Elder Advice – Thinking Inside the Box - Week 28
Small things matter.
My father was a great proponent of that theory. In his world, it was shoes you could see your reflection in. A freshly laundered handkerchief, always ready to be swept out and offered to dry the tears of any lady present. A toast to “Absent Friends” at every gathering. Little things like that.
In a time where nothing is acknowledged as insignificant, when every issue is framed as overwhelming, and where everything seems to happen at once, it is a constant struggle to remember the importance of the little things. The barrage of bad news is unrelenting. But it is as true now as it has always been, that it is the everyday deeds of plain folk that matter; the small acts of kindness; the simple humour of those who seem ordinary, and who are anything but.
Last week, I took a head-clearing stroll in the September sun, admiring the sky, which was bluer than the Pope’s balls. There is a reason for that – the abnormally blue sky - not the colour of the Pope’s balls. Since the lockdown, atmospheric chemists report a 30-40% drop in nitrogen dioxide almost uniformly in every city. It is the result of the closing of thousands of shops and other work places.
Which made me think of the Chocolate Man.
I decided to follow the advice of Elizabeth Payne given several weeks ago, and wandered over to his store again, in hopes that there had been a delivery. From the looks of things, there had not been. The store was closed. Whether or not that is permanent is hard to know.
The Chocolate Man understood the importance of small and sweet confections, verbal and otherwise.
Elder Advice? The only remaining admirable Donald – Donald Duck, was fond of saying: “The little things; they aren’t little.” I realize it is hard to take seriously a person whose favourite cartoon character is a huge pantless, foul-mouthed fowl who dresses in a Sailor Moon outfit and has no genitals. But I am right about this: Few of us have the ability, much less the opportunity, to do great things. Small stuff is another matter, and well worth sweating.
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