Here's something that caught my eye at Grace Cafe in McFarland this morning:
And here's the frustration I felt with humanity when I read it (and that includes myself -- last I heard, I was part of humanity): we all think we are kind. That we practice it, live it, breathe it. When my mother was still having more or less normal conversations on the phone with me, she would say, as if she meant it: it's important to be kind. The implication was that she practiced this herself. Though she didn't give examples of it, I felt that she very much placed herself in the category of "people who are kind."
And don't we all do this! We remember the smiles we dished out and forget the cruel nastiness that surely escaped every now and then. If we were glaringly unkind, so that we couldn't fool ourselves into believing otherwise, we tell ourselves, and others -- well, they deserved it! As if our unkindness was merely born of self preservation. Punch out, or die!
In my experience, the people whom I think of as genuinely kind are not blind to their occasional lapses. They know their strengths, their weaknesses, and they never give up trying to do better, even when no one seems to notice or care. If they slip up, they recognize what went wrong. They're mindful, observant, they listen, and yes, they smile at you. And maybe they'll read that sign to be kind and think to themselves -- okay, a smile is needed here, let me deliver.
Now, what was I doing early in the morning at a McFarland Cafe? Well, it had actually been a trying morning. My mother called many, many times with the usual stuff, though inserted in her litany of complaints was one that I did need to address. Not that doing so would help improve her outlook on the world, but still -- fixing that one glitch was important and it did occupy a good chunk of my time today. Feeling somewhat sympathetic to all that was thrown at me from before I was even fully awake, Ed asked -- want to bike over to that coffee shop in McFarland for breakfast?
And so after a brief walk to feed the animals...
(there is one day lily plant that forgot it's not yet July!)
(look what else is about to burst into a sea of purple, right behind the barn!)
(let me not neglect the Bresse hens...)
... we got on our bikes and headed... east! Over the river and through the woods...
It's such a nice ride. Easy, too. McFarland is only about a half hour bike ride from the farmhouse. And the morning is nippy but beautiful!
The coffee shop is spacious and colorful...
... but it's such a brilliant day, that we take our croissants and drinks to the outside table -- me, warming up in the sun, Ed, sticking to the shade.
And I said as much -- isn't this simply the best? These are words that always lead us to the same reflection, which honestly, isn't totally unrelated to my earlier mention of kindness: we are all not grateful enough. For what we have in life. Focusing too much on that what is missing. (To bring it back home, my mother can get incensed, absolutely incensed that an aide will not run to her room and bring her a missing cookie from the tray the minute she presses the emergency call button. Dont even ask how many times in the course of the day she presses that button. You;re guessing twenty? Thirty? You are off by a lot.)
Ed and I both lived for long spells in places that had no plumbing (me, at my grandparents' village home, Ed -- in the woods, for a few months, in Tennessee, then in an old farm in Wisconsin. Also without plumbing) and so we always bring it back to the toilet: you don't appreciate on a daily basis your toilet, do you? What if you had to live without one for a while? (Because so many people do...) Go use an outhouse in the winter on a regular basis. You get to really love your shower and the modern waste management system.
It's hard to practice gratitude. You say the right words, think the right thoughts and then the next minute you go back to griping about not getting good service at a restaurant, or a child's loud voice on an airplane, or your colleague's better parking spot allocation at work. Never mind that you sat down and had a whole meal prepared for you, and yes, you were once that child with a loud voice, and hey, it's a parking spot. For a car. That you drive. As opposed to horse and wagon, on the coldest days of the winter.
Ed and I talked, too, about slavery and communism and authoritarian autocrats and religion. And toilets. That's what happens when you step out of the quiet of a farmhouse life.
I then spent the whole morning on taking care of my mother's stuff, with only a short break for more pleasant readings. The afternoon? Appointments. Remember, I over-scheduled myself.
In the evening, Ed's engineering friends, including the Polish young man and his very pregnant wife, are here for a supper of take-out Thai. The good thing about these people is that they are young and charming and totally pleasant to be with. We ate on the porch. A little cool, but still -- so very beautiful.
Not such a quiet day maybe, but stunning in its simple, late spring beauty.
