All It Takes Is A Little Love

I have many moments seared into my memories that were so important that even many years later I am able to remember them with uncanny clarity. One of them happened when I was a chaperone for a summer Civil Rights tour with the Class of 2010 in the high school where I worked. 

As someone who recalled the days of segregation and the efforts to bring equality and justice to Black American citizens it was an honor to be able to visit the places where great things happened. We visited locales where individuals literally risked their lives to tear down all of the barriers that had kept Black people in the shadows of our democracy even after slavery had been abolished. I felt quite emotional standing in front of the hotel where Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. was assassinated. I almost cried as I walked across the William Pettit Bridge with my students.I remembered the segregation of my childhood as I sat on the bus where Rosa Parks so famously refused to move from her seat. It was at the parsonage where Dr. King and his family lived that I had my most spiritual experience. 

I had wandered through the house with my students while a sweet lady told us the history of Dr. King’s stay there. I saw his children’s rooms and recognized the design of his 1960s era furniture from that of my own childhood. In the kitchen I witnessed a formica topped table so much like the one where I broke bread with my family. I wanted to sit down, close my eyes and imagine Dr. King and his wife smiling and conversing at the end of a day the way my mother and brothers and I had once done.

The guide told us the story of the bomb attack on the house. Someone had hope to blow up the place with explosives planted underneath the front porch. Luckily the power of the blast was not big enough to do the damage it was intended to create. Nonetheless it rocked Dr. King and his family so much that those who loved him were urging him to leave his civil rights work and move back to his hometown of Atlanta where he could work in a church with his father.

Dr. King was torn as to what to do. Long after his family retired to bed he sat at that kitchen table reading his Bible and praying to God for guidance. By morning he had come to believe that he had been called by God Himself to be a leader in the civil right movement. He would stay and face whatever dangers lay ahead. 

I was mesmerized as I stood staring at the table where such a great man had once made his momentous decision. I lingered after my students left the building with the guide. I needed to be alone in that moment and when the guide walked back inside she found me meditating and somehow feeling the spirit of Dr. King himself. She read my mind and quietly asked if I wanted to touch the table. I simply looked at her, smiled and nodded my head. She gave her accent wordlessly as I leaned over the barrier separating me from the table. When I put my hand on the cold top I closed my eyes and somehow felt that I had been granted a great gift of understanding. I literally felt how much moral courage it took for Dr. King to decide that he had to continue his work regardless of how frightening it might be. Tears rolled down my cheeks as I somehow fully comprehended the importance of what had happened there.

I’ve often spoken of reading about the lives of saints when I was a young child. I was not able to relate to most of them. They seemed to be too perfect for me to even consider emulating them. With Dr. King I found a true human who I believe overcame his faults to courageous do the work of a saint. He was admittedly imperfect but he nonetheless kept working to take down the barriers that subjected his people to prejudice and hatred. He knew the risks, but took them anyway because it was the true work of a Christian minister. He literally laid down his life for his fellow human beings. 

It is difficult to find people with moral courage these days. Alexi Navalny, a Russian lawyer who fought for freedom for his fellow citizens, had it. He was no doubt killed while in prison. He understood what his fate might be but publicly protested in spite of the dangers. Liz Cheney has stood up to the political party that once enshrined her father as Vice President of the United States. They turned on her because she was unafraid to speak the truth about Donald Trump. She and Nalvany are exceptions in today’s world. People look away when they witness wrongdoing. The carefully parse their words and fall in line with bullies and dictators rather than risking the consequences of doing the right thing. 

I suppose most of us, including me, would be prone to backing down or staying quiet rather than standing alone for the sake of what is just. It is so incredibly difficult to summon the kind of bravery that might result in losing friends or jobs or even one’s life. We would do well to admit that someone has to step up to the plate when people are hurting. It might as well be one of us. Why not choose to be that person if only in a small way? The challenge is there for us all.

A while back I saw that The Glenn Miller Orchestra was coming to Galveston, Texas to play in the 1894 Opera House. I joked with my husband that it would make a great Valentine’s Day gift to both of us since it was going to take place on February 11. He hesitated for a moment and his father joked that we would be out of place going to a venue featuring music from the World War II era but eventually my husband was nonetheless intrigued by the idea and invested in the tickets. 

