New-ish

He was a tall boy with a light blue shirt--almost purple in the shade--and light red cargo shorts, carrying a bright green game box. His father had a beard and sunglasses, and didn't appear to be impatient until the box opened and some cards slid out onto the sidewalk. Oh no, the boy said. Let's just go back to the car. His dad, frustrated, insisted he go pick up the cards. The boy obeyed, and as he leaned down to pick them up, more cards fell out.

A girl was walking toward them and turned to help gather the cards. The dad opened the box his son had set down and shuffled the remaining contents around. "Really?" he said. "You put them in like this?"

"They're Apples to Apples cards," the boy told the student. She smiled, replied with something I couldn't hear, and went on gathering. Together, they put the stack back in the box. The dad thanked her; she smiled some more, and walked away.

I see such acts of kindness more frequently than I ever have before (maybe because I pay more attention?) but they never get old. Kindness is always new, and bright, and good--sometimes too much to not notice.

Uke-ish

I had just spent the evening trying to learn how to play a song on the ukulele. My friend, who I was with, already knew it, and had to watch patiently as my clumsy fingertips tried to find the right strings to press.

The song is called "Les Champs-Élysées." It's a French song (if you couldn't tell) about someone's experience on the street with the same name in Paris. They walk happily along, meet a stranger, and end up jamming out all night with them and a band of random guitar-players. It's a fun song.

So, with my Christmas-gifted uke, I was trying to learn the tune, too.

The best part came when the night had dwindled away and we were about to get ready for bed. My friend suddenly suggested that we should go upstairs in our apartment complex to sing the song for our other friend. I agreed excitedly and, still carrying a mason jar of water, went upstairs.

We knocked and her roommate answered. We didn't disclose our plan, but asked her to get our friend and pulled the door to a mysterious mostly-shut position. When she appeared, we began! ...Aaaaand then the tempo was too fast, so we began again!

She played, I sang, she joined in on the chorus, and our friend's roommate recorded the whole thing on her phone. After the last note, we bowed to the roommates' claps and left to our respective apartments.

It was a good night.

Endings-ish

If there is one good ish about endings, it's that they make you appreciate things more.

I think of the people I know now and it's like, wow. Goodbye. Goodbye to them. Goodbye to this year, when I got to meet them and become a tiny part of their lives (or, rather, they became a part of mine). We have been happy and smiling and grateful and talkative and friendly throughout the year. But the end of the year makes us -er: happi-er, smiling-er, grateful-er, talkative-er, and friendly-er. Because we now see through the lens of the future, we are sad to see the past go. That's the funny thing about endings: you didn't realize how much you didn't want them to happen until they do.

I'm not saying I won't be happy when finals are over--good grief, that's just blasphemy. But I will be sorry to see these my friends and classmates graduate, move schools, move apartment complexes, and join the next part of their life while I join the next part of mine. Separately.

They've made my life good-er, though, and that I'd say is a happy ending indeed.

Easter-ish

This is from the view of the fictitious Rachel, Mary's best friend from childhood.

I had purposely stayed at the back of the crowd in order to avoid seeing Jesus. Watching them lay him there on the wood, seeing them drive the stakes into his hands—the hands I had seen and touched and held before—it would be too difficult.

            Mary’s lot was far worse, however, and she had surely kept as close to him as she could.

            I stared at the ground as I pressed through the alleyways, pardoning myself past the people milling about in the morning air. They didn’t realize that their Lord was dying right now, just outside the city. My swallows came more frequently as I tried to keep the sobs from spilling out of my chest.

            One broke free when I came to a crossroads. The dirt before me still bore an inch-deep scar all along the path through the alley and around the corner. His cross.

            I crouched to the ground and held my face in my hands. The people stepped on the fringes of my dress, stepped right on the cross-made furrow with their filthy sandaled feet. My Lord, I cried within my heart. My Lord, my God.