HUMAN PROJECT OF YOU

A human project is easy to find.

They’re all around because everyone is a project in some stage of completion.

The secret?

It’s never complete, but there are signs of progress.

Have you ever been in line at the coffee drive-through when the person ahead of you pays for your drinks and snacks?

You’ll never know how they felt about it.

Were they joyfully sharing? Smug? Confused?

If you want to know, pay for the people behind you next time you’re in the coffee drive-through.

I did it once, but it wasn’t the coffee line, it was checkout at Safeway.

Amidst all the chit-chat of “how are you, fine? Me, too,” the checker forgot to end my charge and added the person behind me to the bill.

How did that feel? I spent the next hour at customer service unwinding things, then taking my groceries through checkout again.

The was a project I hope not to repeat, but got through it without a screaming shit-fit shown on social media so often it seems normal.

Who believes the answer to most problems regardless of size, or importance, is a screaming shit-fit?

Since then I keep my mouth shut during checkout, which is helpful all around.

 

Human Project For Better Performance

Kurt Vonnegut reminds us to say this out loud every chance we get:

“If this isn’t nice, I don’t know what is.”

Last night was one of those times.

If that wasn’t nice, I don’t know what is.

What was so nice?  Movie night at the local swimming pool.

It was an ocean movie, Moana 2.

 

“Moana 2” reunites Moana and Maui three years later for an expansive new voyage alongside a crew of unlikely seafarers.

After receiving an unexpected call from her wayfinding ancestors, Moana must journey to the far seas of Oceania and into dangerous, long-lost waters for an adventure unlike anything she’s ever faced.

 

Like The Poseidon Adventure, Titanic, and Das Boot, Moana 2 is a spectacular thrill ride.

Unlike tsunami documentaries, no one gets tragically swept away.

But there was still drama in the pool, which you’d expect with a four year old kicking around with a noodle floatie under her arms.

This Granddad says, “If this isn’t nice, I don’t know what is.”

My four year old got the ‘toughness’ award after two hours in the water.

When was the last time you spent two hours straight in a pool?

The award goes to the swimmer who kicked for two hours, who got pushed off the side of the pool and bounced their butt on the gutter, who took a submerged float board to the face when a bigger kid slipped trying to stand up.

The Human Project Award goes to the parents who didn’t go after the pushy kid’s parents, or get the kid on the float board kicked out of the pool.

The pushy kid was also a secret splasher, waiting for their parents to look away before taking a big swing over the water and sending a splash five feet away.

That’s two strikes on that kid by my count, and one on the older kid with a dangerous float board. Two if you count the depth charge jumps he made splashing everyone.

By my count they’ve each got a few million more.

I say a few million hoping they’ll grow up and give others the same grace for their mistakes.

Even if it’s not a mistake.

After two hours of submersion the whole group of parents and kids milled around outside the pool to keep the good times rolling.

If that’s not nice, I don’t know what is.

 

A Work In Progress

Memory only works with the proper prodding, repetition, and use.

Baby boomers talk about memory. A lot.

It’s usually about what they don’t remember, with, “it’ll come to me later,” or, “it’s not important.”

When it’s important enough, track it down.

Can’t remember the name of a town you stopped in once, and it bothers you?

What year were you there? Who were you with? What kind of car were you driving.

For example, my wife and I stopped in a place during a drive through North Carolina.

I don’t remember the name of the place, but I remember a string band playing fiddle tunes beside a temporary dance floor under a big sun shade pop-up.

I remember the audience. A group of fifteen or so who had a Sunday church vibe going.

Older and younger, similarly dressed, with the same blank expression.

The band warmed up, stopped, then broke into song in tight time.

The group of churchy looking folks all moved to the dance floor and started clogging together, step-dancing, without a change of expression in any of them.

No talking, no touching, just fine footwork.

Where was it? If I really wanted to remember I’d think of the year, why I was there, where I’d stopped before, and where I went afterwards.

Or, I’d ask my wife.

 

Me: Honey, remember the general store with the young fiddle champion in North Carolina.

Wife: It was Virginia.

Me: Right. Was it before or after we stopped at Joel Salatin’s place?

Wife: Before. It had a water wheel that was the feature on a famous picture. We saw the actual water wheel.

 

With all of that, we saw cloggers at Mabry Mill – Milepost 176.

 

The sights and sounds of Rural Appalachia fill the air at Mabry Mill during summer and fall.

Ed Mabry built the mill where he and his wife Lizzy ground corn, sawed lumber, and did blacksmithing for three decades.

The old mill, cultural demonstrations, and a decades-long tradition of Sunday afternoon music and dancing continue to draw visitors today.

 

I’d bet we were there on a Sunday.

The general store with the fiddle circle was in Floyd.

Once you clear things up there’s more room for other stuff.

Like . . .

 

Today Is The Day

You will catch that tail, defeat that windmill.

You will treat others as you’d like to be treated.

You will find the vacuum hose leak in the smog gear strangling your Seventies cruiser.

 

 

Best of all, today is the day you’ll review a moment just passed and say, “If this isn’t nice, I don’t know what is.”

It doesn’t have to be about having fun, lighting up a room with your smile, or holding the whole world in your hands.

Maybe it’s your husband, your wife, your girlfriend or boyfriend, someone you may or may not have a future with, doing something simple like, “Hey, let’s take a walk around the block.”

Or, “Let’s go feed the ducks.”

Or, “Hungry? I made chicken mandi. Let’s eat.”

 

PS: Go ahead and say it and you’d be right.

PSS: It is nice.