loquacious

This I Believe: Small Things

I believe in the power of small things. Small things add up.

I do not like oatmeal. I love oatmeal with a few raisins and a bit of brown sugar.

When I danced, I was amazed at how a few formal arm shapes and a few leg positions could add up to a simple movement that took my breath away, that expressed joy and exuberance in a way I had never felt before.

A kiss is just a kiss, but a kiss every morning, at the same time, when either of us leaves home, adds up. That series of small, not that significant, and certainly not very romantic kisses, builds to a pattern of life. Its daily occurrence is a reminder of all the others.

Its forcible removal is an injustice. A phone call or even a video chat can replace some parts of a relationship, but the small, quick, light kiss at the start of the day can not be replaced. Its absence is a daily reminder that you have been put into your place in a world that does not recognize your kiss.

The small actions of individual people add up. Tides turn and regimes fall – and rise – on the summative actions of individual people. A few large people and large actions are remembered, but the situation, in the end, is only changed through the totality of action by all the people involved. I do not doubt that my every action is capable of making change occur. I do not doubt that my small actions add up, nor that they have played significant roles in changes I have observed, and also in those that I will never know about.

A small raisin, a low ronde jambe, a small kiss in the morning, a little bit of tear gas in your eye. Small things, perhaps, when compared to the scope of life or the long stretch of history.

But those small things are life, they are history. This I believe.

 

Ken Thompson

Society of New Hope (Craigville, MA)

Day 3 (April 28, 2009)

[note to readers: I wrote this while at The Power Lab, which really deserves a post of its own...I should write it one day. Let's just say it's a cross between a professional development/leadership course and an improvisational theatre piece you perform with 15 strangers. And it runs for 6 days, 24 hours/day. I wrote this piece as I despaired that I was working to maintain a fascist state.]

Juju (~1992-2009): He Paid His Kitty Rent

Dear Juju:

I don't know how to begin this letter. Your death overtook me in a way that I did not expect. We knew you were sick, but the end came quick for you, I was not prepared to let you go. I felt a grief and a sorrow that has no remedy. I've thought a lot about this over the past week.

I think you know how much we loved you, but it troubles me that there was no way of really telling you how much I appreciate all that you did for me and Otts. In your last days I really wanted you to understand that, to know what a difference it was you made in my life. Did you know? Could you know? You were a pretty smart cat, but I'll never know what you really understood.


 When you and Otts moved to the Thomas Street apartment, they charged Otts extra every month for having a pet in the apartment. We called this your kitty rent and tried to think of kitty-appropriate jobs that you could have to pay off your rent. Doughnut delivery was our favorite possibility, but as far as we knew, you never had a paying job. However, I want you to know that I think you paid your kitty rent, more than in full, over the years.

You paid in friendship. I think it still sounds odd to describe you as our friend, but you really were. Your 'puppy dog' ways made you always present in our lives, always around on our laps or under our feet or at minimum somewhere in the room keeping track of us. What friend is perfect? You were not, for sure. But it's the unique things about a friend that make them special, and you had lots of that.

Inside the apartment, you hunted for us each night. On your big legs and your clicking toenails (which we trimmed for you, like your personal kitty spa assistants) you brought your mousie toy to us each night, announcing your approach and hunting prowess with a distinctive meow, before settling your large self on our small bed for the night. You lay, a warm spot on our bed, somehow immovable, like you had swallowed a teaspoon of the sun. Our bed seems empty now, with only the two of us and your kitty brother.

At the risk of making this more about me than you, I can not get over my reaction to your death. I'm not ashamed or afraid of this grief. Grief over a death is the price you pay for having really loved someone. I'm glad to have this grief now because it affirms how much you meant to me, how much I loved you.

It seems wrong somehow that the world goes on. You were so unique and only brought happiness into the world, no sorrow, so it seems wrong that life continues. People drive their cars around, Congress talks about health care, I go to work. We buy groceries. We plan for the future. How can things go on when you are missing? Yet they do. I find this both hopeful and depressing. You are missing from the world and can never be replaced. Something unique and good is gone forever.

I firmly believe that there is nothing after life (and so the rhetorical conceit of this letter should be clear). The measure of who you are is solely based on the life that you have lived. Although there is no one and no thing anyone has to prove themselves to in this world, I can vouch for all the joy, happiness, and love you brought into the world. I'll always remember your warmth, your smell, your purr, the way you'd nuzzle your head on my chin when you were very happy. Mostly, I'll never forget the way you looked me in the eye when we talked. I really felt like you were listening and understood.

"The greatest gift of life is to know love." I'm sure you remember this song, we played it all the time. I really believe that that is true, and you both gave and got that gift. You paid your kitty rent.

I will love you always.

Ken