Groundhog Day
I am a firm believer in “you find what you look for in the world,” and so then as now, I found what I was looking for. Goodness.
“The goodness of the world is not so far away and you can find it every single day, all around you.”
Yes, it’s a lyric from one of my songs, Groundhog Day, and no I haven’t hit my head and lost track of the months. I know it’s mid August, but hear me out. My “Groundhog Day” was written in response to living through 2020 when the world was mad and I was trying to find some joy and common decency amid the senseless violence and irrational repression caused by the reaction to Covid and more. I am a firm believer in “you find what you look for in the world,” and so then as now, I found what I was looking for. Goodness. And if you look at the world through loving, rose-colored glasses like I usually do, I won’t say it’s easy to find, but I will say, it’s possible.
Those of you who have known me long enough understand that this is my nature. Wide-eyed, hope-filled dreamer turned cynic fighting her way back to the light. This is how my heart works. I’m not proud that I fight and claw at the darkness. I wish I could flit straight over or through it, but I am grateful that I always end up in the light. Hope truly does anchor my soul.
So it should come as no surprise that on a recent cross country trip to North Dakota I found evidence of goodness in Gunnar and his associate, whose name I didn’t catch sadly, two hard-working men who worked for Vilandre Heating, Air Conditioning & Plumbing. If you’re in the Grand Forks area and need some help in that department, I implore you to check them out. This is a company who hires the right people. I didn’t need assistance with heating, air conditioning, or plumbing that day. What I needed was a ladder because in an effort to re-install the window screen that my son had taken out to install an A/C unit a year ago, he accidentally knocked the entire window casing out of the frame on the second floor of the apartment he was vacating. This was the final item to mark off the list before he met the landlord and reclaimed his security deposit.
Knowing I could probably use my feminine wiles to at least borrow the ladder, I made my way over to the men who were just finishing up a job nearby and I laid out the foible in front of us. Without missing a beat, Gunnar unhooked his ladder, sidled it up to the apartment building, installed the window and secured it with some fasteners, his trusted counterpart assisting the whole time. Neither of them would take the tip my son had offered.
There was no question that we had met truly great men that day. Fearless of the backlash that they were on company time and couldn’t veer from the schedule, or that it would go against regulations to assist on a project outside of the scope of their jurisdiction because if something should go wrong, they could be sued. Compassionate that a kid and his mom from PA just needed a little kindness. A little help. A little heart.
Gunnar, you are probably my soulmate. Call me. Sidekick, thank you. Your wife is one lucky lady. Grand Forks, you have restored my faith in all that is good in the world. Ok, that might be a stretch, but it’s a start and you know me, I love to spin a good tale. This moment. This right here and right now is the beginning of my restoration. I claim it as my own. I am not sharing it (ok, except with all of you). Today, I let someone help me, a new paradigm has begun. I cried to my best friend not so long along that I was always so good at rescuing other people, being their conduit as another good friend has said. Every now and then, didn’t I deserve to be rescued?
Today the ground shook and however small it seems, I am changed by this gesture of kindness, of human-ness, of compassion and generosity. Tomorrow I promise to return to helping. I will don my proverbial cape and set out into the world to inspire and share light and do good, but today. Glorious today. I will feel this balance being restored, and I will relish in the delightful possibilities, and I will have hope once again.
“The goodness of the world is not so far away and you can find it every single day, all around you.”