherine – Personal History
36. Hesse, Herman – The Glass Bead Game
37. Hopkins, Gerard Manley – Poems
38. Ishiguro, Kazuo – Never Let Me Go
39. Joyce, James – A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man
40. di Lampedusa, Giuseppe Tomasi – The Leopard
41. Leeson, Ted – The Habit of Rivers
42. LeGuin, Ursula – The Earthsea Trilogy
43. Lewis, C. S. – The Narnian Chronicles
44. __________ – Till We Have Faces
45. Marquez, Gabriel Garcia – One Hundred Years of Solitude
46. McGregor, Neil – A History of the World in 100 Objects
47. McPhee, John – Encounters with the Archdruid
48. ____________ – The Control of Nature
49. Melville, Herman – Moby Dick
50. Nabokov, Vladimir – Lolita
51. ________________ – Pnin
52. ________________ – The Gift
53. ________________ – Speak Memory
54. Naslund, Senna Jeter – Ahab's Wife
55. Norton Anthology of English Literature
56. Norton Book of Nature Writing
57. Patchett, Ann – Bel Canto
58. ___________ – The Patron Saint of Liars
59. ___________ – The Magician's Assistant
60. Paulsen, Gary – Riverdance: The Fine Madness of Running the Iditarod
61. Pinker, Stephen – The Language Instinct
62. Powers, Alan – Living with Books
63. Rawicz, Slavomir – The Long Walk
64. Rushdie, Salman – Midnight's Children
65. Saramago, Jose – Blindness
66. Schiff, Stacy – Vera
67. Specht, Robert – Tisha
68. Spenser, Edmund – The Faerie Queene
69. Thoreau, Henry David – Walden
70. Tillyard, E. M. W. – The Elizabethan World Picture
71. Tolstoy, Leo – War and Peace
72. Undset, Sigrid – Kristin Lavransdatter
73. Virgil – The Aeneid
74. Williams, Joseph M. – Style: Ten Lessons in Clarity and Grace
75. Wolff, Virginia – To the Lighthouse
Monday, July 23, 2018
Making the List of 75 Things To Do with 75 Repetitions Each for My 75th Year of Life
On July 20, 2018, I turned 74 years old.
That means I am now in my 75th year. Whoa! I have to take a deep breath to take that in! It's true that only a month ago I was hiking the GR20 trail on Corsica,
and only a week ago the nurse at my colonoscopy told me all my vitals were so normal they were boring. ("We love boring!" she said). I'm in good health and good physical condition. So what does "75" mean, anyway? How can I both recognize it and celebrate it?
 |
| On the coast in Corsica, a month before my 74th birthday |
 |
| On the GR 20, mid-June, 2018 |
Two days ago, the day after my birthday, I was hiking in the Red Buttes, contemplating those questions, when a cartoon-style light bulb lit up. Between now and July 20, 2019, I thought, I could do 75 things of 75 repetitions each. Things like:
Write 75 people to ask for suggestions of 75 things to do
Do a 75-mile hike
Write 75 poems
Do 75 good deeds
Brilliant.
Crazy.
The more I thought about it, the more elaborate it got. Make 75 cards to send to 75 friends on my birthday. Bake 75 desserts. (Let's see. That would be a different dessert every five days ….) If I had 75 items on the list, each of which had 75 parts to it, I would have to do 15 parts every day for a year – make one dessert, make one card, write one poem – yow! What happened to ordinary life?
Stupid.
Crazy.
But possible? And fun! What I need is more things like, "Do an embroidery with 75 stitches" or "String 75 rosebuds onto a necklace." What I need is help making the list. Besides suggestions like "Read 75 books or magazines," I especially need suggestions like, "Make a list of your favorite books" – things that can be done in hours (or minutes!) rather than days. But any suggestion is fair game, as long as it's reasonable. (But I'll nix any suggestion that says, "Do 75 push-ups.")
Do you want to join the fun? Send me your ideas of things to put on the list. It currently has 31 items, so I need lots more.
This blog will keep current with progress on a daily basis (or as close as I can come to it). Here's a list of the items so far. Other ideas are pending.
