What a year it's been! I have loved the challenges, the memories, the crafts, the involvement of friends. It has all been so much fun. How can I summarize it all and do credit to it?
I could start with Mike. Again and again I pulled him into a project. "Let's go to Redwoods National Park so I can hug a redwood tree." "I want to collect driftwood to woodburn words onto. Do you want to go to the coast with me?" "I need a wooden base for my trivet of 75 wine corks. Can you make me one?" He dug holes for me to plant 75 daffodil bulbs. He joined me on many of the 75 hikes, and they were more fun because he was there. He did the 75-mile hike with me, down the Rogue River trail and back up again. We went to the Klamath National Wildlife Refuge because I needed to see more birds and to the Wildlife Safari in Roseburg because I needed more animals for my list. Maybe his favorite of my 75s was to try 75 new wines. I served him a lot of the 75 new dishes I cooked. We worked a lot of the 75 crossword puzzles together, and since that was his item, he didn't consider it a cheat that I didn't do all 75 by myself (although I did do that, too). He quizzed me on "Hello. What's your name? Good-bye" in 75 languages and listened to recitations of the 75-line poem, "Frost at Midnight." He made a 75s donation to the Applegater. Day after day he endured my year-long obsession as I reported on the latest conversation with a stranger or how many pieces of trash I had picked up on Thompson Creek Road, read him the latest 75-word poem or showed him the 75 origami ornaments. From the day I thought of doing 75 things of 75 repetitions each – while I was hiking with him and my son, Ela, on my 74th birthday – to the last item to be checked off the list, Mike has shared the project with me. That has been one of the best things about it.
Another way to summarize the project is to make "best" awards, as in:
Most Challenging Item: Learning to say "Hello. What's your name? Good-bye" in 75 languages. My granddaughter gave me that challenge, and what a great idea it was! I learned a bit of geography (e.g., Chiwewa is spoken in Zaire, Mozambique, and Malawi), noted similarities in languages (variations of "nom" for "name" in some languages, of "ignoa" for "name" in others), national customs reflected in language – different words when addressing one person or more than one, the necessity of bowing along with greetings, the different greetings and bows according to the social standing of the person greeted. My YouTube source for Balinese said that to say good-bye, one says, "Om, shanti, shanti, shanti om" – "three times," he emphasized, but I wonder how well modern young people adhere to that custom. I will be so sorry when I start forgetting these languages.
Other "most challenging": The 75-mile hike turned out to be not nearly as challenging as it sounded, but going to 75 new places was harder than I had expected because I hadn't realized what a rut I run in – same restaurants, same routes, same stores, even the same trails to hike. Coming up with a memory for each year of my life was challenging, too, not so much for finding the memory but for straightening out the year it happened in. I'm not very good with dates.
Most fun: They were all fun, but I especially enjoyed hugging 75 trees. All the crafts were fun – the knitting, quilting, embroidery, collage, cooking. I loved making all the books and writing the poems. It was fun talking to a man from the Philippines and asking him his name in Togalog. The whole thing was fun all year 'round.
Most difficult: Probably drawing 75 botanical species from my land. I'm far from a botanical artist, so the drawing was difficult, but I liked walking all over my 32 acres trying to find new plants (that I could identify and that I was willing to try to draw), and I found that the inscription in the book was apt: "Enjoy your time in nature." Those moments I spent sitting in the forest, focused on a plant, were indeed enjoyable.
Other "most difficult": I don't like to ask friends for money, even for a good cause, but the outpouring of donations for the Applegater, in combinations of 75 ($.75, $75, 3x$7.50, etc.) was uplifting and made the difficult moment of asking worth it. Thanks to everyone who contributed, from the three quarters my granddaughter sent me in the mail to the check for $750 from my friend who suggested this item. It was difficult to count 75 sheep before going to bed because I kept falling asleep before I got to 75. I had such a hard time finding 75 pieces of music "that moved or delighted me" that I augmented the list, at the end, with a handful of theater experiences, theater being as meaningful to me as music. But one thing I learned as I worked on the 75s was to tweak the suggestion to fit my circumstances.
Easiest: Eating 75 blueberries for breakfast. What kept the 75-minute massage from being the easiest item was that it was hard to make it end after 75 minutes.
The one I most regret having to drop from the list: The 75 swims. Maybe I could have done them if the smoke hadn't been so bad last summer that I was forced to stay indoors. Then it was winter, and by the time warm enough weather for swimming came along, I added up days and realized that even if I were able to take an hour's drive every day to swim in the Applegate Lake, which wouldn't have been possible, anyway, I didn't have enough days left to finish the 75 swims. Some people suggested I swim at the Y, but that isn't my kind of swimming.
Other regrets: I really liked the suggestion to visit 75 friends. I thought it would motivate me to see friends who live at a distance and whom I seldom see as well as many friends who live in the area who deserve a visit. Alas, it didn't happen. I finally admitted to myself that I didn't have time to do all that visiting, even though it was a very good idea. Maybe I'll just stretch it out beyond my 75th year and try to visit 75 friends even yet.
The 75 hikes and skis were great.
Biggest surprise: Not only that I could meditate for 75 minutes but that I enjoyed it as well. I was also surprised that I could pick up a jumprope (first time since childhood!) and jump 75 times and like it enough to do it for 75 days and that I liked running 75 yards so much I doubled it before I stopped.
No surprise: That I never did get over not wanting to talk to strangers. Often it was fun and I came away with warm feelings for that stranger. Other times I came away thinking, with irritation, "That's why I don't like talking to strangers." Still, as my sister said, it was good for me.
Most satisfactory: Writing 75 poems of 75 words each.
Most gratifying: That so many friends participated with such enthusiasm. Many of them will be here to celebrate with me on my birthday this Saturday, the culmination of the 75x75s. It will be a grand party, my thank-you to them for giving me this year of challenge and fun.
Most worrisome: What will I do with myself now that the 75s are over?
No comments:
Post a Comment