baby spider pressed against my windshield as I drive down country roads with a 50 mph speed limit and soon I will be on the freeway where the speed limit is 70
I pull over and look around in my car for something I can use to lift the baby off my windshield I find an old cardboard cup sleeve and push it under the little spider until he climbs on then I take him to the side of the road and dangle him over a dandelion leaf I watch as he lowers himself onto the leaf with his spider string and then I get back in my car and head for the freeway
sometimes it’s handy to have a car littered with cardboard cup sleeves
I told the woman who was wrapping up a sandwich for me at the supermarket that I really liked her earrings. She thanked me and then looked at my earrings and told me she liked mine. For a moment, I’d forgotten I’d even put earrings on that morning and reached up to see what I was wearing in my ears. “Oh! These are a pair of my mom’s earrings that I found in her jewelry box after she died,” I told the woman behind the counter.
The expression on the woman’s face softened, and she said they were beautiful. She handed me my sandwich and said, “You have a good day, hon.”
And as I walked away with my sandwich I found myself tearing up.
May our children know kindness May our children know peace May their planet be healthy May their wisdom increase
May they know that they matter May they know they are loved May they live life with courage May they live life above pettiness and imitation bullying and limitation
May our children know kindness May they know they are loved Amen.
What a gift of a day! I drove into Mount Vernon to run some errands and to see how the downtown was preparing for the up-coming tulip festival.
I bought a mocha at the co-op and took it up to the river waterfront to soak up the sunshine while I sipped it.
A man holding hands with a toddler was enjoying the sunshine by the riverfront, too. We smiled at each other, and I smiled at the tot – remembering my own sons at that age. Pretty soon the man approached me and opened conversation. He introduced himself as Serge. He said he was from Ukraine, and that his wife and son had just joined him in America at the end of December. He said his wife and son, Daniel, didn’t speak English, yet – but I could tell as I watched Daniel watching me, that it wouldn’t be long before the little one was fluent. The tot was shy with me at first – and maybe a little scared – but he warmed up to me and, eventually, smiled back at me – and that was magic! Serge said that when Daniel saw planes flying overhead it scared him – because of his experience with the war – but that Daniel was getting more comfortable with planes now. Serge’s wife joined him then and smiled and waved. I welcomed her to America – and Serge translated my words for her. They left then, to wander some more in the sunshine. I was so glad I had a chance to connect with them today.
I walked back down to First Street – cupcakes from Shambala Bakery on my mind. As I shambled towards Shambala I saw a woman put a blanket over a man who was sleeping on the sidewalk. That really touched me. I asked her if the man was alright, and she said yes, but that she feels the need to care for people – and she felt he needed a blanket. I found myself tearing up at her kindness. I felt a kinship with this woman – who I learned was named Jody – and we gave each other a parting hug before I continued on my cupcake mission.
I opened the door to the bakery and hopped to the the case full of cupcakes. So many cupcakes! How to choose?! I decided I’d get the one with banana frosting for my husband, and get myself an orange cupcake. Then I asked the sales person what her favorite was – and she pointed to the chocolate ones with raspberry frosting – so I decided to get one of those instead of the cupcake with banana frosting.
I left with my cupcake loot, and hadn’t gotten very far when I came upon a young man standing on the sidewalk, surrounded by baggage. I asked him if he was hungry, and he said yes. I asked him if he’d like an orange cupcake – and he said that sounded great, thank you. So I gave him the orange cupcake – I’m so glad I had something to give him! – and then went back to the bakery to fetch myself another one.
When I got home from my trip to Mount Vernon, I wasn’t ready to go inside, yet. I pulled a weed. Then another. Then I grabbed the garden claw and settled in for some major buttercup pulling. It felt good to feel the soft earth around my hands. When I was done with that little patch of garden, I pulled out our electric lawn mower and mowed the front yard. The grass was all shiny and green. I breathed in the spring smells and felt the warmth of the sunshine on my face.
There are all these TV shows where there are detectives and body guards and lawyers who are constantly on the alert for suspicious activity – I enjoy these shows. Sometimes I try to imagine myself as an observant detective, myself. So, at the supermarket this morning, I decided to observe – only I decided to look for evidence of good things.
As I stood at the end of a long line at the cash register I had a lot of time to observe. I saw cashiers who were friendly and efficient. I saw people smiling at each other, and making room for other customers to go around them. And in front of me in line I saw a little boy sitting in the shopping cart, reaching up to hug his mom. Oh, it was so sweet and beautiful – that little hug. I felt my heart melting at the sweetness of it. I leaned in and told the young mother that I was a mother of sons, too, and that I remember those precious moments when my sons were little.
