The list of hills
A notebook of every hill climbed since childhood, and what a thirty-year list teaches about finishing things.
The first entry is in my father’s handwriting: a hill behind my grandmother’s house, the date, and “carried most of the way”. The latest is from last month, a dry, rocky hill that starts right behind a small station, so close that the walk began at the roundabout.
There are two hundred and twelve entries. The list has no goal, no target number, and no rules except that a hill counts only if you reach the top on foot.
A list that cannot be finished
Most lists exist to be completed. This one exists to be kept. Reading it back, the dates show the shape of a life more honestly than a diary would: long gaps for exams and a new job, a cluster of small local hills the year my daughter learned to walk.
Keep the kind of list you would be glad never to finish.