Apparently It's A Theme Around Here Today

Finding/seeking/pointing out and choosing the good, that is.

Nothing I've seen in writing recently has broken down this idea better than what I read this morning at OK, Fine, Dammit. She's a writer after my own heart, with the kind of writing style that keeps you interested, and keeps you wanting to know when she'll be posting again. Today she posted a beautiful, much-needed piece that we could all stand to read about twice a day, every day. With her permission (thanks, Maggie!) I am reposting it here for you to enjoy (and pass on), and I hope you'll visit her blog and let her know what it means to you, too. Have a wonderful weekend, dear readers.

From "OK, Fine, Dammit", I give you "What Are You Contributing With All That Hate?"

A dancer does this thing called spotting. She picks a point in the distance and fixes her gaze upon it, and as her body pirouettes she tries to never lose sight of that spot. She spins but her head stays steady, waiting until the last possible moment to whip itself around and return again to start. It’s the only way to perform that magical endless cyclone without making herself sick.

I am neck deep in writing projects right now but I’m not dizzy. I am reveling in my children, often literally spinning, but I am always, always spotting. I morph from writer to wife to mother to taxi driver to maid to cook to praying mantis or lioness twins or whichever Littlest Petshop character I’m relegated to in the constant bouts of imaginary play, and it’s the hardest thing and the greatest thing all at once but I wouldn’t trade it for the world. I am morbidly busy but I know when to quit, too, and most of all I know that I don’t have time for anything that doesn’t give back in some way to the amazing people I see all around me. I don’t have time for drama and bullshit.

I’ve got a brother who teaches English to Somali high-schoolers while his law-school wife works 12-hour days helping the ones our system fails. I’ve got another brother who builds beautiful things with his hands while helping raise two daughters he inherited. I’ve got an aunt who is saving children one at a time when no one else can and an uncle who is churning out self-made CD’s filled with incredible lyrics and vocals and instruments all performed by him including the harmonica he taught himself to play mere weeks ago — oh, and he wins contests for his political cartoons in his spare time. I’ve got a cousin who can make magic out of any instrument he touches and now he’s passing those gifts along to children, another cousin who single-handedly managed to raise 70 donated bicycles for Cambodians, and yet another cousin who took a dream and cracked it wide open and stood in the fire of all that came with it, all for that love. And I’ve told you all about my mom, and there are countless more examples all around me. All around you, too, I bet. Look at what she is doing for flood victims, look at what he has done in the south. Look at the beauty this dad and his amazing son are putting out into the world every damn day. In less than a week we will either have our first man of color or our first female in the highest office in the land, something I never thought I would see in my lifetime. If you feel a subtle change in the air each morning, if things smell a little better or shine a little brighter it’s because there are people who are working hard to contribute something to this world for all of us to share. That’s as it should be.

And that’s why it’s so hard for me to understand the rest of you. No, not 99% of the people reading this, but you. You out there with your ugly and your menace and your hate like slick black sludge.

Whether you are writing dirty campaign ads or forwarding hateful emails, whether you are commenting anonymously on blogs or creating entire websites designed to attack other bloggers, whether you are secretly reading other people’s words only to dissect and ridicule them, I want you to ask yourself — what are you contributing? What have you got to show for yourself? Where are your gifts to the world? What will your obituary say?

The thing I understand least of all is how you have the time for this. Do you not have jobs or families, commitments or goals? Do you not have friends? Don’t you get tired? Aren’t you getting dizzy? Aren’t the fumes from your toxic rage poisoning you bit by bit every day? Don’t you want to be someone better than this?

I forgive you. I wish for you peace, and love, and the innate, genuine desire to want others to succeed, because that is such a gift. Because we all benefit from that, even you. Especially you.
This life is too short and too precious to waste a single moment of it tearing other people down, don’t you see? You are blowing your only shot, but there’s still time to change. Find your unique gifts and imagine them a sparkling emerald in the distance, and stare them down. Focus on them – spot — and spin and spin and spin.

To John, Barack, Joe and Sarah: A Challenge

I am serious. Just listen and see if you're up for it.

For the next four days, as you go through this final weekend before Election Day, I challenge you to do just this:

Stop. The. Smearing.

Get your opponents' names OUT of your mouth. It's not becoming, on any of you.

Don't tell me what he can't do - tell me what you CAN do. Don't tell me why she's unqualified - tell me why YOU are. Don't waste my time raging against your opponents' beliefs and policies - spend it showing me yours and helping me understand why they're yours in the first place.

Give me reasons to vote FOR you, not reasons to vote AGAINST your opponents.

Smearing is smearing, and campaigning is campaigning. Learn the difference, learn it fast, and stop wasting your time pulling other people down in hopes of making yourself look better. My god, my first-grade teacher taught us that, and we were able to grasp the concept at 6. Figure it out. You are out of time, and so are we.

So spend the next four days of your campaign being the upstanding, honest, hard-working citizens that you claim to be. We deserve that much from you, and I am SICK to death of the bellyaching, then name-calling and the bitching about your opponents. According to all of you, we are screwed if your opponents win...so spend your weekend convincing me that they are wrong by showing me what's RIGHT about YOU.

Like A Little Post-Dated Shredded Cookie Fortune

"...in as little as ten seconds..."


How true, how true. It's the first piece of shred Greg picked up when it was all over.

Greg had spent the afternoon shredding documents, bless his heart, as part of TGPMo2008 (what a team player), and it was time for dinner. We considered pizza, and had popped down to the computer to check out our favorite pizza joint's specials. Were down there almost no time at all. Suddenly, Samantha appeared before us, with a hesitant smile, and informed us they'd been "playing with those little papers Daddy made". In that moment, we knew the fate awaiting us 12 feet above our heads.

We ascended the stairs. We rounded the corner into the kitchen. We saw the damage done.



After much gasping, Greg and I raced one another around the corner from the kitchen into the livingroom...to laugh our ever-loving asses off. Imagine how much FUN that must have been, and how much we, as kids, would have been rubbbing out butts for hours when OUR parents came up the stairs.

So we had them get their little-kid broom and mop, and we cleaned it up together.



(What the HELL is on my dustpan? OH, yeah, the LAST mess Jackson made, but that's another story...)



Funny kids. Troublemakers for sure, but still funny. And cute - even with credit card statement shreds in their hair and on their clothes.

OH, and By the Way...

...first box in, 1/2 an inch into the first pile...I found the sewing machine manual. I know, what a total riot, right? I looked in that box, TWICE the night of the sewing machine incident. Twice. It's what spurred on the actual commencement of TGPMo2008.

Yeah. Irony, my friends, irony. Come roll around in it with me.

TGPMo2008: Phase One Completed

It has begun.

All boxes have been brought together. From everywhere in the house. All boxes have been searched and gone through. All shreddables have been removed and boxed together. All recyclable papers are in the green bin. All "other stuff" is in a box of its own. It was a long process, but fruitful and it felt good to accomplish that leg of the movement. Greg even joined in (after helping carry boxes, even) and shredded two garbage bags full. Remind me to tell you about the shreds, by the way.

Now the painful Phase Two can begin. The process of creating and editing the actual files, and then sorting and filing, piece by piece, each item that needs a home. THIS will be the tedius, awful, not-fun portion of the event.

I do not look forward to it.