this world will never be the same. we need to ponder, we need to dream, we need to imagine:
a better place, a more fair place, a place that is based on equity and equality, kindness and compassion. a place that assumes virtue and intends the same. a place that protects its peoples, that encourages individuals to care for each other. a place that doesn’t incite rancor, celebrate the weapons of violence, or create enmity and spite. a place where the downtrodden are lifted up and those with excess are generous. a place where inhabitants don’t self-aggrandize or strategize to find ways for more-more-more, ways that take from those with less, ways that undermine those in need. a place that doesn’t normalize language of vitriol, hatred, and antagonism. a place where all races are equivalent, all genders are respected, all ethnicities are indistinguishably included. a place where the environment counts and sustaining it beyond our own time on this good earth is a priority. a place that recognizes the sacred in the out-of-doors, the borrowing of this dirt, this water, this air for the short span of time we are here. a place where we are always seeking ways to better life for each other, to enhance daily living, health, happiness. a place of truth. a place of goodness.
yes. this world needs your good imagination. or we will never get there.
i never let it stop me. it didn’t matter to me the title someone held or the notoriety they had. i always reminded myself that this person i needed to call or meet with or contact was human. “this person breathes in and out, just like i do,” i would think. i felt this person – whoever it was – must have some human quality in common with me, regardless of a possible overly-amplified ego or the protected life bubble they might live within. “it matters not,” my momma, a lover of language, would say. in the end, nothing really separated me from this person, him or her, human-wise.
and so, my slightly-dialed-back-new-york chutzpah would dial the phone and expect nothing less than speaking with the person i was calling, no matter what rung on the ladder that person clung to, no matter how high the ladder, no matter the pecking order or the person’s perception of self.
because: people. we are all people.
now there’s a starting point.
but you wouldn’t know that looking at this country these days.
my sweet momma would be 99 today as i write this. 99. even in her time on this planet – which devastatingly ended five years ago now – she had seen a lot of change. “it matters not,” she would say. we are where we are. she read, she researched, she asked questions. and she always arrived at the same place: people are people and should be – in the crux of all things – equally treated as such. period.
empty words ticked momma off and she warned me of people who would talk the talk but not walk it. her sixth sense of intuition was often caution enough in friendships and relationships where people would get all virtuous and principled and, yet, be the same people who could clearly not see the irony in their supposed loftiness, the empty in their words, the do-as-i-say-not-as-i-do-ness, the falsity in their stance.
my momma, our beaky, subscribed to kindness. it would be to her horror to see the hateful rhetoric nowadays. she would have no patience for it. she would point to the horrors that hatred had produced in years past. she would state in simple terms: “it matters not,” she’d say, “be kind to each other. in all things, be kind.”
if momma were here today, she’d wear a mask. not because she would be in a high-risk category, but because it is the kind thing to do. a lover of math and science, she would point to the words of scientists, researchers, epidemiologists, medical professionals and she would insist on listening to them. “it matters not what you think,” she’d point out. “what matters is what they know.”
if momma were here today, she might protest. she’d point to inequity and ask what we could do about it. she’d not draw lines of color or race or gender or sexual orientation or economic status. “it matters not. people are people,” she’d insist. she’d wonder at a country, with so many smart people, continuing to head down such a dark road. she’d question, she’d challenge, she’d debate, she’d be stalwart and she would hold steadfast to being kind. period.
it may be oversimplification, but gus had it right in my big fat greek wedding. “apple and orange…we all different, but, in the end, we all fruit.” he and my momma would have been grand friends.
because in the end, we are all human. we breathe in, we breathe out. we can reject hate; we can choose to love. nothin’ wrong with a little oversimplification.
when i think about my sweet momma and my poppo, my big brother, my godfather uncle allen, my grandmother-mama-dear, more beloved family and dear friends – all who have left this earth – i don’t think about their jobs or upward mobility, their income or the status symbols they owned. i don’t think of the timeline of their school or work or whether they had finished a degree or if they had even gone to college. i don’t ponder awards or certificates they received or resorts where they may have vacationed.