Then the little boy got out of the cart and turned to me. He had important things to say to me. He pointed to the Oreo cookies in the shopping cart and told me these were his favorite type of cookies. I told him they were mine, too! So we talked for a bit about the wonder of Oreo cookies and the proper way to eat them. Then the little boy pointed to the primroses in my cart and told me that they were pretty. I asked him which one of the primroses was his favorite, and he said he liked the pink one best. He told me his name was “Benjamin” and said something I didn’t quite catch about “Georgia.”
By this time, his mom’s groceries were all packed up and they were ready to go. I thanked Benjamin for chatting with me, and he said, “Good bye!” and waved at me.
I was so tickled by this happy exchange with young Benjamin.
My highly-honed detective skills helped me find just what I needed this morning.
So I’m at the supermarket yesterday. I park off to the side where it’s not as crowded. As I get out of the car, I notice an older gentleman wheeling a little shopping cart back to the shopping cart area and I tell him I’ll take it from him. He smiles and says when he arrived to go shopping, HE got the cart from another guy who’d been wheeling it to the shopping cart area. He said, “I told him that he’d already warmed it up for me.” We laugh at that and I take the cart in and do my shopping. When I’m done shopping I bring the cart to my car and unload my groceries. Then I start to take the cart back to the cart area when another older gentleman stops me and says he can take it from me – he’s just about to go shopping – and, he says, “You’ve already warmed the cart up for me!” I explain the Saga of the Shopping Cart to him and tell him he’s now the fourth person to have this shopping cart handed off to him. He smiles and nods and takes that friendly little shopping cart into the store.
I like to think that little shopping cart got handed from one customer to another all day long – connecting us all in a long chain of smiles.
Bellingham, Washington: Walked my walk on the boardwalk. Before I drove home, I thought I’d check with the youngest son and his wife and see if there was anything I could bring them. The answer: A fruit smoothie.
I drove to the juicer place (Refresh Juice) on Cornwall, but it wasn’t open, yet, so I walked to the vegan bakery (Wild Oat Bakery and Cafe) down the street to see what I might find there. And I found all kinds of fun there. I ended up buying a slice of banana nut bread for the son and a cupcake for myself and had a cheery conversation with Nolan who was manning the counter.
I left with my loot and saw a young man with a sleeping bag. I thought he probably needed the cupcake more than me and offered it to him. He happily accepted it.
Then a young woman in a sleeping bag called out a hello to me. I asked her if there was something I could get her and she said a bag of chips. “Just chips?” I asked. “Could I get you something from the bakery?” She said that would be great.
So I went back to Nolan and explained my situation. Nolan started grinning when I told him I’d given away my cupcake. “Spreading the love!” he said. I told him it had started with his kind smile. I bought a scone for the woman and a cookie for myself and told Nolan he might be seeing me again in a few minutes. He started cracking up.
I brought the scone to the woman and went to the juice store. It wasn’t open, yet, but I thought I’d just work on my word puzzles while I waited. The juice shop ended up opening five minutes early and I was the first customer. Teagan and Kristen were fun and efficient and quickly presented me with the smoothie for my son and friendly smiles to take with me. They let me take their photo.
Now I went back to Nolan and asked him if I could take his picture, too. He graciously agreed. I announced to all my fellow patrons that Bellingham is full of the nicest people and, on that note, made my exit.
I stopped by the sock shop (Crazy Socks) on my way back to my car – I wanted to get some socks for my daughter-in-law. Reed was working the counter there and quickly helped me find some cat socks and a pair of otter socks, too. And, of course, I had to take a picture of Reed.
Socks, banana bread, and smoothie were successfully delivered to the son and daughter-in-law, and I brought home all the smiles I’d collected for myself. -Karen Molenaar Terrell (Originally publised on bellinghambayblog.wordpress.com.)
-There’s a shop closing in Bellingham – the owner is retiring. I happened to be walking by the door just as the owner, who was inside the store, reached the door with a big box. I swung the door open like it was choreographed for me to do that. She was surprised and thanked me and I wished her a happy retirement. I love when people connect at the just right moment.
– An aisle at the local supermarket was blocked by a young family – the father was on his cellphone and was unaware that people were trying to get around him. I moved to the side so a gentleman on the other side of the family could try to squeeze through – the gentleman smiled at me and thanked me and managed to get through – “I made it!” he said, grinning. And then I squeezed past the little family, too, without knocking anything over. Victory! I love it when people can adjust to each other, and problem solve and have fun with each other.
– Years ago – in August 2001 (just three weeks before 9-11) my family and I visited NYC. I bought a little necklace at Tiffany’s while I was there. I haven’t been able to wear this necklace for years, though, because the chain got all tangled up. I have another necklace – a locket with pictures of my sons when they were toddlers – that I couldn’t wear because it lost its clasp. Today I decided to see if I could get these necklaces fixed. I brought my necklaces into the supermarket jewelry department to see if they could add a clasp to the one necklace and untangle the other. It would take a couple weeks to add a clasp, the man there told me, but he could untangle the chain for me on the other necklace – and he did! For free!
