Shazam!!!

Make Magic Happen

Sometimes the best life lessons just burst into your awareness like a bolt of lightning.  They arrive unexpectedly.  They are short in duration.  They are shocking.  They are illuminating.  They are transformative.    And powerful.  They are magic.

I have two true stories for you today.  Neither one turned me into Captain Marvel.  Both became attitude touchstones.  One or the other, sometimes both, would apply to an immediately disappointing situation.  Their memory would spring to mind and make me smile.  In the flash of that happier moment, I often could see a way past the obstacle to my aspirations—often to the chagrin of the establishment figure manning the barricade. May the life lessons each taught me enrich yours in these troubling times. And strong enough to walk on with a song in your heart.

1.       Bad Cookie

Timmy was the youngest in a boisterous brood of five.  They were allowed one cookie each when they arrived home after a school day.  It was a group exercise.  They would gather impatiently in the kitchen for the ceremonial opening of the cookie jar and distribution of contents.  One day, after all the big kids had grabbed their pecan sandie, Timmy scrabbled for the last one.  It came out with a missing corner.  Timmy wailed “bad cookie!!!” and dashed it to pieces across the kitchen floor.  And then he had nothing to eat and a mess for which he was responsible.  He was inconsolable (because there were no more pecan sandies today and no other sweet was on offer until tomorrow).  He also was completely unwilling to accept the notion that part of a cookie is better than none at all.  I was not allowed to offer him mine.  This was a family matter.  And I was a guest.  But I learned.  About gratitude and grace.  About clan rituals and rules.

Okay, so Election 2024 was a bad cookie.  Let’s be glad for what we got.  And move on.

Blaming the cookie is silly.

Focus on the refilling the cookie jar.

I will be so bold as to suggest it would be entirely appropriate for President Biden to award the Presidential Medal of Freedom to Kamala Harris before he leaves office.  She served her country with distinction in running a clean campaign of hope and resolve against a clear and present danger to our form of government—a man who betrayed his oath the last time he held the office of President. And who now intends to pardon as “patriots” persons who were party to the insurrection he encouraged in 2021.  Let’s play the presidential privilege card first.  Use present power to stymie future abuse.

Shazam!!! Our flag bearer is transformed from a loser into the worthy leader of a necessary resistance movement. Just because misogyny and sexism won an inning the second time at bat doesn’t mean the game is lost. We truly are not going back without a fight. Don’t just keep the faith. Use it.

2.      The Pony

Melissa invited us to stay at her home in Dallas the weekend Tech played SMU in football. There were six of us.  We arrived around 6:00 PM Friday night.  Her mother, Helen, received us graciously.  Even though she had four children younger than Melissa roaring through the house in various stages of childhood, all at high volume.  Her husband, Hank, waved his scotch highball at us as we trooped upstairs. We changed into party togs and scattered post haste to party venues.  Various ones of us returned to shelter in odd stages of mussed clothing, makeup, and hairdos.  The chattering and giggling went on until 5:00 AM.  Saturday morning found a group of young women in need of a bloody Mary before breakfast. I had been reared to offer assistance to the hostess when a guest. Given our abysmal conduct, I approached the kitchen cautiously.  Helen was standing at the stove, viciously turning bacon.  I heard her mutter to herself, “With all the shit going on around here, I must be getting close to the pony.”  Don’t you just love optimism?

Okay, so progressives did not win another ride on the pony in 2024.  The beast is in for rough treatment.

Walking it cool after hard exercise under an abusive rider.  Feeding it carrots and apples and sweet hay when it is hungry for kindness.   These actions seem like a reasonable strategy for getting the pony to come to us willingly the next time it has the freedom of choice.  We just need to keep the beast well enough to for it to survive the next few years.  And be ready to muck stalls left befouled and unattended behind a horseman who has proven himself ignorant, careless and uncaring when last in the saddle.