I am part of the cult of Bruce Springsteen. I have been attending his concerts for 31 years.
He is the artist I have seen the most, and I have to say his most recent show with the E Street Band was the very best concert experience ever.
My husband and I flew to New Jersey for this concert so I could finally, after 31 years, see Bruce play on his home turf.
There is nothing better than 50,000 Bruce fans in New Jersey singing along. The icing on the cake is that my cousin and his wife from Jersey were sitting with us at the show. This is my cousin with whom I lost contact with at the age of 5, and he found me 36 years later.
He is my long-lost cousin. So here we were, a reunified family, screaming our lungs out at a Springsteen concert in New Jersey.
It doesn’t get better than this.
I realize that this concert, this full-bodied experience with my cousin and his wife, my husband and Bruce and the band was an experience of a lifetime for me. It was from my bucket list.
That is, if I had a bucket list. I haven’t really sat down and thought about my bucket list. But having had this experience, I know in my heart, this was a custom-order from my bucket list.
I’m not really convinced that I have understood the importance of the bucket list until I experienced the 50,000 Bruce fans shouting in my ears for three hours. It woke me up.
I’m always saying that I live each day like it’s my last. In some ways I do, but in some ways I don’t. What I mean is that if I were hit by a bus tomorrow, I would feel like I have truly loved, and that I am at peace with the life I lived.
The bucket list is like an insurance policy. I don’t want to be too sick or too old, or only have a few months to left to realize that there are things on my wish list to do.
So, I came home all inspired and joined a choir. Singing in a choir is on my bucket list. This choir gig is no easy feat. I have zero choir singing experience, and there are some opera singers in this particular choir. South Whidbey Island is a small community, and the kind-hearted vision of this choir is to accept anyone into the community choir. I am singing my heart out, off-key, and learning Christmas tunes, which is truly a big stretch: I am Jewish.
The thing about a bucket list is that, if I wait for this choir to get more diverse in song choices, I may miss out. I just want to sing in a big choir, and be one small voice with many, and do it my home town.
Something about singing in your own back yard, I get it Bruce.
Sarri Gilman is a freelance writer living on Whidbey Island and director of Leadership Snohomish County. Her column on living with meaning and purpose runs every other Tuesday in The Herald. You can e-mail her at features@heraldnet.com.
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