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hundreds of them. [kerri’s blog on merely-a-thought monday]

sometimes something comes out of the blue. and it just makes you feel oh-so-good.

a wisconsin high school contacted us about a month ago – they wanted to order a few hundred of our “be kind” buttons for their kindness week. with my sweet momma smiling over my shoulder, i tended to all the extra paperwork and steps that a district purchase entails, happily thinking about hundreds of people wearing our buttons.

i originally designed them when we had a showing of the movie wonder at the performing arts center we co-managed on washington island. i wanted everyone to have a “be kind” button as they left the theatre. i’ve ordered and re-ordered these for various reasons and various organizations since. every single time i think about my mom – thrilled that this gentle reminder would be on someone’s lapel, someone’s backpack, someone’s jacket or maybe hanging from their rearview mirror. i personally have them pinned on a few purses – because – well – too many people need to be reminded.

it’s a simplicity. “be kind”…a choice. it echoes out and out in concentric circles and douses people with the magic dust of generosity. i wish that every school, every business, every service or religious organization, every politician, every single person might wear one – to remember.

i am ecstatic each time these buttons are ordered. and i was inordinately proud of the personnel in this high school student services department. so very happy to know that spreading kindness throughout their school mattered. grateful they went the extra mile. that though this district’s per capita spending may have gone up by just the teeniest-tiniest smidge with the purchase of these buttons, the payoff must have been brilliant.

reminders to be kind. to choose kindness. to experience kindness. to live kindness.

and my momma smiled broadly, knowing she inspired these buttons. hundreds of them.

*****

read DAVID’S thoughts this MERELY-A-THOUGHT MONDAY

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roygbiv. [merely-a-thought monday]

she reached into her rainbow bag and pulled out two rainbow buttons, handing them to us. “brilliant!” i thought, while also thinking we should have brought our “be kind” buttons and given them out as well. this darling little girl, accompanied by her mom, stood in the center of the blocked-off pridefest road, twirling right and left, gifting festgoers with happy faces.

i was awake most of the night. it wasn’t until sometime after the birds began showering the rising sun with song that i fell asleep. middle-of-the-night musings often keep me awake these days. the harvard medical school reports that insomnia is present for 35% to 60% of women after menopause. i’m seriously thinking someone needs to do something about this.

so it is in those wee hours of the night i ponder everythingunderthesun. it is like my own personal pablo neruda book of questions – random, open-ended and with no real answers. all over the map, i revisit growing up, walk through previous houses, go back on vacations, have conversations all over again, list groceries, think about deferred house maintenance, slink around the edges of new creative projects, send positive energy to beloveds. i wonder about the universe answers – if they will drop in, like a sticky note from the heavens above. i list gratitudes – simple, like this tiny girl’s happy face rainbow buttons – and complex, like straddling the line of relevance. i list worries – like the day to day challenges of aging, the challenges of a world fraught with superficiality and division, the challenges of the environment, the heart-challenges of most important relationships. the one thing i do not do is sleep.

i’m pretty sure i am not necessarily capable of solving everything at 2am. and 3am is worse.

but a couple minutes after 4am – when the birds gather in our neighborhood trees and sing up the sun and its roygbiv – and i am present – that is when most of it – the kaleidoscope of life – makes sense.

*****

read DAVID’S thoughts this MERELY-A-THOUGHT MONDAY

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the gift of a gift. [merely-a-thought monday]

and, of course, i wonder who found them.

the hike to looking glass rock is uphill. not a little uphill. reeeally uphill. the view through the trees, sans leaves, reveals mountains close-up, mountains out in the distance. it’s a gorgeous trail.

we started later than we had planned. and so, we had to turn around before we made it to the top. because once the sun goes down – and it goes down fast – it is next to impossible to safely navigate the trail back down. roots and rocks and twists and turns could turn it into a crisis. and we have watched everest enough times to remember professional guide rob hall’s words: it’s not my job to get you up the mountain…it’s my job to get you safely back down. pisgah national forest is – clearly – not the intensity of everest, but the same rule applies anyway.

and so – this time – we missed looking glass rock, an amazing formation, its sheer stone face rising above the trees. there will be a next time; we’ll start earlier, carry some lunch and more water and we’ll get there and back before darkness falls.

