On Navigating Uncertainty

March 20, 2020 by Laura Carney

I know some people are starting to get really scared now. As usual, over the past three years, my reaction has been paradoxical to this.

I’ve been doing a lot of soul-searching to uncover why this might be and I’ve come up with a few reasons. Decided I ought to post them here because they might help one or a few of you. (I’ve set them against my photos from my visit to the San Gabriel Mission in Los Angeles in October, part of my research to check off “teach a class about wine.” I haven’t shared these photos anywhere yet—but it was a very holy place.)

Disclaimer: I am no professional life coach or therapist or any of the sort. I’m just a woman on an adventure learning as she goes along, wanting to help.

Some Thoughts on St. Patrick's Day 2020

March 17, 2020 by Laura Carney

How ironic it seems that the world should be self-isolating right around the most social holiday of the year.

I was curious about this timing—not just because clearly the social distancing our governments are calling for requires some adjustments to my own project, but because, like many of you, I’ve been curious as to what this great change in lifestyle might do to us as a people.

Particularly on a holiday when most people go out for a few beers.

So I looked up the story of St. Patrick. Here are a few things I hadn’t known.

This Year So Far: Working Hard...Meeting Cool People...Wearing New Threads...Seeing the Big Game...and Exploring Paradise

March 04, 2020 by Laura Carney

Lots of exciting stuff has been happening around here lately, so I figured I owed you all a post.

As many of you know, I’ve mostly been posting behind-the-scenes shots on Instagram the past two years, and saving the whole story for the book I’m writing. So if you want to follow along on my adventures, Instagram will give you the best look—for now.

As for the book.

I finally signed with an agent this year. How this happened is a long story…but, well here’s how I felt.

What's Left to Finish by December 31, 2020

November 19, 2019 by Laura Carney

I’ve decided to quit being so mysterious and just share the whole list with you all. Well, what’s left of it.

Thirty-one items have been checked off. I’ve got 23 to go. (This doesn’t count the ones my dad checked off while living, as indicated below.)

What a long, crazy adventure this has been. Despite it being only three years now, it feels like a lifetime. I’ve learned and grown so much.

Should any of you have any suggestions on the remaining 23, I’m all ears. Drop me a line: carney(dot)laura(at)gmail.com.

Things I Would Like to Do in My Lifetime!

1. I would like to live a long, healthy life at least to the year 2020.

2. I would like to provide a comfortable standard of living for my family. ✔

3. Write and have a few novels published.

4. Have five songs recorded.

5. Make more money than I need. ✔

6. Talk with the president. ✔

7. Make three good family or friends movies.

8. Play the piano or guitar. ✔

9. Type 40 words a minute correctly. ✔

10. Sell millions of dollars’ worth of merchandise.

11. Make my wife feel happy, healthy, pretty and young all her life. ✔

12. Give my children the most love, the best education and best example I can give. ✔

13. Visit New Orleans. ✔

14. Paris. ✔

15. London. ✔

16. Vienna.

17. Dresden/Berlin.

18. L.A. ✔

19. San Diego. ✔

20. Las Vegas. ✔

21. Chicago. ✔

22. St. Thomas.

23. Run 10 miles straight. ✔

24. Swim the width of a river. ✔

25. Beat a number-one seeded tennis player in a tournament.

26. Play golf in the 70s a few times.

27. Correspond with the pope.

28. Speak to a TV audience. ✔

29. Do a comedy monologue in a nightclub. ✔ (Dad)

30. Be interviewed on a radio program. ✔ (Dad) ✔

31. Get my picture in a national magazine. ✔

32. Make money on the stock market.

33. Set up a charitable fund.

34. Drive a Corvette.

35. Teach a class about wine.

36. Have a 34-inch waist again. ✔

37. Own a $200 suit.

38. Own a black tux.

39. Send Joan on a $1,000 shopping spree. ✔

40. Help Laura win a scholarship. ✔

41. Own a large house with our own land.

42. Have my own tennis court.

43. See a World Series game live. ✔ (Dad: Phillies 2, Toronto 0)

44. Go to a Super Bowl game.

45. See the NCAA basketball finals. ✔

46. Go to the Rose Bowl. ✔

47. Surf in the Pacific Ocean. ✔

48. Grow a watermelon. ✔

49. Own a wine cellar of fine wines.

50. Plant an apple tree.

51. Skydive at least once. ✔

52. Go sailing by myself. ✔

53. Be invited to a political convention. ✔

54. Help my parents enjoy their retirement. ✔ (Dad)

55. Pay back my dad $1,000 plus interest. ✖ (Dad: failed) ✔

56. Own a great record collection. ✔ (Dad)

57. Develop an impressive library. ✔

58. Ride a horse fast. ✔

59. Sing at my daughter’s wedding. ✔

60. Dance at my grandchildren’s weddings.

I Made A Thing

September 26, 2019 by Laura Carney

Not gonna lie, I’m a little nervous seeing my byline again. It’s been over a year.

But when I realized there were exactly 22 days between Casey Feldman’s death because of a distracted driver and my father’s back in July, I felt like I needed to do something. There had to be SOMETHING I could do differently in my life to commemorate this. I have felt for a long time now that the only reason people had left for making phone calls (even hands-free) or texting or doing anything else with their phones in cars was because they just plain couldn’t be separated from them….because they were with them all the time the rest of the time, too, even not while driving.

And as someone who rarely drives, I had to look at my own usage. If I really felt so strongly about this, could I, myself, give my phone up? What would happen if I did?

