Not all acts of kindness are thoughtful. Sometimes you hold the door for someone, as much by habit as by intention. Yet… occasionally those careless actions matter to someone who has been living on the raggedy edge.
I haven’t ever really been on the raggedy edge, but I do remember some of the random gifts of kindness which have been thrown my way over the years. About eight years ago, at Sonic, the car hop told me that she liked my shirt. As it was one of the many fashion-questionable “bird shirts” I was wearing at the time, I appreciated the compliment immensely. For all I know, she was making fun of me, or she told everyone that about their shirts to boost her tip, but it meant a lot.
The waves crashed into my legs, almost knocking me over, but I righted myself and continued staring out at the endless blue water. Of all the ways I might have died, doing it alone on an island, thousands of miles from another living soul, was not a fate I had ever contemplated.
“On the bright side,” I thought, turning back toward the island, “I do have all of these dead people to keep me company.”
Dark blanket rolls back A bright shiny face rises The new day begins
I think this metaphor really works best when discussing the sleep of children, who are more universally cheerful and energetic to start the day. With adults, the percentage who are “morning people” seems to diminish over time. It has been many years since my face was bright or shiny at any time, let alone when getting out of bed. I think, if describing myself, the second line would read “a glum dull face emerges.”
‘A Dusty Morning’ might be a particularly overcast day. You can tell it’s the daytime, but only just.
Maybe it all went wrong when I stopped getting Saturday reassurances that the cartoons would be right back, after these messages? There was a point in time wherein I heard that, and then they weren’t right back.
It is easier to start a large fire quickly than to put one out quickly. Much the same, I believe love generally surrenders only slowly.
Inchmeal is a fun word. I hope that someone or something popular brings it back into regular usage.
inchmeal (adv.)
“by inches, inch by inch,” 1580s, from inch (n.1) + Middle English meal “fixed time, period of time, occasion” (see meal (n.1), and compare piecemeal).
late 12c., mēl, “an occasion of taking food, a feast, a supply of food taken at one time for relief of hunger,” also (c. 1200) “an appointed time for eating;” from Old English mæl, Anglian mēl, “fixed time, occasion; a meal,” from Proto-Germanic *mela- (source also of Old Frisian mel “time;” Middle Dutch mael, Dutch maal “time; meal;” Old Norse mal “measure, time, meal;” German Mal “time,” Mahl “meal;” Gothic mel “time, hour”), from PIE *me-lo-, from root *me- (2) “to measure.”
Original sense of “time” is preserved in English in piecemeal; compare Middle English poundmele “by pounds at a time; generously.” Meals-on-wheels for a social service offering home delivery of food to persons unable to purchase or prepare their own is attested by 1952 (from 1947 as a mobile food delivery service without reference to social services). Meal ticket first attested 1865 in literal sense of “ticket of admission to a dining hall;” figurative sense of “source of income or livelihood” is from 1899.
Mike saw that the cute barista who had smiled at him, and filled up his to-go coffee cup, had also drawn a little heart next to where she had written his name. This small gesture led to what became an almost daily ritual of stopping by her counter on the way to his office and purchasing a small heart on a to-go cup filled with coffee.
After a few days of these early morning visits, Mike noticed that the stranger in front of him in line picked up a cup signed “Dave ❤️” – an observation which led to a marked decrease in his morning caffeine intake thereafter.
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It is amazing how small gestures can sometimes redirect behavior in large ways. It is also amazing how much it can sting to realize that a small gesture is, in fact, small.
The Storm that raged has shut His lips His eyes that flashed are closed Spittle that flew, reduced to drips The fury now composed
The stones He hurled now lie about The damage done is ended A breeze, His whisper, it does not shout ’til what can be is mended
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Not long ago, I had the experience of traveling with a storm that felt personified. If you have spent much time in the Great Plains, you know that thunderstorms there typically move in a Northeasterly direction.
