I am mortified by this character failing--particularly when I am brought to my knees by thank-yous I have received. I don't think there is anything that melts my heart more than a little voice on the phone saying "Thank you for my wings, Nana!" --or the same sentiment accompanied by a picture in the mail. Just the mental picture of Audrey wearing her butterfly wings (found in a toyshop in Kingsport, Tennessee) and crouching in the box I sent them in, ready to emerge from her 'cocoon' in all her splendor...well, if that doesn't put a smile on your face, I feel sorry for you. Likewise, the image of Claire, stomping around the house in her new blue rain boots, practicing for puddles...another sweet "thank you, Nana!"
But, while these predictable Nana-moments touch my heart, there are the unpredictable ones that arrive out of the blue and absolutely knock my socks off: the former student (and I mean DECADES in the past) who wrote after seeing me named poet laureate--and said she was now a lawyer, and had given up the music she had pursued in high school (she was in the orchestra)--but when she saw that I had kept up with my writing (I had been her chemistry teacher) had decided that she could do the same with something that gave her pleasure: her music. Thank you.
Or, even more astounding, a friend of mine who wrote to say he'd gone back to school--at least in part due to my taking a chance late in life (over 14 years ago, now!) and changing careers. Me? An inspiration? Come now. But there was his message in my inbox yesterday, and now, permanently in my heart. Thank you.
I am one person, and one could never say that I was ever in any kind of powerful position. I lived my life, did things that were expected of me, and never asked why (though I have been known for the occasional "What the hell..why not?") I am ordinary.
And yet, and yet...now and then, out of the thousands of ordinary contacts and conversations, somebody else finds an extraordinary moment: something that snags their attention, something they act upon that makes a difference to them. It happens all the time, I am sure, for everyone. It's what makes us social beings, what helps us grow. Most times, those moments go unacknowledged. Most times, we just accept the contributions that those around us make to our own evolution. Most times, we continue on our way, richer for the experience, but unaccountably silent, when it might mean so much to someone else to hear the what and how and why. The 'thank you'.
But, sometimes, people say it. And that can make you think again about your place in everyone else's world, and perhaps prompt a few 'thank you's of your own.
(Oh, and there's a little coda to this: today, when I was re-filling the fountain and sorting through pots to re-pot my yuccas and my ginger plant, and thinking about where I could park my car so I could retrieve the 25-lb bag of potting soil from the trunk...a couple walked by with their daughter, and the woman asked if this (gesturing at my front walk and pots and bench) was mine. I said yes, and she proceeded to tell me how much they all looked forward to walking by my house because of the flowers and the shrubs and the color..and didn't I have poetry out there once? And they really loved that, and read what people had posted and didn't I think that people really needed poetry? And this was about the poetry I had posted over a year ago!
Which goes to show again that people you don't even know can sometimes be affected by the little things you do..whether it's planting flowers or putting a clothesline out with poetry on it...)
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