When the day of the presentation came it rained cats and dogs and I was nursing the end of illness from flu that had kept me coughing and wheezing for over ten days. I worried that I would not be able to inhibit my croupy cough during the performance and wondered if I was going to be up to sitting for a couple of hours in my weakened condition. With great hope I filled my purse with cough drops and tissue and pulled my pallid self together for the drive from the Houston area to Galveston.

It was still damp and sprinkling when we arrived but I had experimented with the cough drops on the short journey and they seemed to be doing their magic. We arrived in time to dine at the Gumbo Bar where I enjoyed a hearty bowl of and chicken and sausage gumbo. The warm and spicy brew opened my sinuses and seemed to be just the medicine that I needed to boost my energy and soothe my throat. I was ready. 

The 1894 Opera House is a treasure. With its beautifully carved stairways, brass fixtures, carpeted floors and gleaming wooden accents it is a step back in time. I immediately knew that it was the perfect venue for listening to music from the nineteen forties when my mother began the decade as a teenagers and ended it as the very young mother of me. 

I had heard all of her stories about the music of her era and of course the Glenn Miller Orchestra was among her favorites. I knew the songs and cherished the times that my mother would magically become young again and dance across our living room floor to the strains of tunes that became as familiar to me as they were to her. I looked forward to enjoying the music even if none of the original members of the orchestra were still around. As the curtain opened the familiar strains instantly captivated me. 

For much of the concert I closed my eyes and imagined my mother listening to the radio with her family in the east end of Houston, Texas at 517 North Adams Street. I thought of her catching a bus on the corner to ride the few miles to downtown Houston where she learned how to dance from watching the movies. I imagined her wowing her friends when she jitterbugged like a sprite that was lighter than air at Eastwood Park. She would often smile and boast that when she danced the other teens formed a circle around her to watch her skills and applaud her with awe. 

I thought of her listening to Franklin Roosevelt as he attempted to calm the nation in those tumultuous times. Mama always teared up when recalling how grateful she and her family were for the compassion and leadership of the great man who not only eased them out of the dark years of depression but also through the frightening times of the war. She would forever think of his fireside chats as a panacea for the uncertainty that the nation was feeling. She would remember waving at Roosevelt in his open car when he passed by her street on a visit to Houston. He smiled at the crowd and somehow made her feel as though he was looking directly at her.

My mother said that her father, my grandfather, insisted on a kind of reverence for the president and his wife who became like loving parents for the people of the United States. She also boasted that everyone in the nation played a part in sacrificing to save the world from fascism. 

The price of the dedication to democracy not just here but around the world was all too often great loss. In my mother’s case it was the death of the fiancee to whom she had pledged her undying love before she met my father. She would speak of him many times and keep a photo tucked away among her most cherished keepsakes. 

I imagine my mother and all Americans finding great solace in the music of the Glenn Miller Band. It was uplifting and so classic that it is just as good today as it ever was, even to an audience of aging Baby Boomers. Like me they had learned to love the music from their parents. 

Several years back my best friend’s father had died. He was a jolly fellow and I knew how much she was going to miss him and his laughter. I went to his funeral mainly in her honor. I learned so much more about him during the service. At the end of the somber goodbye his granddaughter stepped forward and announced that he had asked that his leave taking be accompanied by some special music. Then she nodded as a worker at the funeral home pushed a button to fill the room with the sounds of In The Mood. 

Smiles burst forth on every face. Some people moved their feet or swayed in unison with the beat. There were even a few outbursts of applause. We understood the man’s message in that moment. We are good people who find ways to get through the most difficult of times. He was encouraging us to carry on.

I saw that again at the concert. For a couple of hours we were reminded of who we are as Americans. We all seemed to understand the need for unity in the fight for what is right and good. Our parents knew what to do. Now we must move forward just as they taught us by example to save the world from anyone who would dare to rule us with anger and hate. We have a job to do and we have the blueprint for how to do it in our history and in our music. 

