Looking for The Good
There's plenty out there
Hello Loves,
Happy Valentines Day! Although by the time I post this, it will be the Monday after. I hope it was a swell one for you, however you celebrate. It could be love for:
your partner
your besties
your co-workers (who, I might add, threw a heckuva Galentine’s party this past Friday at the office with loaded samosas, which were akin to Indian nachos. I loved them, and we ended with fudgy chocolate cake. My job is pretty sweet.)
your fur baby
your cozy socks
a binge watch (my newest obsession is Love Story, the John F. Kennedy Jr. and Carolyn Bessette Story - it is pulpy trash tv at its best. Thank you Ryan Murphy.)
Celebrating love is always a good idea. Love in all the tiny miracles in your life. Right now, I am digging on the geese in our area who are walking around and honking like they own the place. They are a hoot - or a honk, if you will.
I know we are surrounded by darkness (the media can’t stop telling us) and that ignoring it won’t make it go away, but we can become the change we want to see in the world1. One kindness at a time can change someone’s entire day. This can be as simple as smiling at someone at the grocery store. They may feel like they are invisible. Trust me, the older you get, the more you experience this weird phenomenon, although I am apt to strike up a conversation with most anyone and that keeps this invisibility at bay. For me, at least.
It occurred to me today that we have not entertained anyone in our home for a full two years. For a self proclaimed hospitalityaholic2, that is basically criminal. A couple of months ago I got on a kick that we were going to zhuzh3 up our little apartment porch. I scoured Facebook Marketplace for the perfect pieces and found a trestle table from Pottery Barn some lovely lady in Johns Creek had for sale at a steal. I dragged E over to her house and then we had to figure out how to fit this thing in our Honda Accord. Eric tetris-ed4 it into the car and now it lives on our porch… where it is too dang cold to sit right now.
Come Spring however, I am determined to throw adorable little dinner parties out there. This past Summer, I hauled our cheap square folding table onto the porch and set it for 2, with candles and music playing on our teal colored Bose speaker. I can’t remember what we ate, but I do remember how it made us feel: connected, vacation-like (if you try real hard, the traffic on Peachtree Industrial Boulevard sounds like ocean waves.)
We celebrated love that July night.
Speaking of kindness and love, I stumbled upon this poem from Rebecca D. Martin’s Substack and I thought you might like it as much as I did.
Small Kindnesses
I’ve been thinking about the way, when you walk
down a crowded aisle, people pull in their legs
to let you by. Or how strangers still say “bless you”
when someone sneezes, a leftover
from the Bubonic plague. “Don’t die,” we are saying.
And sometimes, when you spill lemons
from your grocery bag, someone else will help you
pick them up. Mostly, we don’t want to harm each other.
We want to be handed our cup of coffee hot,
and to say thank you to the person handing it. To smile
at them and for them to smile back. For the waitress
to call us honey when she sets down the bowl of clam chowder,
and for the driver in the red pick-up truck to let us pass.
We have so little of each other, now. So far
from tribe and fire. Only these brief moments of exchange.
What if they are the true dwelling of the holy, these
fleeting temples we make together when we say, “Here,
have my seat,” “Go ahead—you first,” “I like your hat.”
Go out and have yourself a fabulous week. You are enough! I love you.
xoxo,
Patti
I stole that from Ghandi
not a real word. see more here.
had to look up how to spell THAT
also not a real word