My article on thefix.com tells the story. I really will never be the same again. I’m so happy there were other people who thought this was a worthy experience to share with others. I hope you like it, too.

My First Podcast (As A Writer)!

August 28, 2019 by Laura Carney

My dad is somewhere shaking his head and smiling about this one. A podcast about football! What?

Yep, that’s what it is. Never in my wildest dreams could I have imagined that I’d one day be asked to share my knowledge about sports publicly. Because before this project, I had basically none. Just another gift of my father’s list.

If you like history, literature, American writers, the 1920s or the origins of football, you’ll like this. There are two football-related items on the list, and I’ve already checked off one. This required learning about what I was watching. The F. Scott Fitzgerald stuff, though—that’s all happened by accident. If you want to know more about what I discovered about his connection to football (though the Wall Street Journal discovered it too, five years ago), click here. The folks at Forgotten History did a great job. You might like their other episodes, too—like “The Man Who Never Slept.”

This is what a podcast looks like. The good folks at Forgotten History, Diccon and Joe. (Diccon was my editor at my college newspaper.)

This podcast was special for me. I’d taken 18 months off from any kind of publicizing of this project and mostly spent it getting the book written when I did it. Every interview I’d done before it had been as an activist. This interview was done as a writer. And as someone who is jubilant about life. Another gift of this project. It has taught me how to see how my father’s spirit lives on.

More updates to come as I write more articles and do more podcasts. Thank you for following this crazy journey.

I do my more everyday updates on Instagram these days: @myfatherslist.

How I Honored My Father’s Memory by Meeting President Jimmy Carter

July 01, 2019 by Laura Carney

A while back, in the first year of this project, I checked off item 6 on my father’s list and got to talk with a president. Or at least the guy who was president when my father wrote it.

Good Housekeeping was nice enough to feature an article I wrote about this on their website in spring 2018. Here’s where you can read it: https://www.goodhousekeeping.com/life/inspirational-stories/a48177/laura-carney-stone-mountain-my-fathers-list/

And if you want to see more of what Carter had to say that day, see below.

The Capacity for Choice

June 28, 2019 by Laura Carney

After the service, the emcee of the proceedings told everyone to line up pew by pew to have their photos taken with Jimmy and Rosalynn. Because we were seated in a special section, we were among the first rows of people to walk up. As Steven and I inched out of the pew, Art showed up at the right-hand side. He told me, excitedly, that he wished me luck because he had once been in my shoes. Jimmy Carter has been Art's hero since he was 12 years old. Just as we left, Art said to me, "Your dad's here with you today."

As Steven and I inched to the front of the line, I patted the vintage white eyelet dress I'd chosen for the occasion—it seemed the perfect choice for a Southern Baptist church. Carter and his wife were over posing with a group of Pennsylvania Mennonites. I prepared in my head what I might say to the president, if given the chance.

Then I remembered that I'd jumped out of a plane in June, for a bucket list item, and realized that if I could do that, I should be able to do this, too.

Not Drowning, but Resting

August 08, 2017 by Laura Carney

"I only went out for a walk, and finally concluded to stay out till sundown," said John Muir, "for going out, I found, was really going in."

As the current died down I decided to risk walking a little again. I stumbled a few times and was now getting impatient. I was standing close to the edge of what might be a waterfall to the left of me, I wasn't sure. But I couldn't see what was below the precipice. And then I decided to try to stand still and not be knocked over, just to see what might happen.

And then I closed my eyes and prayed.

Please calm these waters, I said silently.

Like some kind of Jedi mind trick, it worked. I suddenly felt warm, and I opened my eyes and saw the sun had come out. As it blanketed its yellow rays on me and the river around me, a butterfly flitted by, over the now calm waters.

I looked around. I was only one swimmer, one person, standing in the middle of this vast body of water, surrounded by mountains and sun. I was the only person experiencing what I was experiencing right where I was—well, except for Steven and the family picnicking on the shore, who I was certain believed I was a lunatic at this point. But they weren't there in the water with me. My viewpoint was mine alone.

It made all the risk to reach that point worth it.

As I walked forward slowly, every time I fell didn't hurt as much. Whether the waters stayed calm or not didn't matter. What mattered was I believed they were.

The Time Machine

May 19, 2017 by Laura Carney

"If you put your mind to it," said Dr. Emmett L. Brown, "you can accomplish anything."

The night before my L.A. Marathon run in March, I replayed my recording of Fox's interview that day. I think that day was the one I decided I was ready to be an activist. Because I went to hear Joel Feldman of End Distracted Driving give a talk to high school students the first time that same week. Fox said about his work to raise Parkinson's awareness that day that everything changed the moment he realized he only had to give this work a certain amount of space in his life. That it didn't have to take over everything.

Until I'd figured out the certain amount of space my grief and anger over my father's death needed to take up, it bled unpredictably into everything I did.

The day the issue of GH with my story in it appeared on newsstands a week later, my cousin Jenn texted me when I was on my way home. She wrote, "Look what's on TV" and pasted a photo of Marty in the Van Halen scene. "This is the scene it was on when we turned to it."

Granted, Back to the Future is on channels like TNT ad nauseam, so this isn't that strange of a situation. But what was strange was that this one scene kept popping up in my life, like it wanted me to take notice of it. I knew I had to talk to Gabe Hurley about this, so I messaged him on Facebook (he uses voice to text). He told me he wasn't surprised by the synchronicities at all.

"I told you the first movie I watched after I woke up from my car crash, right?" he asked me. I told him that no, he hadn't. "It was Back to the Future," he said. "It was the only film I could still enjoy just as much only listening to it."