Everyone likes the idea of being free to be themselves. Sometimes we balk at laws and rules that seem to impinge on our ability to express ourselves. Teens in particular are notorious for questioning the purpose and legitimacy of rules. So it has been throughout our human history that individuals and groups push back whenever they believe that their rights are being curtailed. 

As a mother and teacher I often encountered situations in which the youngsters in my care pushed the envelope to determine just how far I would allow them to challenge the standards that I had set in place for my family and my classroom. I learned the importance of allowing them to ask questions and I was always willing to explain why I had certain guardrails in place. 

I often joked that if nobody ever did anything bad or disruptive we would not need the guidance of commandments or laws or classroom rules. I explained that they would do well to ask what might have led people to outline behavioral directives in the first place. I gave them examples and let them delineate the reasons why we specify which behaviors are unacceptable in certain situations. In particular through the discussions they began to realize that history and experience show us that people all too often take advantage of situations that seem to be free for alls.

I have been watching our president tossing aside watchdogs, agencies and rules that were designed to insure fairness in our society. He and many of those who support him seem to believe that many of the guardrails enshrined in our Constitution and in our laws are no longer needed to protect the people for whom they were originally designed. There may be some merit to the idea that certain laws outgrow their usefulness in some situations. We would do well to inspect and adjust the ways that we do things now again as needed, but I question the wholesale destruction of protections for people who are still all too often easily abused when there are no consequences. 

The first time I interviewed for a teaching position occurred in a time when there were few specific rules for protecting individuals from offensive and prejudicial assessments of their worth in the workplace. When I describe my unbelievable interview to people today they are appalled by my story and even wonder if it was just an horrific exception. Sadly if I had complained nobody at the time would have thought that I had been subjected to unfairness. Even I went along with the intrusive and insulting questions because that’s just the way things were and I wanted a job. 

I remember walking nervously into the office of the head of hiring for the school district. I was nervous just as most people are in such situations. I smiled meekly as I took a seat across from the man who would determine my fate and hoped that I would impress him with my answers to his interrogation. 

He began by noting that he liked the scent of my perfume and the way I had done my makeup and hair. He complimented me on my choice of clothing and expounded a bit on how appearance was of utmost importance to him. I mentally squirmed a bit when he told me that he had chosen to interview me based on the photo that I was required to include with my application. He said nothing about my academic success or the key points of my resume. Everything centered on the fact that he thought that I was attractive enough to  meet his standards.

The next subject of his assessment of me revolved around the fact that I was a Catholic. Amazingly in that time one of the questions on the applications asked about my religious beliefs. As he babbled on he admitted that there had been a time when the school district would not hire Catholics because most of the families living in that area were Christians. I hoped that he did not notice my inner eye roll as I realized that he did seem to believe that Catholics are indeed Christians. 

He went on the explain that one school year there was an extreme shortage of teachers and he had been forced to hire a former nun with many years of experience teaching in a Catholic school. When she proved to be one of the best educators he had ever sent approved for hire he decided that maybe it was time to set aside his concerns about Catholic teachers. Then he let me in on a bit of history by talking about a nearby Catholic church that had been burned down several times by citizens who did not want that influence in their neighborhood. 

Eventually he got down to the nitty gritty of determining my worth with a couple of easy questions about teaching that I fielded with no difficulty. Surprisingly he ended the interview by exclaiming that he knew the minute that I had walked into his office that I was a winner and that he would proudly send my resume around to the principals in his district. 

I indeed got a job with a fabulous female principal who seemed much more attuned to my educational and job oriented chops. I enjoyed a wonderful time working under her guidance but I would always look back on that incredibly discomfiting interview with the head of human resources. When I later took a labor law class while earning my Master’s degree. I fully understood why Congress had passed so many laws designed to protect workers. Those pertaining to prejudices felt particularly important to me. I related my story to the professor and my classmates all of whom were astounded that such practices had actually existed. 

We should all be alarmed when any of our laws are tossed aside without much thought. Ours should be a detailed process of determining why the law was created in the first place and whether or not the reasons for doing so have changed enough to insure that nobody would dare to creep back into a modus operandi that would impinge on the rights and safety of any person or group. 