i had tucked a package of our “be kind” pins into my bag. i thought that there might be a place i could leave them. each time we have passed a little trail magic – a painted rock, tiny gift – it has lifted our spirits. i couldn’t think of a more beautiful place to leave these pins than this forest. the knot in the tree seemed perfect – at the right eye level for those hiking up. my only regret is not being able to go back and see that they are gone.

for each time i have left a rock – with a heart or a peace sign or a tiny message – on our local trail tucked into the notch of a tree, on an obvious branch or perched on a burl – i have had the opportunity to go back a next time and see that it has disappeared. it’s the gift of a gift.

i can only assume that the little cellophane bag tied with green curling ribbon in brevard is gone. i can only assume that someone has given out all the “be kind” buttons. i can only assume that as the recipients wear them or put them on their backpacks or their purse or hang them on the visor in their car they smile and pay it forward just a little.

the gift of a gift isn’t always known.

*****

read DAVID’S thoughts this MERELY-A-THOUGHT MONDAY


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a run on “be kind” buttons. [merely-a-thought monday]

inc. magazine has surprised me time and again. in this period of marveling over the inclination of people in leadership positions around me making what-would-seem really questionable decisions, i have found inc. to be wise and thought-provoking and practical.

i have read articles about management, about good leaders, about equipping employees with confidence, about building people up and not tearing people down. i have read about innovation and support and equality. i have read about not taking things personally, about not ruling your workforce with fear as your greatest tool, about not undermining or being deprecating toward your workers. i have read about organizations working in collaboration, with communication, with transparency. i have read about creating places of compassion and constructive feedback and shared vision. i have read stellar writings about limiting leadership-driven agenda, about truth, about acknowledging discriminatory practices and addressing them. i have read about conflict in the workplace, about identifying it, qualifying it, mitigating it. i have read articles asking challenging questions, sparking maturation of companies and businesses and organizations.

inc. magazine has rocked in its simple approach. it makes me wonder why more manager and leader-types clearly don’t subscribe – in either print, digital or philosophical ways. it’s too bad. any measure of brutally mean dominion over employees does not seem to be a mission of goodness or of growth. organizations that participate in the mission of goodness do not fall into chaos or an abyss of hypocrisy. instead, they grow and change and fluidly adapt. they share ownership with the community they serve and they gratefully appreciate each spoke in the wheel, knowing they didn’t get there without each other.

so when inc. magazine had an article about thanksgiving, we clicked on it. again, a simple approach. instead of going around the table with the question “what are you thankful for?”, the writer suggested you ask the question “what will you do to make others thankful?”. an active verb. what WILL you do?

there’s been a bit of a run on our “be kind” buttons. maybe others are gifting them for the holidays. maybe they are challenging students or service groups to disperse them. maybe they are standing on corners and just giving them out. or, i hope, maybe them are giving them to managers who need be reminded. i don’t know. i do know, however, that we will likely be at the public market or ogilvie handing them out one of these days. or maybe we’ll leave wrapped bundles on the trail or at the check-out line or in the public restroom. free buttons. who can resist? it’s my hope it will make others smile, to concentric those circles out, to generously spread gratitude and kindness.

because inc.’s question is a good one. just like so many of their others. bravo, inc.

*****

read DAVID’S thoughts this MERELY-A-THOUGHT MONDAY


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like it was. [saturday morning smack-dab.]

i honestly don’t think i can – or need to – add much to this. this is not uncommon.

wistful. melancholy. reminiscent. lonely. overwhelmed by a lack of the busy and social holiday celebrations portrayed nearly everywhere. drowning in comparisons.

life changes and, it appears (yes, yes) we need to change with it. the holidays are a tough reminder.

in the middle of the trail we hiked on thanksgiving we talked about this. we had decided a big pot of pasta sauce would be our thanksgiving meal. comfort food. i, especially, needed that. the day was overcast with snow flurries and a mist gently coming down around a few bends on the path. damp and cold but familiar and reassuring. three deer were startled by our arrival. we watched them as they gracefully bounded away.

we came home and lit all the happy lights in the house. poured a glass of wine and got to the sauce. lit candles, took out thanksgiving napkins, set the table simply. our pumpkin pie was vegan, plant-based, amazing.

yesterday someone ordered 40 “be kind” buttons. it prompted me to suggest that we take a hundred – or a couple hundred – of our buttons and go somewhere and just give them out. sometime in the holiday season. plant a new tradition. start a new ritual. we’ll see.

