February 20, 2023
Greetings from the curator,
I am not much of a collector, not in the traditional sense. I tend to keep things that often are too simple to matter on their own but when they gather with other things, I see their purpose. Words, images, experiences, celebrations, discoveries.
Yesterday I was running down a street I rarely explore, and I spotted a sign on the corner.
“Don’t give up” it said. No exclamation point, no explanation, no obvious reason. I was half a block away when I said, out loud, “That’s going on the list.”
I didn’t really know I had started the list, there was no intention, no agenda. I had an assortment that at some point caught my attention, and after a few months, I noticed they had something in common. It was a collection of things that delighted me.
The collection is larger than what I had written down. Most of the experiences come and I am amazed or amused, and it doesn’t occur to me to make a record of it. Some Mondays I share these with you, other times I just absorb them into the rich fabric of my life.
But once in a while, I’ll take a minute and scribble something down, which by itself may seem inconsequential until you see it with its neighbors. Here is a part of my list of things that delight me:
Getting the sandwich bag to seal on the first try.
My running watch randomly tells me I have hit a goal that I didn’t know about.
Getting a sliver out.
Flipping an egg without breaking the yoke.
Having a real conversation with my grown kids that we both enjoy.
Getting mail from people who know me.
Deer in the yard.
Discovering a new roll of toilet paper when I needed it.
Finding two dollars in my jeans pocket.
Lodgepole pines lined up in a forest like sentinels holding up the sky.
Someone I met only once who remembered my name.
Avocado toast.
Catching the avocado just in time to make avocado toast.
I slipped on a patch of ice and landed on my feet after a very impressive contemporary interpretive dance.
My grandson Finley smiled at me. (To be fair, he smiles at everyone, but that doesn’t dilute it.)
Harrison said: “Is ‘strip mining’ where you are mining and the person who doesn’t find any coal has to take off a piece of clothing?”
These little things are sometimes tiny surprises, sometimes they are moments that simply catch my attention. I’m a scribe, so I guess that nudges me to make a record of them, but now I see I have been creating a recipe of sorts.
The sign said ‘Don’t give up’. After a few minutes, I thought it might be left from a race that went through the neighborhood. But in the moment, it struck me as this really important message to everyone who went by. Don’t give up.
It just tickles me. We can barely breathe in without some discouraging news coming at us. There are places in all of our lives where we feel helpless. We each have our battles, our injuries, our setbacks. We might even be tempted to give up hope. But this silly, innocent cardboard sign, mostly by accident, brings us a message from the universe: Don’t give up.
Too easy to be cynical here, too easy to roll our eyes and see that this sign, and my little collection of delights, are frivolous, insignificant, naïve. Any of them taken alone don’t make much of a difference in the scheme of things. Far easier to spot all the cruelty, injustice, pain, and catalogue those.
But we are building a life every day. We get to choose what it consists of, and over time it matters a great deal what we include in our collection. It matters first to us, and then the people we meet.
Start today. Write down the things that delight you. Pretty soon you’ll find yourself looking for little joys to add to the list, and before you know it, it’s all you see.
Hope this finds you collecting what matters,
David
Copyright © 2023 David Smith
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