Thin Ice

Because my cards did not arrive, please accept this blog post as my wish for you to close out the year better than you started.

***

The sky didn't look all that interesting when I headed out for an early morning grocery run, but as I was finishing things took a turn so I headed to my favorite spot. I got out and waited noticing an older gentlemen with a fancy camera. He waved at me as I walked around and then said, "You gonna steal all my pictures?" 

 "I'm not stealing anything," I said. "This is my version of fun and I share it for free."

He nodded. "Me too!"

We each went our own way and later noticed at the same time that the letters that spell our city's name had fallen over. Without a word, we walked toward them and hauled them up. We both stood back and looked.

I shrugged, not sure if they were just right.

"Well, they look better than they did!" 

I agreed and then we both laughed while wishing each other a good day.

And then I spotted this sign.

It made me wonder how many of us feel as if we are on thin ice. After we tally up the losses, can we close out 2020 better than how we started it? What does that even mean during a global pandemic and racial unrest? After a contentious presidency and emotionally fraught election? As the grief expands with each day that passes?

Leaving the year better than before seems almost impossible.

Leaving a year better is about helping someone, no questions asked, no judgement passed. I've seen this time and again on a local Neighbors website where people just hop on, ask for what they need and most often, minutes pass before a need is met. Help moving, donated Christmas decorations, urgent housing, birthday parades, Santa needs gifts, a holiday meal, a box spring, winter gear, rocks hauled away, a ride, a delivery, snow removal, grass trimmed, sick pet medical bills. You name it--it has been asked for and much has been given freely. Political affiliations play no part of it and that is surely not the point and yet it is.

I heard some podcast where the discussion was around how to unite people in such tumultuous times. The suggestion was doing things with people, getting in there to create shared experience that perpetuated good will. Let that pave the way towards a deeper connection. Over time, with enough shared experience, maybe bridges can be built over these issues that seem to have become major roadblocks on our world: climate change, racial disparity, economics, facts versus fake news.

And then a few days later, Bob and I were discussing the lack of imagination the other day. He wondered how hard it might be for some to simply imagine how another person lives. I simply cannot imagine NOT imagining how other people live. Having grown up in white rural places, I told him one of my earliest memories was reading Roll of Thunder, Hear My Cry and later I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings and To Kill A Mockingbird. These books made me wonder about so much, about worlds and people I did not know and struck a curiosity in me about how other people live and the belief that not everyone had my experience.

35 years later, I still have this curiosity and belief. And so the charm of Neighbors is when someone says, "I need this. Can you help?" generally, the answer is yes. There is belief, trust, and acceptance without question or blame. 

Leaving this year better involves simply using your imagination enough to allow that how a person is able to move through the world may not look like how you move through the world.

Leaving this year better, I think, involves being vulnerable enough to say things like--

I am sorry. 

I am in pain.

Can you help me? 

I was wrong.

My anger is filling me up.

My depression is on fire.

You hurt me.

I don't get it.

Please listen.

Can we try again?

Tell me your story.

Leaving this year better means knowing the ice is thin and walking out anyway because the risk of staying closed to possibility means more of the same and I'd like to think we know that what we've know is not working.

I am not asking for miracles. I am asking for a small crack to appear in your heart, the beginning of a question you may not have asked before, a curiosity and desire to be play some part, however small, in doing better. 

I hope if you are on thin ice, unsure and feeling unsteady, you decide to try anyway.