From June Callwood: “If people were kinder, they would be happier. If they were happier, more people would be kindly. If more people were happy the world would be kinder. If the world were kinder it might survive.”
I have been thinking about that– and about Annie Lamott’s observation that we should treat everyone we meet as if we are in an emergency room waiting room together, with a kind of emotional triage. That’s a better suggestion than the perhaps more common one– to care for each person we encounter as if he or she were dying. I mean, that’s so dramatic on the one hand, and so broad on the other. (No one lives forever.) So, for now anyway, I have concluded that it may be easier to try to look at people the way we would a baby– to make them smile, to make that eye contact– soul to soul. Then again, adult strangers (and friends for that matter) might thing me pretty weird if I smiled at them all wide eyed and grabbed their hands and cooed and gurgled at how big they are. But you get the idea, so I’m not tossing it out with the bath water. Everyone loves a happy baby, but no one wants to sit near a crying infant on an airplane.
Chip is a little grumpy since I woke up at five and opened all the windows and doors because the stove was smoking all night with gusty back drafts, and it smelled like we had a wet bonfire in living room. After an emotional discussion, it’s 3 degrees out and it was chilly inside with snow swirling into the living room and blankets on our shoulders, he laughed, and then I did. And we both apologized. Which brings me back to that Canadian journalist and author June Callwood: “If people were kinder, they would be happier.”
P.S.
There is a new art gallery open house and an Arts Confluence office opening this afternoon on Main St. from 1-4. (A very good reason to shovel out.)
