Skip to main content

The Little Things

For those of us who have been working months and months toward the fruition of the One Big Thing, only to see it come to a trainwreck of a conclusion, this week has been hell on wheels. As I said Wednesday, "I woke up, my head hurt, and the world was wrong." It is as though gravity and the compass ceased to exist.

How do we orient ourselves? Which way is up? Where do we go? All of us who are grieving must find our own way back, back from this weightless, directionless void to a world that makes more sense.

This post by Lisa B, Mrs. S. did a lot towards helping me get my feet back in the ground. "Let's get it done," she says.

I know what I stand for. I know what problems concern me most, and all I want is to see them solved. I don't care about credit. I don't care who does it. I just want it done. I want people to have food and shelter and recreation. I want people to earn wages on which they can live and thrive. I want people to have health care. I want excellent schools for all children.

I don't care who does it. I just want it done.

How can I help?

After I read this, I began to think of all the little things that I have let fall by the wayside as I narrowed my focus to the One Big Thing.

  • Donating food at The Other Barn for our community food bank
  • Taking some books to our Little Free Library
  • Taking Margo's outgrown clothes to the Teen Center for their clothing drive
Little things. Little things that I am ashamed to say haven't been making the big headlines of my life recently and now I am thinking that they're probably the best investments of all.

"How can I help?" asks Lisa. The answer for me, right now, is starting small, and close to home.

 

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Teacher Gifts

Today is the last day of school before the Winter Break. It’s a good time to remember the far-reaching nature of our public school system. You may not have children. You may have sent your children to independent schools. It matters not. You will be impacted one way or another. Yesterday I read a long thread on Facebook about several waves of illness in the schools right now. There’s influenza A and norovirus, I believe. And of course there’s COVID. Apparently in some individual schools the rate of illness is high enough for school admin to notify parents.  When I was little the acceptable holiday gift for a teacher was one of those lovely floral handkerchief squares. (I don’t know what it was for male teachers. They were rare in my elementary years.) These days the range of teacher gifts is wider and I have fond memories of Target gift cards which I have written about before. I think it’s safe to say that giving one’s teacher Influenza, norovirus, or COVID is not the ideal holiday...
1 comment
Read more

F ³: We Are Not Entitled

  A college student went missing. His family and friends were distraught. The community was encouraged to be on the lookout and spread the word.  Days passed.  They must have been agonizing days for those who cared about the missing student. Thoughts that foul play had been involved cannot have been far from their thoughts.  Then, at last, the student was found. Alive. The news was shared with the public.  So. Much. Relief. A family had been reunited with their child. Even though we know that life is complicated, I think it is okay to accept this as a happy ending and leave it at that.  But the world of social media says no. For every expression of joy at the news came questions and even judgement. It became clear to me that some folks felt entitled to an explanation. They wanted the backstory. It’s as though they felt that, by enlisting the help of the public on social media, the authorities now owed them all the details. Television dramas often weave curr...
2 comments
Read more

Separate and Unequal

  Remember “Separate but equal”? Remember how that really meant that Black schools languished in  broken-down buildings without adequate heat or toilet facilities, with cast-off, ragged learning materials, underfunded and largely ignored? The Supreme Court struck that down in 1954. The evidence was clear that separate was not equal. Plessy v Ferguson had led to - - no, endorsed - - deeply unequal schooling and opportunities. We tend to think of Brown v Board as being purely about racial integration. It was not.  It was about the logical consequences of segregation. And they were not, not, not equal. The ruling in 1954 didn’t transform public education for non-whites into a land of milk and honey by any means. But it articulated some essential truths in a way that made including everyone a legal precedent which could be relied upon and built upon. It was better than what came before it but it rested upon unsteady ground. It did not necessarily change the hearts or minds ...
1 comment
Read more