New Attitude

I’ll put it on my list of “things to do in my lifetime”.  This has been my mantra when I find something that interests me, totally titillates me or stirs my imagination.  These “things to do” don’t seem to ever get to the top of my priorities and sadly, never get experienced.  Somehow real life gets in the way and I don’t get around to some of the stuff that memories are made of.

But that is about to change. New Year – New Attitude.  I am not getting any younger, my list is not getting any shorter and I have the health and the energy to accomplish the tasks (I am single-handedly fighting the saying that youth is wasted on the young!).  I will cast aside all uncertainties and excuses.  Encouraged by a Dr. Seuss’ book, “Oh, The Thinks You Can Think” (if you ever get the chance, reread these great children’s books… they may not be only for kids after all) and enticed by “1,000 Places to See Before You Die” (even though that title is a bit intimidating, and its not the magnitude that gets to me – what were they thinking when they titled this book?), I am ready and willing to set forth where no man (or woman) has gone before (okay, well, maybe I will take some well worn paths – there is something to be said about learning from others).

If you don’t have a list and feel that you are not a complete and interesting individual without one, snap out of it! It is not difficult to start a list, or add to it when you mix a little imagination with some reckless abandon and the desire for knowledge.  When I combine a profound passage from Dr. Seuss, “Think! Think and wonder. Wonder and think.  How much water can fifty-five elephants drink?” with page 361 of the “Before you Die” book” and the delights and promise of the largest grazing herd of elephants in the Chobe National Park in Southern Africa, I have an ultimate experience in the waiting.  This is how simple adding to the “list” can be.

Think outside the box.  Put yourself in a slightly uncomfortable spot and out of your normal zone and see how good it feels when you pop out on the other side with your new experience, new talent or new friends in tact.

I am knocking off one of the things that is on my list and I have wanted to do for a long while.  Learn to knit.  Okay, so it isn’t a great safari in the depths of a great continent (I thought I would put that one on hold until I am certain my child can appreciate the excursion – we took him to Disney World when he was 2 and he can’t remember much except the Dumbo ride and I can’t get my Snookums to venture back anywhere close to an amusement park again… timing is of the essence) and I can do it while visiting with friends at Starbucks, but it is something that I have wanted to do.  A dear friend with great patience taught me how to cast on – she doesn’t think I am ready for casting off… yet. I will have fruit of my labor (what does one do with a 60 foot scarf?) and the best thing, I have been able to scratch it off my list.  Onward and upward!  Watch out list!  Watch out world!

Cynthia A. McClelland, curious observer of the obvious with interpretations of the oddities of daily life.  Mother, wife and lover of the furry, resides in the north Lake Tahoe area.                      

Cynthia A. McClelland © 2003-