Right now so much work designed for very real reasons is being tossed aside under the assumption that it was simply a “woke”attempt to give minorities a bigger advantage than they either deserved or needed. I worry that we are undoing so many programs that have kept the workplace and our society in general from falling back into atrocious habits. 

I was lucky enough to maintain my composure in that long ago interview even as I felt humiliated and unseen for who I was. The stereotyping of my worth based on appearances and my religion passed muster for me but I have always wondered what happened to the women whose choice of clothing and perfume did not meet the interviewer’s standards. I was happy that our nation actively served as a guardian. Now we seem to have let the dogs out leaving so many unprotected from prejudices. I suspect that unless we halt the wholesale destruction of rules we will eventually rue the day that we quietly allowed this to happen. 

We carry within us the wonders we seek around us. —-Sir Thomas Browne

I suppose that I developed my sense of wonder from my parents and my grandmother Minnie Belle. My father seemed to make a habit of learning something new each day. He pored over the books that brought him so much joy while listening to recordings of the classical music that he so loved. He had so many interests that it would be difficult to name what fascinated him the most. I suppose one might say that he was curious about all aspects of the world around him. He transferred his excitement to me and to my middle brother. Sadly the younger of our family was too young to really remember him after he died so young. The wonder of it, is that my younger brother is the reincarnation of our father.

I find myself thinking of my father each time I collect yet another book. From time to time I run out of room for storing all of my treasures and cull the ones that have impressed me less than the others. I suppose that I might do better just putting them on my Kindle but I enjoy the feel of the paper, the illustrations on the cover and the smell of the ink almost as much as the content presented in the words. Reading is a tactile process for me just as it was for my father. Like him I am willing to try both fiction and nonfiction, poetry and prose. I tend to be happiest when I am browsing the aisles in a bookstore. Somehow I always find something that intrigues me and I can’t leave without bringing it home. I often read multiple volumes at once much like studying different subjects in school. The written word when well crafted is beautiful and I glory in discovering the best of it. 

My mother found wonder in the most ordinary places and moments. I suppose it was because she was a joyful person unless she was sick. We always knew when her bipolar disorder was interrupting her happiness because she was suddenly so sad and dissatisfied with everything. Most of the time thankfully she offered cheerfulness wherever she went. It took so little to bring a smile to her face. A really good cup of coffee with a bit of cake was a special treat. Sitting on the Galveston seawall watching the ocean tides gave her a thrill. She never had to spend money or travel to faraway places to see the glory in the world around her and I miss her gentle optimism to this very day. I have known no other person who was as content with so little. She felt blessed if she simply had just enough to have a roof over her head, pay her bills and feed her hunger. Anything beyond that was gravy in her mind and tiny luxuries made her laugh with unmitigated joy. 

I have told countless stories of my grandmother Minnie Bell. Oh, how I loved her and so it seems did everyone. She was like the pioneer women that I read about in my favorite childhood books. She communicated with the birds with calls that sounded authentic. She hunted and fished and made clothing and quilts out of fabric from the bags of flour that she purchased to make biscuits, bread, pies and cakes with recipes that she filed in her head. She told me about the “old days” when she washed clothes in a river and beat out the dirt on rocks. She described how people used corncobs to clean themselves in the outhouses. She showed me how to crochet and embroider and sew. To this day I think that if everything broke down in an apocalypse I would want to have Grandma Minnie by my side. She would be able to survive in any situation. 

Because of these remarkable people there has never been a time when I did not see and hear and feel the wonder around me. Even as I know that there are serious troubles in the world I notice the love and compassion and ingenuity of humans striving to set things right. Sometimes music is so glorious that it brings tears to my eyes. A beautiful line of perfectly selected words makes me breathless with awe. I see workers preparing roads in one hundred degree weather and I want to roll down the window of my car and shout thanks to them for doing a job that most of us would never want to try. I see beautiful babies with their loving families and I feel certain that we are going to be okay. I stare out my windows at the mischievous squirrel trying to steal the food that I have left for the birds and I chuckle with delight. I wave at my neighbors and feel such gratitude for being around really nice people. I work my puzzles and enjoy finding words that express my feelings almost magically. 

