Ten Adventures Calling My Name

Time for that Tuesday Ten again, hosted by Crystal over at Straight On Till Morning. Hop on over there to join up and show off your own ten!

Here are ten things I would drop everything and do for myself, given the means. This list could go on for days and days, as I want to know everything and be everywhere and live every moment in huge ways, so it's probably good that I can only include ten. I felt a little guilty while thinking about this list, since it is all about me, but perhaps that gives me ten things to tell you about that I'd love to do for other people... next time!

Ten Little Life Experiences I Yearn To Have

1. Sell everything, buy one of them new-fangled RV machines, and tour the continent. Like this family.

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2. Go away for a bit to a quiet writer's residency, like this one. Or perhaps this one in Ireland.

3. Hike the Appalachian Trail, from Georgia to Maine.

4. Quit my job and start up a non-profit organization to write with at-risk youth and women survivor's of domestic abuse. Like this amazing organization that works with at-risk teen girls in New York.

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5. Start my own school. No, seriously. That's another post, entirely. Because my school would be the bomb-diggity. You can trust me, even though I say things like bomb-diggity.

6. Buy a ridiculously large plot of land and build homes for all my peeps. Is this creepy? It's not like I would make them live there. I mean, probably not. Like, not all the time.

7. Buy a funky two-story building in a University town. Turn the downstairs into a bookstore and coffee shop with a space for open mic nights. Play only local music in the store, and have their music for sale, along with a case at the front of the store to sell local artist's jewelry and other miscellany. Feature local artist's painting and photography on the walls. Upstairs, create spaces for meeting rooms, gaming rooms, and let people rent out the space to teach artsy and other classes. This store is picture perfect in my mind, and has been for several years.

Maybe with sweet gondola like this store.

8. Write the two professional development books rattling around in my brain. One is a manifesto on teaching with kindness. The other, a book on using mentor text poems to teach grammar and the craft of writing.

9. Go to this 10-day meditation retreat in Kaufman, Texas. (Are we sensing a pattern, yet?)

10. And finally, as I've wanted to do since I was a weird and thoughtful little 13 year old me, travel to the Galapagos Islands and get lost for a bit. My heart is still a little broken that it's not the solitary wilderness wonderland it once was; I missed the time before hotels and tourists, but that doesn't strip away my desire to plant my own two feet on this magical little nook of our globe.

Land iguanas are sort of like punk chameleons. Can't you hear him calling my name?

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