i think about what a difference they made in my life. my mom’s devotion to cheery kindness, my dad’s quiet and stubborn thoughtfulness, my big brother’s goofy humor and ability to tell a story in all its details, my uncle’s absolute commitment to his fun-loving smile no-matter-what-was-happening. i think about the joy my mom experienced when my dad brought her grocery-store-flowers. i think about big bowls of coffee ice cream with my brother, neil diamond playing in the background. i think about my uncle generously paying for my very first recordings in ny, diligently holding me up and gently pushing me. i think about simple moments with them. in what could be a crowded-with-information-obituary in my head for each person, i hold a piece of their heart instead. they have made a difference in this world. they made a difference for me. i remember.
(from THE FAULT IN OUR STARS) “you know, this obsession you have, with being remembered? this is your life! this is all you get! you get me, and you get your family and you get this world, and that’s it! …. and i’m going to remember you. …. you say you’re not special because the world doesn’t know about you, but that’s an insult to me. i know about you.”
we live on an infinite continuum of opportunity. chances to bring light and hope to others. deeds we can do out of kindness, goals reached by collaborating together. we face choice just as soon as the sun-peeking-over-the-horizon wakes us. we innately or intentionally decide, we head in a direction, we live a day.
“We’re all traveling through time, together, everyday of our lives… All we can do is do our best to relish this remarkable life. I just try to live everyday as if I have deliberately come back to this one day, to enjoy it… As if it was the full, final day of my extraordinary, ordinary life.” (from ABOUT TIME)
this song. i have performed it countless times. in nyc’s central park for tens of thousands of people, in small medical clinics, in large oncological settings, in chicago’s grant park. at a pharmaceutical conference in puerto rico, outdoors with the lance armstrong tour of hope. across the country, in pajamas and jeans and all-dressed-up. in theatres and at walks/runs, in schools and churches. for organizations including y-me, the american cancer society, gilda’s club, young survival coalition, susan g. komen foundation, the annual breast cancer symposium. and each time, heidi and i, working together in performance, fighting back tears. the list is profound. not because of the innumerable times i have sang this song, but because of all the people in these places and behind the scenes, joining together, remarkably touching the lives of others: those they know and those they may never know.
we make a difference. in every arena of our lives. every place we go. every interaction. every gesture. every assumption. every conversation. every every-thing. every single thing.
what intention will we have? will we be positive or negative?
“the truth is, I now don’t travel back at all, not even for a day. … live life as if there were no second chances.” (ABOUT TIME)
i sleepily rub the dreams from my eyes. coffee helps. and the snowy world outside comes into focus. no longer immersed in the land of nod, all things rush back: the casts, the worries, work task lists, bills to pay, the world around us. before i peruse the news and the weather, though, i mind’s-eye blow my children a kiss and wish them good days, i hug the dog and the cat lying by my side, i thank sweet d for the coffee with the ernie straw. it all starts. the day has begun.
this past week has been extraordinary in so many ways; more on that another time. i’m buoyed by a hopeful spirit, by connecting with people, by sheer love and the sureness-of-foot taking one step at a time, moving forward; the tide is predictable – it ebbs; it flows. i am wide awake now, thinking.
“we should be wide awake.” yes. for all things. we should have our eyes open. we should monitor our response to the positive, the negative. we should be mindful. just as worry pervades our time, so does hope. we need lead with kindness. we need remember we are sharing this good earth with a hard-to-fathom 7.6 billion or so other souls. we can’t avoid the reality that the narrative we each individually choose must be deliberately and painstakingly vetted with the truth, with awareness, with sensitivity, with fairness. not sleepily, not uninterested-in-all-but-the-reactionary-anger-dramatics, not without due diligence. we must guard against the bandwagon of lackadaisical; we must avoid the geared-down rhetoric of hatred. we are human beings and we have a responsibility.
just as certain as the tide, it is predictable that the two factions in any division will aggressively forward their agendas. it is up to each of us to stay informed, to discern, to ask questions, to speak up, to make intelligent, educated choices based on civility, impartiality and honesty, equality, democracy and freedom. no matter the venue, no matter the place of division.
to be wide awake.
woke: increasingly used as a byword for social awareness.