Traveling south along side such a storm, moving in the opposite direction, I and my companions felt as though we were clear of it. Then abruptly and inexplicably, a portion of the bad weather phenomenon broke away from the rest and moved due South. The bad weather stayed just in front of our car the entire remainder of the drive, daring us to accelerate and catch up with the red blob displayed on the weather ap radar. We opted instead to make multiple stops at various and sundry locations, so that each time we caught up to it, it could regain its lead. This slow approach left the drive slow but visible and less dangerous.
This is a response to the old saying, “the pen is mightier than the sword.”
If someone with a sword can take your pen away, is the pen actually mightier than the sword? Or is it that the person with the sword was compelled to take the pen at the behest of someone with a mighty pen?
This all comes down to the nature of power and belief in power. The danger of a pen is that one pen might inspire others to rebel against a different pen. Can a sword do the same? Or is it that word of the sword does it – in which case it is once again the pen?
The same show discussed the same topic and made a powerful case (though I do not believe it actually refutes the one made above.)
My hope was cast forward, into the black, And I trailed after as best as I could. The light meandered – it left then came back – And beckoned me on after if I would.
I remember that when I wrote this, I was thinking about how hope lives both within us and outside of us, in the unknown future, and that we express and possess it through our actions. Hope is the desire that animates our actions. Faith or belief set the course, and then hope inspires action.
Nevertheless, not all beliefs or desires are wise or advisable. Some might say though, that having hope in the wrong thing is better than having no hope at all. Perhaps that’s true. Better still, though, would be having hope in the right thing.
We wrestle with these concepts all the time, in our lives and in the art we consume. The clip below is one of my favorite explorations of these themes.
The assent of the mind to the statement or proposition of another, on the ground of the manifest truth of what he utters; firm and earnest belief, on probable evidence of any kind, especially in regard to important moral truth.
Belief; the assent of the mind to the truth of what is declared by another, resting solely and implicitly on his authority and veracity; reliance on testimony. Similar: belief
hope /hōp/
intransitive verb
To desire and consider possible: synonym: expect.”I hope that you will join us for dinner. We hope to buy a house in the sprin
To wish for a particular event that one considers possible. “We are hoping for more financial support. “
To have confidence; trust.
Faith is an assent of the mind toward an idea. Hope then is the desire to act on faith. Faith without hope can be rather bleak, just as hope without a well-grounded faith can be self-destructive.
Great White Sharks have the best PR, but I’ve always been partial to hammerhead sharks, as sharks go. I just don’t understand how or why that head shape happened, from an evolutionary standpoint. It freaks me out.
Occasionally I see people online interacting with sharks in the ocean. On purpose. Videos like this (see below) cause me to respect sharks less as an adversary.
While running his fingers down the middle of his back, looking for the exact origin point of his nagging ache, and intending to dig his thumb into the muscle there, Walter’s fingers feel a small lump of tissue just to the left side of his spine.
He freezes, and suddenly a rush of recent memories flood into his mind, including an odd morning two days prior when his left leg had been numb upon waking.
He then considers whether he should ask his wife to look at the spot or if he should visit the doctor first, alone, to have it looked at, just in case it turns out to be nothing.
I once had a pilar cyst (not a big deal, as I later found out) on my back, that I discovered in this manner. In my case, I asked about it and was told it had always been there. I’d just somehow never noticed it because it’s hard to get a really good accounting of what’s happening in the middle of my back, you know?
It’s weird to think that lumps of tissue, growing where they shouldn’t, should be so scary. And yet…
It’s also interesting how open you can become (or not become) regarding your own body and its oddities while in a long term relationship. Depending on the circumstances, that openness might shift strongly in one direction, or the other, even between the same two people. Eventually, even in the best of cases, your body stops working properly and you cannot really hide that fact. The best person to help is the one you are with the most. Yet it’s also true that the person you are with most often can be the most impacted by those changes. Your “lump of tissue” is to a great extent theirs, too. Your bad news is their bad news.
I guess the alternative is for people to hide their injuries and then once sufficiently sick, to wander off somewhere alone to pass away. That’s a rather bleak thought.
Dusty Writes 