thirty things to do before i'm thirty

I love the waiting: the night before Christmas, the last day of school, the interminable hours before a long-awaited date. These days before seem a celebration unto themselves, as important as the Main Event because they lay down a floor of silence upon which the new thing may gingerly step forth.

So perhaps it is natural that I have begun to think of myself as hovering on the edge of thirty, though I'm not yet even twenty-nine. I know I am edging closer and closer to a year that is defined by what it precedes. I want this to be a year of joy and life and creation.





And to that end, I've made a list of thirty things I'd like to do before I turn thirty, thirty things that represent the person that is being revealed in me, more warm and welcome to me than she was at twenty, though she is even now a stranger to me:

1. Take an art class.

2. Knit something I like enough to wear.

3. Publish something I’ve written.

4. See fall in Maine.

5. Apply to three graduate programs I like.

6. Take a road trip somewhere I’ve never been.

7. Find and make a great granola recipe.

8. Create art in a public space.

9. Read five books on the list of 1001 Books to Read Before You Die.

10. Act in a play.

11. Hold a dinner party in our backyard with candles in the trees.

12. Model nude for an art class.

13. Record a song.

14. Go on a picnic.

15. Kayak or canoe on the Charles River.

16. See the Northern Lights in Iceland.

17. Travel around Europe.

18. Sell two of my photographs.

19. Learn to reupholster chairs.

20. Leave encouraging messages in public places.

21. Paint a mural.

22. Kiss someone worth kissing.

23. Attend a writing conference.

24. Go camping.

25. Tattoo myself with a message I need to hear.

26. Write on my blog every day for a month.

27. Write real letters to seven friends.

28. Plant a garden.

29. Memorize two poems I would like to whisper in someone’s ear.

30. Do something that surprises even me.

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