Last week, amidst my partner getting downed by food poisoning and me getting hit was wave after wave of anaphylaxis GI pain, a book arrived in my mailbox. It was Peace Pilgrim's book, put together by her friends following her death in 1981.
I devoured it over the next couple of days. There's a lot I could say about it and how reading it impacted me, but one of the key takeaways that stuck in my head where her instructions to "Do all the good that you know to do." It really resonated for me as someone who is often stuck in bed - there is still good I can do.
A few days ago, as another wave of abdominal pain was upon me and hours on the toilet were imminent, I grabbed a little stationery kit and started writing little notes to my neighbors about how their yards really cheered me and were a treat to walk by in the evenings and how much I appreciated their kindness in passing. Once I was through my bathroom experiences, I sealed them up en envelopes and walked around delivering them. It didn't feel like a lot of good, or any really, but I figured if it made them smile then it would have been worth it.
My dad (we live right next to my parents) thanked us emphatically the next day and that was really touching.
But tonight I had a different kind of interaction that also really touched me. Ria and I were finishing up our sunset walk we've been going on most nights and one neighbor recognized us as the ones who had dropped off the note. I don't know him all that well truth be told. I grew up with most of our neighbors (from middle school on) but he's the second husband of the woman who lives in that house. I'd only seen him in passing, a gruff man in his 50's with electrical gear and hi-vis shirts.
He stopped us, thanked us for the note, and then asked "I'm just trying to understand, what is it about y'all that you would do something like that?"
I tried to explain that I just felt very grateful to have good neighbors, I haven't always, so I wanted to say thank you.
He insisted, "I mean like who taught y'all to be that way?"
Ria laughed and said it definitely wasn't her parents (which is 100% true). I said my parents were pretty good but that it's always been something I've done. I've been writing notes to teachers and friends about how much I'm grateful for them for as long as I can remember.
He asked a few other ways and I tried to answer but nothing I said seemed to make sense to him. Later Ria would point out that he seemed both grateful and deeply uncomfortable, like he felt uneven. He launched into offers of stuff he could give back - none of which we really needed - and we thanked him and said we'd keep it in mind. The conversation wore on, he seemed desperate to give something - we ended on a book recommendation which I have already forgotten sadly, so I'll have to ask him again next time I see him.
But it just kind of hit home for me that little notes can really touch people. It seemed to really rattle him that someone who didn't know him well would send him and his wife a nice little note. That didn't seem to be in his worldview. And maybe that opens him up a little to thinking about people a little differently. Maybe I planted a seed without realizing.
It reminded me of a story in Peace Pilgrim's book about how she once was offered food in a rough saloon on her journey on foot across the US. She sat at the bar, her grey hair pulled back in a ponytail, her blue tunic emblazoned with her name and mission, waiting. She turned and smiled at the man a few seats away sweetly when she caught his gaze.
He got up, came over to her, and explained "I never thought you'd so much as look at me when you came in, let alone smile at me so kindly." They chatted and he explained that he'd been unkind to his family and spent all his money drinking. She spoke with him compassionately about it and at the end he threw his glass at the back of the bar, shouted that he would never drink again, and left the bar. She later heard from a woman in his town that as of a year and a half later he'd kept his promise and mended fences with his family to boot.
I thought that story sounded kind of insane when I read it. Smiling can be life changing? Really? But after the conversation I had with that neighbor tonight, it seems more reasonable. Small kindness really seems to be able to rattle some folks from their patterns and change their views.
It's more radical than I realized to smile, to write a note, to do the little good you know to do.
