Notes from the Road: There Is No Bucket List

Last updated on: June 27, 2016 at 11:00 am by Anne Kennedy

Notes from the Road: There Is No Bucket List 2016-06-27T11:00:53-04:00 Anne Kennedy

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Matt’s been sending me pictures of the garden. So amazing how it just rises up out of the ground without me doing anything. Well, I mean, other than initially planting things that come back every year. Although, several times I have planted pretty things thinking they were only for one year, but then they come back every year anyway and spread out in every direction.

Today we’re going on to Portland after way way way too brief a time in Eugene. Eugene really does make Ithaca look amateur–pretenders to the spirit of relaxation and bike lanes. There is even a real playground here, with a metal slide, and a hint of risk.

We have two and a half more days of ease and beauty and then begins the long and probably very unpleasant drive east. It won’t be all bad. The scenery should be lovely, and we get to stop once to see family and once for a wedding, and then on towards home. The best part, of course, is that we’re traveling in a minivan and not a covered wagon with Wolves nipping at our heels.

I must say, I am ready to turn my steps towards home, or rather Matt. It will be six weeks all told, by the time we limp across the Susquehanna. That’s quite a long time. I should remember this and never complain that we never go anywhere. This year we’ve been everywhere and yet there is still so much that we didn’t see.

This is why I couldn’t possibly assemble for myself a bucket list. First of all, I am not guaranteed time enough in this life to accomplish anything. I am not even guaranteed tomorrow. But also, I am pretty sure that the places usually assembled for such a list, being known by lots and lots of people, are not really the true places or experiences that propel one along past discouragement and gray skies. For example, the village where I grew up in Africa is not on anyone’s bucket list, and when you go to Mali, no one reminds you to be sure and stop there. No, you go north to Timbuktu, and the Dogon. And, really, now that I’m thinking about it, do you even go to Mali? And even if you did put my village on the list and go there, you wouldn’t know what to look for–the particular silkiness of the sand along one section of path going down to the stream, the early morning sounds of people getting up and getting ready to go work the fields, the view from the kitchen window. And I haven’t even got to the people.

We’re going to see people not things, I keep saying to the children, and they have started saying it to each other. And this is good, but also a great sorrow, because it would be so great to see things. But I, as I have held tight my vibrating steering wheel and chewed yet more gum, am calculating two Great Hopes.

One, heaven will be for people. The briefness of these hellos and the pathos of the goodbyes is only possible because this isn’t all there is. When our Lord finally returns we won’t have to say goodbye any more, to anyone. I don’t think I need to grow lyrical about this because if you’ve ever had to say goodbye, and not known when the next moment of locking eyes will be, well, then you will understand the Christian’s great longing for the resurrection.

But also, Two, heaven will be for places. Because it’s not really heaven we’re looking forward to, it’s the New Heaven and the New Earth, which includes the earth. And so, when you’re clattering past some gorgeous scenic overlook and thinking, ‘dammit, I’m probably not going to see that before I die’ you can console yourself that when all humanity has collectively kicked the bucket, our Lord will burn up the bucket with fire, chuck the list out the window, and give us eternity, which is plenty of time, to be with each other, gaping at every single scenic overlook.

And so, back into the car, and away with the tears, because, “if we hope for what we do not see, we wait for it with patience.”

Traveling with Children

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