Photo by TJ Parker
It’s 2017. I’m happy about it. I kept waiting for it, ready to start anew. Ready for a reboot.
Last year was stressful. Surprising and tense and divisive and nasty. Many good things happened in my life, but I was greatly affected by everything happening in the world, and that stuff, the stuff splashed all over mainstream media, was frequently disheartening and disappointing.
K and I spent the last weeks of 2016 doing daily random acts of kindness. It helped both of us to be more positive. To look at things from a different, and more uplifting, perspective. We vowed, going forward into 2017, we would continue trying to look at the world from the place of kindness. Continue to do random acts as they presented themselves. I think we will. We both believe kindness is key, a necessity.
I was thinking last night about the news, being affected by it, getting upset, etc. After all, it’s still there. Just because we’re in a new year doesn’t mean it all miraculously goes away. I have friends who are so passionate about the state of things they are still posting political stuff on Facebook and Twitter. I get incensed about certain events, just as they do, but I don’t post them. It’s not my way. My way is to post things I believe to be positive, uplifting, and kind. It’s a different way of going at things, which is OK. Mine helps me, theirs helps them I’m sure.
In that vein I started thinking about the effect all of this information has on me. Bombarded with news reports and posts about news reports and political events and health crises and how this thing or that thing is bad for you. It’s easy to get sucked in, to focus on it all, to think that those things have significant value in my life. But honestly, they don’t. Yes, I do care about the world, I am concerned about a lot of it. I am. And K and I will be volunteering for a couple of organizations this year in order to try and step up and do something productive and positive. But if I spend too much time thinking every day about all of it I’m not living right where I am. I forget to look at what’s good in my life, there is a whole lot that’s good. I miss appreciating great sunsets and how beautiful the light is shining through the trees. I am not present.
It’s so easy to be distracted, to look outside my life and focus on what’s wrong with everything. But that would be a disservice to my life, and I definitely wouldn’t be honoring all the magic that exists in my every day. The way to honor my life, to live it fully, to be present in it, is to notice the magic. To soak up the moments. To put my focus on the people and the sunsets and the smiles. To pay attention when I’m having a great conversation, or when one of my grandkids laughs, or when my honey smiles at me a certain way. To honor this beautiful life I have to be responsible for feeling it, being IN it.
So to hell with bad news, crazy politics, and all the negative crap. I can’t change the whole world, I can only do my small part. I will act with grace, or at least try to. I will be present and faithful to this beautiful, amazing, glorious life I’m lucky to be living. That’s where my energy needs to be spent. On walks and dog loves and kisses and hugs and music and beautiful words and great meals with family and laughter with friends and taking photographs and writing and silly and kindness and joy and love.
This is what I will do. That is all.
We were out and about again today, running more errands, getting ready for some upcoming Christmas festivities. Since we were going out we thought today would be a good day for the candy cane caper. Sounds more adventurous or slightly naughty than it was, but it ended up being pretty nice. We’d purchased a box of big sized candy canes a while back in preparation and today we took them around and passed them out to people, saying Merry Christmas, Happy Holidays, giving people a smile as we did. Librarians, people sitting at a cafe, the ladies who work at the coffee roasters we go to, a couple of policemen, and a girl sitting outside waiting for a ride were all recipients. My honey is really good at this. Her smile can light up a room. Every single person who got a candy cane smiled back at us. We gave a few of the people two candy canes telling them one was for them and one was for them to hand out to someone else. A sweet bit of shared kindness.
Today K and I made our yearly Christmas trip into Chicago. We usually go to several places on our Christmas trip day, but this time we ended up just staying at the Lincoln Park Zoo all day. We looked at the animals, had several different talks with zoo staff about various animals, ate some lunch, then strolled around the place a couple more times after the zoo lights came on. We had meant to park at the zoo, take a bus downtown and check out the Bean, the Macy’s windows, some other sites we usually see at Christmas time, then get back to the zoo in the evening to see the zoo lights, but it didn’t happen that way. At one point we just looked at each other and both kind of said we were having a great time, a very relaxing time, just wandering around, no rush, nice and mellow. It was awesome. While we were there we also decided to put our money where our mouths are and donate a bit to the conservation and research programs the zoo participates in. Kindness through conservation.
Everyone loves cookies and it just so happens my honey makes great M&M cookies. Today’s kindness was a simple one. She made cookies and we delivered them to three of our neighbors. Needless to say they were surprised and very happy to get them. Nothing like seeing people with big smiles on their faces. Kindness through sugar overload. That’s what we’re talking about.
We decided to go with a fun act of kindness today. We taped a couple of packages of microwave popcorn to a Redbox outside a local Walgreens. The signs said, “Enjoy some popcorn with your movie”. We hope someone does!