“i shall pass this way but once. any good that i can do, any kindness i can show to any human being, let me do it now, let me not defer nor neglect, for i shall not pass this way again.” (etienne de grellet)
this saying is tucked into my wallet. it hangs in our kitchen. it was my sweet momma’s favorite and she lived by it like a mantra. she did not procrastinate kindness until it was convenient; she lived it.
we pass the deer tracks at bristol woods. often we are first after the deer. i wonder what they are like as they pass each other, as their paths converge and diverge.
i stopped and went back. i had to take this picture. reminders are everywhere and right now, although, truly, as always, i knew i wanted to capture as many as possible.
it feels as if we are surrounded by whirling hypocrisy. those people who proclaim one thing and treat people in an extraordinarily different way. i’ve been stunned into i-don’t-even-know-what-to-say-silence more than once lately. people who demand respect but don’t give it, people who are unnecessarily controlling, people who go behind your back, people who list toward cruelty, people who declare appreciation but tear down, people who hide behind glossy words. what is going on? narcissism seems to be alive and well as we suffer the effects of those-who-believe-they-are-on-pedestals, pedestals that seem to exist on every step of the ladder. it’s shocking and more than a little disconcerting. we each have first-hand in-our-own-life experience. what a disappointment. we are humans capable of so much more.
and so, the reminders are incredibly welcome. the heart leaves or rocks, the sun’s rays glowing through clouds in the sky, the presence of a cardinal or two blue jays crossing our path in the woods. a text message or call out of the blue, beautiful generous raw-matte-finish words spoken to you. all reminders. a kindness extended by a stranger, an eye-contact smile. the big initiatives, the little gestures. not picking up the tug-of-war rope. reaching out to offer the olive branch. life-giving. practicing. we are truly capable of so much. we need be reminded.
“live generously and the world will treat you royally.” (crown royal commercial)
“practice makes perfect,” it says on an index card in the piano bench of my old piano downstairs in the basement. written in the careful-penmanship-printing of me-probably-as-an-8-year-old, i have kept this card in my bench for over 50 years. i’m sure there were multiple times i rolled my eyes at this, as i opened the bench to take out and work on lesson music. i still roll my eyes. everything takes practice.
everything. including living generously. there’s always that moment when you have to decide to either take up the rope, as they say, and tug back or let the rope lay still. so much easier to pick it up and tug, letting it lay there and not touching it requires sheer grit-your-teeth-restraint sometimes. it’s too easy to tug, to even wrench, and too royally hard to let a sleeping rope lie.
but in those moments, the really tough ones and the little ones, that you actually and intentionally choose to mother-teresa your way through, your generosity spins outward in concentric circles and goodness spreads. goodness has a way of coming back, returning to center, with centrifugal force and your heart in the middle. gravity draws back goodness and keeps close the spirit of all with whom you have been generous. kindness bestowed upon you is royal treatment; it is the world treating you royally. we are all so fortunate. we are already receiving lavish unconditional love. what would happen if we practiced living generously even more?
hunter doesn’t look surprised when we walk into greens and grains in egg harbor. it’s really his fault. he showed us flax chocolate brownie muffins. we bought them. we ate them. we are now addicted to them. yes, we blame hunter. in all good ways.
truth is, though, we love the feel of the store as well. a natural food store and healthy alternative grocery and cafe, the signs you can see on the windows tell a story about its purity.
hate has no home hereand NO H8 both align with our thinking, just as the flax brownie bites align with us. we will always choose a shop, a business, an organization, a community that is embracing over one that is not. i wrack my brain and my heart for reasons shops, businesses, organizations, communities, and, yes, governments, are not embracing, not inclusive, not compassionate earth-dwellers.
abiding in hate-filled rhetoric, prejudicial about anything and everything, hypocritical in obvious holding-both-ends-of-the-spectrum philosophies, demonstrably unkind, gleefully vengeful, inequitably elitist. i just ask why?
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.
