Lists

     I have started the final round of list making concerning my upcoming voyage. What to mail.  What to buy here, because it's too expensive to buy in France.  What clothing to take.  What extras to have.  What checks to write ahead of time for bills that will come due while I am gone.  I have to get to France just to get a respite from all the lists.

     It makes me wonder just how the pioneers and immigrants made it across the continent and the oceans.  I wonder if they made lists, too. I might suggest that perhaps they didn't have to struggle with so many possessions.

     Every morning I start the day with a to-do list.  It's a compulsion.  It's not all bad, for it gives shape to my day and allows me to feel like I have accomplished something during my waking hours.  I have to write this list first thing in the morning, even before I write my three journal pages.  If I don't, my "morning pages" turn into a to-do list and that's not the point of the pages.  Sometime  in the near future I will look inward and really examine this need to make lists and then mark through them with red lines. What would happen if a day passed by and I accomplished nothing?

    Certainly the list is useful for making sure that nothing essential gets left behind.  Lists of clothing.  Lists of toiletries. Soap, toothpase and shampoo-- I can buy in France. Clothing and shoes would be iffy.  I am so much larger than the French. Finding shoes would be especially problematic.  And a list of electronics--and the chargers and batteries associated with them.  Headphones? Probably not. My favorite CD's (at least as of this moment)--probably not.  Instead, I will load them on to my computer; that way I will have them.  Kindle, camera, laptop....There have to be some benefits to all these gadgets--but saving space and weight in my luggage doesn't seem belong on that list.

 

     I am happy to use list-making as a tool, but has it become an end in itself? I am trying, in this new phase of my life, to become even more self aware and to be mindful; however this learning to just "be" is taking some work. I am hoping that my upcoming days in France will help.  I don't want to  get so busy making lists of things I have to accomplish that I miss the smell of the river and the sunlight on the castle walls.