Precious Things

About a month ago, Kate Bowler published this op-ed in the New York Times, and her question has lived rent-free in my head ever since:

What’s a precious thing in your life that would never be assigned to a bucket list?

I was stunned by the first image that fell into my brain:

It is Fall 1991, and I am walking across BYU’s campus, crunching as many dead leaves as I possibly can. I can’t remember seeing so many different colors of leaves up close—bright reds and yellows with occasional oranges and browns. It’s chilly enough that I’m wearing a coat, with my treasured cassette Walkman tucked into my pocket, listening to a tape my dad dubbed for me before I left Montana. On one side, Gershwin’s Rhapsody in Blue and American in Paris. On the other, a lesser-known Gershwin composition titled “Lullaby for Strings.” This precious moment, I’m listening to the lullaby. The cool air, crunchy leaves, and comforting music soaks up my stress and slows my walk. I try to parse out the four different instruments, focusing on a violin one minute, cello the next, but eventually lose interest in tracking the individual instruments and succumb to the beauty of the group.

I could never assign those moments, walking across campus with various genres of music buttressing my homesickness and imposter syndrome, to a bucket list. I could never imagine crafting those exact sequences of moments and saying “This. This is what I want to do before I die.” But they are moments I repeated many times in my three years at BYU that when I think about it, or when I take the time to listen to “Lullaby for Strings,” still fills me with a cozy calm that all can be right in my world.

I love lists of all kinds–read these books, see these movies, visit these places. I feel a such satisfaction when I look at a list and think, “Okay. I’ve experienced these things. This means I have lived.” But does completing any list really mean that I’ve lived?

I’ve been slumpy since the school year started, off my game in nearly every aspect of my life. Many different factors play into my slump, but this week I’ve started to make concrete plans to pull myself out of it. First up?

More identifying precious things. Less living by lists.