... life moves on ...
February 21, 1999
6:27 p.m.
"She's so beautiful," Lisa said to me. "Of course, she is. Just like her mother," I replied. Out on the floor, Brigid chased one of her best friends in looping circles (for some imagined mockery, I'm sure). She wore a plain white blouse with a pink poodle skirt and a red scarf tied loosely around her neck, the ends trailing in her wake like Snoopy's World War I scarf over the cockpit of his Sophwith Camel. The dancers she ran through were a collection of the kids and parents from her school, maybe a hundred or so strong, all here to celebrate the school's basketball team and raise a little money for the triennial jaunt to Washington, D. C. I think the music was "The Twist," but I don't remember for certain. It could have been "Greased Lightning," or "Jump, Jive, and Whail," or "Blue Suede Shoes" for that matter. Earlier in the day, Brigid had done a Terrible Thing, and was under review by both Lisa and I for whether we would even come to this event. We had deliberated long enough to make her fifteen minutes late, but eventually broke down and decided we should go. It was, after all, a community thing, and a chance for Brigid to be with her friends outside the standard schoolroom atmosphere. So we went, and we ate cookies and brownies. And we talked to parents. And by evening's end I was sitting beside Lisa at the top of the bleachers, watching the whole event unfold. There was a Siamese fighting fish sitting on the bench below me, its tiny bowl covered with a sheet of plastic. Kinds ran past it every few minutes, and I was worried about whether someone was going to knock it off and kill it (eventually, someone came and scooped it up, then carried it home to safety). A tiny Japanese girl in a tiny poodle dress did the hokey pokey by jumping up and down. A few parents grabbed each other, and did a few steps before slipping away from the central dance area. One of Brigid's other best friends is from England. Her mother had volunteered her time for the school, and earlier was sitting in a frantic state of exhaustion as she ate her bowl of chili. At one point, a black girl rushed over to her mom and asked excitedly if she could stay overnight with a friend. Her mom said yes, and the girl screamed and jumped for joy, racing over to her white friend and giving her a huge hug that was equally returned. I was awfully young when Martin Luther King was shot. But I'm old enough to know a few things, and suddenly I looked around and realized I was witnessing a vision. Most of our world may not be perfect. Heck, much of our school may not be perfect. There is always to be work to do among human beings, I assume. But, with all the divisive things that happen in the world today, I think it's important to be able to recognize something good as it's happening, and to recognize how far we have come. And for one freeze-framed instant on a Friday evening in Columubs, Indiana, I felt a warm tingle all over my skin.  
 Daily Persistence is © Ron Collins |
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"In an essay called "And Zen I Wrote," NPR commentator and children's author Daniel Pinkwater explained how he created a regimen to overcome his trouble getting started. He made himself sit as a table for one hour every day. He didn't have to write, but he was not allowed to do anything else. The mere act of sitting still for an hour was regarded as a successful day's work." Naomi Epel |
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