– I went to a second jewelry store to see if they had a clasp for the locket. They had one that might work, but it would cost $90 and I didn’t feel like I could spend that much for a clasp. The kind salesclerk understood, but she asked me if she could clean the Tiffany necklace for me – no charge!
– I went to a third jewelry store (Dreamworks Jewelry) to see if THEY might have a clasp for my necklace there. And oh! I LOVED this store! It was like walking back in time. There were old clocks everywhere – chiming and clicking – and the place was a glorious, happy mess of projects. A man with a magnifying glass in front of his eye came from behind his desk and asked me how he could help. I asked him if he might have a clasp for the necklace. He said yes, he could take care of my necklace for me. He rummaged around in a drawer, found what he needed, applied his jeweler’s tools, and – voila! – handed me my necklace all fixed! And he only charged me $15!
I’m wearing my locket with the new clasp as I type. It feels good to have it around my neck again.
I’ve been struggling the last couple weeks. There’s been tragedy and killing, death and loss. There have been reminders that human life is fragile and short and I’m well beyond half-way through mine.
But in the middle of these morose musings I needed to get new shoes. It was time to make my yearly pilgrimage to the REI shoe department.
These days I have mixed feelings about going to REI. On the one hand, I love being surrounded by mountain people and mountain equipment and mountain clothes. On the other hand, I am not the person I was when I first visited REI all those years ago. I no longer have a need for new crampons or ice axes. There are no major mountain climbs on my horizon. I no longer fit in REI’s little clothes.
But I can still fit in REI’s shoes.
And so I presented myself to Jesse, a salesclerk in the shoe department. I could not have asked for a friendlier, more helpful clerk. I told her I’d worked at the old REI on Capitol Hill years ago, and we bonded in our REI kinship. She brought me three or four pairs of shoes until I found the just-right pair – a pair of shoes that made me feel like I was walking on clouds. A pair of shoes that made me want to run and skip and dance. A perfect pair of shoes.
When I went to the cashier to pay for the shoes, I told him that my dad had been one of the early members of REI. His REI membership number was 38, I told him. The cashier looked up #38 and found it belonged to someone else. Oops. So much for family legend. Hmmm… I gave the cashier my Mom and Dad’s old phone number and he clicked the number into his computer. He looked up and smiled and said that Dad’s number is 946 and that it’s still active! The idea of that really tickled me. Dad died almost three years ago – at the age of 101 – but his REI account lives on. How cool is that?! I said that 946 was still pretty good, right? And the cashier laughed with me and said, yeah, it was pretty good.
*** Louise Penny’s new book came out yesterday. I googled to see if there were any stores near me with her book in stock and, this morning, I went on a quest to our local Target to see if I could find one. I rushed to the books displayed in the front of the store – but no Louise Penny there. I hurried to the book department at the back of the store and scanned the books there – but no Louise Penny. Finally, I went to the customer service counter and inquired about the book – both the attendants there got on their phones to see if they could find any books in inventory, and pretty soon a nice young man told me that it looked like they should have some somewhere – maybe still in boxes in the back room. I told him Louise Penny’s books were great – funny and smart and kind – and I highly recommended them. He nodded and said he had some free audiobooks coming to him – maybe he’d get the audiobook version. He led me back to the book department and looked with me on the book shelves. Then he told me to wait there and he’d see if he could find what I was looking for in the back. A couple of minutes later he appeared with another Target employee, who immediately walked up to a book shelf and plucked Louise Penny’s book off of it for me! Hurrah!!!
*** I’ve started Louise Penny’s *A World of Curiosities* now. Eight pages in I come upon this:
“He held the younger man’s eyes, inviting him to set aside for a moment the great brutality that existed and to remember the acts of greater courage. Of integrity and decency. Of self-control.
“Of forgiveness.
“Not by moral giants, not performed by superhumans. These were men and women of human size and proportion. Some were cops. Some were not.
“What blinded us, he told Beauvoir, were the horrific acts. They threatened to overwhelm us and obscure the decency. It was so easy to remember the cruelty because those left a wound, a scab that hid the rest. Hid the best. But those appalling acts, those appalling people, were the exception.” – Louise Penny
*** Just the words I needed to read today.
Karen Molenaar Terrell
“God is natural good… Truth should not seem so surprising and unnatural as error, and error should not seem so real as truth.” -Mary Baker Eddy
I guess we have to just keep plugging away and be kind, and be wise, and be honest, and do the best we can every day. Even if. Because what’s the alternative, right?
Adventures of the Madcap Christian Scientist 