Creating Your Own Personal List of Excellences

In 1983, I was much younger, much more single, much more foolhardy. The following article is based upon an incident that occurred on a bus trip to Indianapolis during the college holiday break. It's one of my Jack Kerouac moments. I graduated from a dreary little high school in a dreary little town in the middle of Michigan. in 1982, we were struggling to free ourselves from recession. Most major businesses had raised the white flag set sail on a Chinese junque (literally and figuratively). You couldn't buy or steal a job.

I wanted to go to the places I'd read about. Soho. The Newport Jazz Festival. I didn't. Instead, I bought a round trip bus ticket to Indianapolis to see my mother. But I was determined that if I could not find adventure, adventure could still find me. And I was right. As I waited in line to board the bus at the old Greyhound station on Market St.in Grand Rapids, I met a real person. 'Excuse me,' the effeminate, aging man leaned in to lisp, 'but are those your real eyelashes?' Now while I do enhance with mascara, I've always been just a little vain about my long eyelashes.

I explained the about the mascara, but that indeed they were my own. My new friend said with a trace of longing, that he had once known a woman with eyelashes as long and dark as mine that required no mascara. Evidently I'd passed muster, but only just. We found seats on the bus and being deep in conversation by this time, insisted that we sit together. My seatmate explained that he was a former professor of literature and being all of a college sophomore, full of philosophy, psychology and theories, I considered him the guru of all things wise and wonderful.

As so many traveling companion conversations do, ours flowed effortlessly from subject to subject. As strangers who will doubtless never meet again, discussions can delve deep with no fear of coming back to haunt you. My friend began to propound his theory of making a personal 'list of excellences'. 'Oh', said I, 'you mean a list of favorite things?' To which he replied, that no, a list of excellences was something more comprehensive. Creating your own personal list of excellences was like making a focal point for one's thoughts to dwell upon, particularly when one is forced to face the gloomy and more sordid aspect of life. A personal list of excellences can be a coping mechanism for escaping from mediocrity.

I suppose that it's similar to Julie Andrews' list of favorite things that comforts one when one is feeling sad, only on a deeper, more metaphysical, less plebeian level. A personal list of excellences gives one a heightened sense of awareness and calls one to the higher purposes in life. At least that's how my mentor explained it. That said, I encourage your to create a personal list of excellences to comfort your soul in times of stress. As St. Paul says, 'whatever is good and pure and lovely, think on these things.' Here is some of my list to spur on your thinking.

- babies

-the sound of men's laughter

-seeing children swinging on a playground

-a cat curled upon my lap

-jazz music

-autumn leaves

-the smell of Eastern Hemlock

-homemade applesauce

-a stout pair of walking shoes

-plush comforters

-secondhand book stores with ceiling high shelves and a librarian's ladder

-cheese samples in the grocery store

-a large garden salad with dark green lettuce

-the smell of a tomato fresh from the garden and warm from the sun

-my herb garden

-Picasso's 'The Guitarist'

-reading vintage mysteries by low lighting

-holding hands with my children or husband

-a golden harvest moon

May you find your list of excellences and be comforted by them.

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