demographics have spread families out across the globe, work responsibilities make time off a challenge and the pandemic makes travel questionable. we age and lose grandparents and then parents and loved ones. the holidays take on more blue than iridescent tinsel-silver. so many reasons why people find themselves awake in the middle of the night, staring at the ceiling, wishing it was like it used to be. visions of large meals and preparation and trees and grand shopping and piles of presents and family-all-around and parties and fancy dress-up clothes all dance like sugar plums in our heads. things that used-to-be.

finding things to assuage the used-to-be’s might help, might fill in the gaps. gathering with others in like circumstances, empathizing, might be reassuring. having a little visit with dear next-door neighbors later in the night is a bit of fondant on a layer-cake day. planning an adventure or two for coming days brings sweet anticipation.

holding space for the wistful is truth.

*****

read DAVID’S thoughts this SATURDAY MORNING

SMACK-DAB. ©️ 2021 kerrianddavid.com


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not. [two artists tuesday]

kindnessSCHITTSCREEK.jpg

granted, schitt’s creek is not a shining example of serious shows.  nor is it the apex of intelligent, thought-provoking viewing.  but we had run out of parenthood (still sniffling over the bitter end) and this is us and everest movies and documentaries and decided to try on something new.  we chose schitt’s creek.

it quickly became apparent to us that the humor in this show was not necessarily in alignment with our sense of humor, but we watched anyway.  we decided it was a study.

the stunning moment came when one of the characters looked at another and, in complete candor, said, “kindness is a sign of weakness.”

we sat and looked at each other, the glow of the moon on water out the window.  we dove deep into those words.  after much debate and a search for profundity, we realized that in this country, at this time, with these circumstances, it was a true statement.  kindness is not where it’s at, not what gets you ahead.  it is without power and control.  its calmness is terrifyingly missing in national goings-on, in international goings-on, in dealings with people even close-up and personal with agendas that serve only themselves.  kindness has left the building in more places than we would care to think about.  but a weakness?  not.

beaky, my sweet momma, said, “be kind.  be kind to each other.”  and she damn well meant it.  it may not have served her as well as being arrogantly demanding might have.  it may not have served her as well as being haughty, nasty, biting might have.  but it leaves a legacy for her that i am proud to speak about.  it is a rare treat to see someone not take sh*t from someone else and do it with strong backbone in a kind way.  my sweet momma was well-practiced.

and, i might add, she was not weak.

read DAVID’S thoughts this TWO ARTISTS TUESDAY

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choose kindness. [merely-a-thought monday]

kindness kerouac

we just chose the august movie for TPAC.  WONDER seemed perfect.

“Starring Jacob Tremblay, Julia Roberts and Owen Wilson, it is a film with powerful messages about kindness, friendship and the embracing of those who are different. Based on the New York Times bestseller, WONDER tells the inspiring and heartwarming story of fifth grade student August Pullman and a community struggling to find compassion and acceptance.” 

with the climate of our world as it is, we could not think of any family friendly movie that would be more fitting.  we re-watched this movie, reviewing it for appropriateness, for its message.  it is filled with wisdom, reminders of how to be human, quotes that should be on the bathroom mirrors in everyone’s homes, or better yet, plastered to our foreheads.  afterwards, i downloaded the daily wonder app, a source of daily inspirational quotes.  even if you have little time to read, you can read a sentence.  i designed a gift to give every movie-goer that evening.  it’s just a little generosity, but it makes us feel good – and isn’t that what it’s about?

my sweet momma was dedicated to kindness.  she would have loved this movie.  she would wholeheartedly agree with the words of novelist jack kerouac, “practice kindness all day to everybody and you will realize you are already in heaven now.”  and she would love our in-her-honor ‘be kind’ buttons.  always her parting words, “be kind to each other. be kind.” gentle reminders.  lead with kindness.  filter with kindness.  lean on kindness.  “when given the choice between being right and being kind, choose kind.” (wayne dyer)

there are a plethora of wise, generous, kindness-oriented people in our world, both living and on that other plane of existence we call heaven.  perhaps yielding to their exquisitely eloquent words of guidance would join these planes together.  and we would, indeed, realize that we are – already – in heaven now.

#choosekindness (wonder)

be kind button

if you would like, purchase BE KIND buttons – for you, your friends, your family, your class, your workplace, your club, your organization, your religious community, your neighborhood, your whole entire town

read DAVID’S thoughts this MERELY-A-THOUGHT MONDAY

momma, d & k website box