I carry many wonders inside my soul. They come from many people, many places, many experiences. They are representations of who I have become. it has been my good fortune to see the wonder that is ordinary and yet so extraordinarily magnificent. Stop and look around and you surely will see it too. 

Life is a funny thing. We are as innocent as can be when we are born. We are curious and willing to explore. We see no difference between ourselves and others. We simply enjoy each day just as it comes. Sadly the world too often teaches us that there are winners and losers and that nothing is worse than being a loser. Instead of just enjoying the play of a game, we begin to strive to be champions. When we are successful we feel the joy of adulation. When we fail we sense the disappointment of the people around us. We begin to compete and compare ourselves, sometimes winning, sometimes losing and almost always wondering if we are good enough. We are somehow taught to believe that we are unworthy in one way or another. 

We may begin to look in the mirror and focus more on what seem to be flaws in our appearance. Perhaps our hair is too thin or too curly. Maybe our eyes don’t look quite right. We do our best to be presentable but watch someone born with beautiful features being touted for good looks. 

We may be quite good at quickly learning but awkward on a field of sports or maybe it is the reverse. We feel ourselves being studied and measured by people who don’t know us at all and we feel discomfort. Maybe we are the ones who are judging others with superficial eyes. We begin to be our own worst critics wondering why our hard work doses not provide us with a bigger home, a nicer car, more money in the bank. We see the world through the eyes of competition and rank people and things based on some invented criteria. We are never quite satisfied. Enough is never enough. 

Such has been the struggle for humans for centuries. There always seem to be the haves and the have nots. Life can seem unfair unless we stop the cycles of pitting ourselves against each other rather than simply enjoying the persons that we are just as we are. The key to a good life lies in loving ourselves, not in a narcissistic way, but in appreciating the unique features and talents that we each have. 

My guess is that everyone has known a beautiful person who was miserable and a homely one who has found the keys to happiness. We’ve seen wealthy and powerful people who never seemed able to get enough and people with low incomes who generously share what little they have. Those who are self assured no longer worry about appearances or titles. They possess the inner power of finding joy in simplicity. They do not view other people as competitors, but as partners in a journey that will have a lifetime of ups and downs, wins and losses. They manage to keep going because they have found the secrets of the silver lining playbook. They look past the artificial and see the beauty in the ordinary. 

We would all do well to consider the role of perspective in our lives. The job that we have may be a bit dreary at times and we may even feel underpaid. To the individual who is desperately seeking work and a paycheck our employment may seem to be a source of great happiness. Our home may feel small and cramped but someone whose house has been ravaged by the floods of a hurricane might be quite content with a solid roof and a warm refuge no matter how tiny it may be. 

We complain about our nation and our politics but we have the strongest economy in the world. So far at least, we are not engaged in war but we run the risk of getting there if we become so disgruntled that we insist on demanding everyone to think alike. We become judge and jury of people’s thoughts and blithely toss away old friendships in a silly belief that there is only one way of doing things and those who resist must be punished. We choose sides, teams, tribes, races and harshly compare all to satisfy our lust for power and wealth. 

I often quote my mother because she was indeed a very wise woman. She had her moments of mental illness when her mind was not working at its best but in between was a person who had most brilliantly learned how to live life well. The key to the joy that she both felt and gave away was in loving herself and then spreading that love to others regardless of who they were, how they looked, what status or rank they had in life. She was able to marvel at the tallest tree or the tiniest flower. 

Life is much shorter than it may seem when we are busy living it. There is nothing wrong with striving to be our best at anything as long as we remember that when we make it a comparative struggle we steal away our own joy and that of the people around us. Life is so much better when we enjoy our victories and learn from our failures but don’t measure worth like a competitive sport. We can make our lives full and meaningful wherever we are as long as we see the beauty all around us and share whatever bounty comes our way. If we learn to do that we will smile when the end comes, confident that we made a mark on the world however small simply because we were kind and we loved.