kindess – Live & Learn

Monday Morning Wake-Up Call

May 2, 2022 by Live & Learn 17 Comments

Sometimes I don’t know how any of us go on. Sometimes I fear there’s no way our species will survive our own self-destructive choices. Sometimes I feel so I gut punched by the backward deal of the universe — that if you’re really lucky, you get people in your life to love, and then, over time, they will all either leave you or die — that I am angry at life. Actually, not sometimes. Always. I always feel that way. I don’t always actively think about it, but it’s in there.

At the same time, I am always looking for some gratitude, warmth, or hope. I often have to really search for it, but when I see something that makes me feel joy — even just a tiny odd hardly anything — you’re damn right I applaud it. Way to go, adorable cat on a leash! Thank you, server who brought my hot pizza! Kudos, writers of a TV show that made me laugh! Hallelujah, sunshine after a week of storms! Yay for good hair day, yippee for hot coffee, huzzah for an outfit that puts bounce in my step.

If I can scrape up some evidence of a thing made beautifully or a gesture made kindly, then can believe, for a few seconds, that this world is careful and kind. And if I can believe that, I can believe it is safe to let the people I love walk around out there. It’s my own attempt at foresparkling, seeking out hints of good, even planting them myself, so I can believe there’s more good to come. It might all be superstition, just mental magic, but why not try?

So I say yes for things that offer some pleasure. Yes for people who choose to be friendly. Yes for any glimmer of light through all the darkness. I mean that yes. I need it. Seriously.

— Mary Laura Philpott, Bomb Shelter: Love, Time, and Other Explosives (Atria Books, April 12, 2022)

Notes: Book Review NY Times: Is it Possible to Body-Block Our Loved Ones from Pain? Alas, No. The Washington Post: Worry much? You’ll relate to Mary Laura Philpott’s book.

Filed Under: Uncategorized Tagged With: Book, good, Gratitude, Hope, kind, kindess, Mary Laura Philpott, warmth, Yes

About right.

September 24, 2019 by Live & Learn 12 Comments

Is this verbal violence, then, simply incompetence? Is it the verbal equivalent of someone who has not learned the piano sitting down and trying to play Rachmaninov’s Third? The rudeness of these public figures gives pleasure and relief, it is clear, to their audiences. Perhaps what they experience is not the possibility of actual violence but a sort of intellectual unbuttoning, a freedom from the constraint of language. Perhaps they have lived lives in which they have been continually outplayed in the field of articulation, but of this new skill – rudeness – they find that they are the masters.

~ Rachel Cusk, from “On Rudeness” in Coventry (Farrar, Straus and Giroux. September 16, 2019)

Notes:

Book Review of Rachel Cusk’s new book Coventry via The New York Times: “Rachel Cusk Said She Was Done With Autobiography. These Essays Suggest Otherwise.”
Portrait of Rachel Cusk (May 2018) via The New Yorker

Filed Under: Uncategorized Tagged With: Book Review, Books, empathy, Inspirational, kind, kindess, Language, manners, Photography, Rachel Cusk, respect, rude, trump

How much I enjoy air travel…

September 28, 2012 by Live & Learn 33 Comments

I was returning home from Chicago today. Ominous skies were threatening our return. Weather reports from home are gloomy – thunderstorms and heavy rains are pounding the NYC region. The flight is full. The mood among the passengers is surly…no one is up for an extended delay, or worse, a cancelation heading into the weekend. Yet, the flight is off, and on time and largely uneventful. We circle for 15 minutes over NYC as air traffic is backed up. We land. A few minutes late but the relief in the cabin is palpable.

We’re on the tarmac. An elderly lady three rows back is on her cell phone calling a family member. In a voice that is heard 8-10 rows in each direction, she let them know “THAT I’LL BE A BIT LATE AND THERE IS NOTHING TO WORRY ABOUT.” She carries on her phone conversation on her stay in Chicago and her plans for the weekend. Then, there’s a moment of silence. And, she’s back on the phone. This time with her car service. Her piercing voice is echoing up and down the tube. “GIVE ME YOUR NUMBER! I’LL NEED TO CALL YOU FROM BAGGAGE CLAIM. NO I NEED YOUR NUMBER. 212-656-. WHAT WAS THAT AGAIN? 212-65X? SPEAK LOUDER.” This goes back and forth several times until she manages to get the number. Then, there’s another moment of silence and she’s back on the phone with another family member. “I SHOULDN’T BE TOO LATE.” The conversation continues for several minutes at a raised decibel level. There’s another moment of silence and she’s back on the phone again. [Read more…]

Filed Under: Grow, Inspire, Lead, Life Tagged With: Anxiety, Chart, courtesy, elderly, flight, fun, Funny, Gratitude, Humor, ilovecharts, kind, kindess, patience, photograph, retired, Story, Stress, Travel, Work, work life

Cranky Old Man

August 19, 2012 by Live & Learn 36 Comments

This is a remarkable story and more remarkable poem. And so fitting for a…Good Sunday morning.

“When an old man died in the geriatric ward of a nursing home in an Australian country town, it was believed that he had nothing left of any value. Later, when the nurses were going through his meager possessions, they found this poem. Its quality and content so impressed the staff that copies were made and distributed to every nurse in the hospital. One nurse took her copy to Melbourne. The old man’s sole bequest to posterity has since appeared in the Christmas editions of magazines around the country and appearing in mags for Mental Health. A slide presentation has also been made based on his simple, but eloquent, poem. And this old man, with nothing left to give to the world, is now the author of this ‘anonymous’ poem winging across the Internet.” (DK: Apparently, everyone has seen this, but me.)