CRAFTS
1. String 75 rosebuds or beads
2. Make 75 cards for 75 friends to mail on my birthday
3. Collect 75 favorite photographs and put them into a book
4. Find 75 rocks and make an Andy Goldsworthy-style art piece for my zen garden
5. Make a trivet with 75 wine bottle corks
6. Create a collage of 75 pieces (or a collage representing each year of your life)
7. Cook 75 new dishes
8. Bake 75 cookies and give to 75 strangers
9. Make an embroidery piece or quilt with 75 panels
10. Make 75 origami Christmas tree ornaments
11. Knit a shawl based on knit 1, purl 1, for 75 stitches in a row
12. Press 75 flowers
WRITING AND LEARNING
13. Write something with 75 words (poem, essay, blog post)
14. Write 75 poems
15. Keep a book and blog post of all the 75s I'm doing
16. Write 75 prayers for the planet and humanity
17. Write about 75 places you love and why
18. Work 75 New York Times crossword puzzles
19. Learn to say "hi" in 75 languages; or learn 75 new words in one language; or learn to count to 75 in a new language
20. Add 75 new words to your vocabulary
21. Memorize 75 lines of poetry
ACTIVE
22. Begin each morning with 75 deep breaths; or do deep breathing 3 times a day in sets of twenty-five
23. Go on a 75-mile hike
24. Find 75 different kinds of leaves
25. Hug 75 trees
26. Plant 75 daffodils (or other flowers)
27. Plant 75 poppy seeds
28. Identify 75 different botanical items on one hike
29. See and identify 75 different animals (not insects, except for butterflies)
30. Jump rope 75 times
31. Do 75 hikes
32. Collect 75 rocks for the zen garden
33. Pick 75 wildflowers and make an arrangement in every room
34. Go to 75 places you haven't been to before
35. Take 75 minutes of doing nothing
36. Visit 75 of your closest friends
37. Bring home a stone from each walk you take and make a pile in the yard
38. Stretch and dance for 75 minutes, uninterrupted
39. Get a 75-minute massage
40. Collect 75 items to put on an altar on you 75th birthday
41. Take 75 naps
LISTS
36. Write 75 memories of other people
37. Make a list of your 75 favorite books
38. Make a list of 75 places I want to visit or things I want to do
39. Make a list of people who accomplished big things after the age of 75
40. Make a list of 75 things I love about Ela, Mike, sisters, friends, things I do
41. List 75 favorite hikes I've done – with an adjective for each
42. Write down a memory from each year of my life
43. List 75 quotes from messages from friends and family
COMMUNITY
44. Ask 75 people for ideas for the list (DONE: July 22, 2018)
45. Donate $75 to your favorite charity (to your favorite non-profit newspaper, i.e., the Applegater)
46. Get 75 $1 bills and tip "those wonderful baristas" one bill at a time
47. Invite 75 friends to your birthday event
48. Write 75 political action emails, letters, phone calls
49. Send emails to 75 friends asking for monetary birthday gifts of $.75, $7.50, $75.00, $750 that I would donate to my choice of political or environmental group
MISCELLANEOUS
50. Give 75 compliments
51. Give 75 kisses
52. Try 75 different types of chocolate
53. Try 75 new wines
54. Respectfully ask 75 people for one spanking each
55. Spend $75 at the store, no more, no less
56. Eat 75 blueberries for breakfast
57. Count 75 sheep before going to sleep
CRAFTS
1. String 75 rosebuds or beads
2. Make 75 cards for 75 friends to mail on my birthday
3. Collect 75 favorite photographs and put them into a book
4. Find 75 rocks and make an Andy Goldsworthy-style art piece for my zen garden
5. Make a trivet with 75 wine bottle corks
6. Create a collage of 75 pieces (or a collage representing each year of your life)
7. Cook 75 new dishes
8. Bake 75 cookies and give to 75 strangers
9. Make an embroidery piece or quilt with 75 panels
10. Make 75 origami Christmas tree ornaments
11. Knit a shawl based on knit 1, purl 1, for 75 stitches in a row
12. Press 75 flowers
WRITING AND LEARNING
13. Write something with 75 words (poem, essay, blog post)
14. Write 75 poems
15. Keep a book and blog post of all the 75s I'm doing
16. Write 75 prayers for the planet and humanity
17. Write about 75 places you love and why
18. Work 75 New York Times crossword puzzles
19. Learn to say "hi" in 75 languages; or learn 75 new words in one language; or learn to count to 75 in a new language
20. Add 75 new words to your vocabulary
21. Memorize 75 lines of poetry
ACTIVE
22. Begin each morning with 75 deep breaths; or do deep breathing 3 times a day in sets of twenty-five
23. Go on a 75-mile hike
24. Find 75 different kinds of leaves
25. Hug 75 trees
26. Plant 75 daffodils (or other flowers)
27. Plant 75 poppy seeds
28. Identify 75 different botanical items on one hike
29. See and identify 75 different animals (not insects, except for butterflies)
30. Jump rope 75 times
31. Do 75 hikes
32. Collect 75 rocks for the zen garden
33. Pick 75 wildflowers and make an arrangement in every room
34. Go to 75 places you haven't been to before
35. Take 75 minutes of doing nothing
36. Visit 75 of your closest friends
37. Bring home a stone from each walk you take and make a pile in the yard
38. Stretch and dance for 75 minutes, uninterrupted
39. Get a 75-minute massage
40. Collect 75 items to put on an altar on you 75th birthday
41. Take 75 naps
LISTS
36. Write 75 memories of other people
37. Make a list of your 75 favorite books
38. Make a list of 75 places I want to visit or things I want to do
39. Make a list of people who accomplished big things after the age of 75
40. Make a list of 75 things I love about Ela, Mike, sisters, friends, things I do
41. List 75 favorite hikes I've done – with an adjective for each
42. Write down a memory from each year of my life
43. List 75 quotes from messages from friends and family
COMMUNITY
44. Ask 75 people for ideas for the list (DONE: July 22, 2018)
45. Donate $75 to your favorite charity (to your favorite non-profit newspaper, i.e., the Applegater)
46. Get 75 $1 bills and tip "those wonderful baristas" one bill at a time
47. Invite 75 friends to your birthday event
48. Write 75 political action emails, letters, phone calls
49. Send emails to 75 friends asking for monetary birthday gifts of $.75, $7.50, $75.00, $750 that I would donate to my choice of political or environmental group
MISCELLANEOUS
50. Give 75 compliments
51. Give 75 kisses
52. Try 75 different types of chocolate
53. Try 75 new wines
54. Respectfully ask 75 people for one spanking each
55. Spend $75 at the store, no more, no less
56. Eat 75 blueberries for breakfast
57. Count 75 sheep before going to sleep
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