Lists

My life is governed by  lists.

I make a to-do list every single day, whether I'm at work or hanging out around the house. I make them on the weekends. I make them when I go on vacations. I write them down on legal pads, on scrap paper, on checklists on my phone. I get an incredible feeling of satisfaction from crossing things off the lists. I am uneasy when that to-do list still has all of its items listed on it at the end of the day.

I make immense lists of the books I want to read, the historical sites I want to visit, the films I need to watch, the pieces of writing I'd like to do. I keep these lists on my desk at work, with a photo of them on my phone so that if, say, I'm at the library and I can't decide on a book to check out, I can whip the list out of my purse and think Oh yeah, I never did read The Glass Key. Or, Oh God, what was I thinking? I'm never going to read Moby Dick and I have to come to terms with it.

I love lists.

***

This week I crossed something off my bucket list.

I haven't been great about what's on my bucket list. There are the big things I want to achieve: write a book about the Scopes Trial, go to Gettysburg, see The Royal Shakespeare Company perform Hamlet. But as far as the smaller things, things like "Seeing the Dred Scott Courthouse Site" don't occur to me until afterward. I've always wanted to see General Sherman's graveside, but it was never on the bucket list. More than that, I put a ton of things on the list that don't actually matter to me, but are reflections of . . . the people I'm dating? The friends I've made? I don't know, but they don't belong there. So usually when I "cross something off my bucket list" it's because I've decided that it shouldn't have been there in the first place.

This was not one of those. This was an actual ohmygodIcan'tbelievethatactuallyhappened moments. I'm pleased there's photographic evidence of it happening because I'd be tempted to think that I dreamed it otherwise.

I met my favorite author.

I've met a number of authors that I admire throughout the course of my life. It's the gift of going to a college that takes bringing in writers to talk about writing very seriously. I remember all of the questions I asked them, what they said to me as they signed my books. Sarah Vowell and I talked about the Kennedy assassination. I told Billy Collins my mother hated my poetry but loved his. I laughed so loudly from the second row of a David Sedaris reading that he shot me a look. 

This was different. It was, simply, too intense to describe. I can't even remember what this man said to me when I said hello and told him what I had to tell him. I can say that he was very, very kind to a sweaty, shaky, stuttery, earnest young woman. And that when I made it back out to my car I cried. And I walked away deeply grateful for this man and his work. 

When I got back to my bucket list on Tuesday afternoon I looked at it for a long moment before reaching out to scratch the item off. 

***

I feel like a failure. 

This week has been a messy, emotional one for me. In the space of seven days, I flew to St. Louis, attended one of my good friend's wedding, spent the 4th of July at the site where Dred Scott was tried, visited a ton of Civil War graves, flew back to Minnesota, met this author, came back up to the North Country and packed the rest of my house. I'm not complaining. It was a really good week.

But now that my entire life is in boxes, now that the internet has been disconnected, and my clothes have been sorted into vacation, second vacation, need after first move, can be stored until after second move suitcases, now that I've read literally all the books left in my house I find myself with a little too much time on my hands. 

Of course I would use that time for unproductive self-reflection. 

I feel like a failure. 

I confide this to exactly one person during the course of the week in a moment of profound vulnerability that I hate myself for later. 

***

I'm slinking out of the North Country.

I'll admit it. This place whupped me. The winters were too dark, too cold, too snowy. The summers (ha!) were brief and cool. The people were (with a few notable exceptions) distant. The goddamn roads have potholes that could take off your front wheel. 

When I moved here two years ago, I didn't know if it was permanent, but I anticipated leaving with some indications of success. A boyfriend (or at least, a relationship that lasted longer than my normal six months), a hugely successful professional tenure, I was going to write my book, figure out how to be a spiritually fulfilled adult without being Catholic, finally learn to play my harmonica . . .

I did not succeed here.

More than that, I suspect I could have succeeded here. I could have made this city work, these people open up to me. I could have adapted to snow and darkness and cold. I could have done it. I could have done it if I had gone to see a therapist earlier. I could have done it if I had started taking anti-depressants. I could have done it if I just learned how to be happy. 

But I didn't. I didn't accomplish any of those things on my North Country list. And now instead of leaving amid tearful going away parties, poetic break-ups, and enormously lucrative counter-offers, I am sneaking out of town with as little fanfare as possible. 

***

I feel like a failure. 

I feel like even more of a failure for opening up the way I did this week. For getting shaky and struggling not to cry while I said "This book saved my life." For admitting that this part of the country pushed me right up to the brink and left me mess that I've been slowly sorting out. For saying out loud "I couldn't make this work."

***

Somehow, despite never having added "Surround yourself with kind people" to a list, that is exactly what I've managed to do. When I stutter out what I want to say to the author he pauses and reaches out for my hand and lets me give him a hug. While I'm mentally slapping myself for admitting to failing here in the North, I receive a thoughtful, insightful response that burns me with its compassion.

I'm never going to be able to shake the habit of writing out lists for myself, like I'll never be able to stop measuring success by what I've managed to cross off. But I hope that I've finally managed to learn to put the right things on the list.