Ten is a short list of anything, particularly when I consider how many books I have read and movies I have seen. How many vacations, meals, TV shows. Recipes. Restaurants. Breaths! (Do you have a top ten favourite breaths?) Epiphanies or otherwise pivotal moments. Countries. Seasons. (Yeah, there are only four “official” seasons…) Artists, musicians; paintings and albums. I could probably even dig out ten references to sculptures I like, even though 3D art just isn’t my thing. Planets… Universes! I could go on. I could make a top ten list of the top then things I’d like to make lists of. Being the person I am, that list would actually be a list of lists. I’d have to break down my hobbies into categories. Then group my lists.
Back to my original point. Ten is a relatively small number. Ten of anything isn’t a great sample of, well, anything. Yet the internet is populated with top ten lists. We seem obsessed with identifying the best of the best. And compiling a list of a hundred takes too much time. Most of us aren’t being paid to ramble. (Some of us just enjoy it.)
So, I’ve been thinking about my own top ten lists. I’ve been working on them, and what I’ve discovered is that it’s really hard to pick just ten of anything. Ten breaths is impossible because I’ve been here for over forty-five years and if I hadn’t taken some horribly huge number of breaths I’d be dead. More than ten of them have to have been incredible. Ten recipes is equally impossible. The ones I recycle week after week for my family don’t count…unless I count those as my top ten “go to” recipes. You know, the convenient ones. The stuff I can slap together in ten (just ten!) minutes and not look like a really bad mother.
Actually, I enjoy cooking, I just sometimes run out of time. I get caught up compiling lists and writing blog posts and stories and reading and playing games and so on.
My daughter is healthy.
Back to my original post. While it is difficult to narrow any list to just ten choices, what the process does is force you to really think about the qualities that make something special. What makes that book or movie worthy, or simply memorable? That’s the thing, you see. Sometimes the most memorable moments aren’t necessarily the best. Sometimes they’re simply, well, memorable. There was an emotional component, or it happened in conjunction with something else. The view outside that pizzeria or the strain of a song you sorta liked really, really compliments that scene in a movie. Transformative moments can alter our perception of just about everything.
But that’s another blog post entirely.
What is becoming increasingly obvious is that I am unlikely to narrow down my lists of everything into ten of anything. But, I am going to try.
I’ll start with books. Look for my post, or a message I went quietly mad, soon.
Kelly Jensen 
I was cracking up reading this.
Mostly the, “My daughter is healthy,” statement.
I feel you though. I feel like I don’t have enough time in the day to do anything. My current health is something I’m unsure of.
I really love this idea though. Possibly because I have such a HORRENDOUS time trying not to ramble, and at narrowing things that I like down to any small grouping – especially rating them – and it would be challenging.
But I really do like the fact that it seriously could make you stop and think about the things that are important to you and for whatever reasons they are.
And now I’m wishing that I’d thought of this idea because, I’ll tell you what . . . I have the HARDEST time trying to think of anything in this world to blog about. And I love lists. My gosh, do I ever love lists.
Thanks for the note!
Lists are awesome. I love lists. I inherited the need to make lists from my dad.
As for rambling, yeah. Go ahead and read my attempt to choose just ten books. I rambled to the point of boring myself.