Be Brave Friday

Do you want to build a snowman?

Photo by Ethan Hu on Unsplash

Almost every week day on here, Facebook, and Instagram, I post something from my dogs or cats. Some days, like yesterday, I just can’t.

I wonder a lot if there’s a point or if I’m just annoying everyone I know (and don’t) who follow me on social media.

And I think a lot about how I give my thoughts and words to my dogs and cats because it’s maybe the only way I can feel brave enough to say how I feel.

I’m not sure.

Every once in a while someone will get cranky with me about the posts, send me a private message and deride me because I still believe in love and goodness and hope.

“Who am I,” they’ll ask, “to believe such things. To share them with the world like I’m smart?”

That one came from a former attorney. He’s been disbarred.

But every once in a while, someone will give me the most beautiful gift, an act of grace, a surprise, and I will cry because I am so stunned and lucky and grateful and relieved that there are so many good people out there.

In just this past couple of weeks, I’ve been given those moments and I have felt so lucky.

I was walking to a school meeting on Monday, all bundled up because it is Maine and cold still—or at least it was on Monday to me—and at our one stoplight in town proper, a guy rolled down his window, leaned out and yelled, “Do you want to build a snowman?”

“I look like a hobbit!” I yelled back, but then . . . but then . . . I threw my arms open and sang the line from Frozen, “do you want to build a snowman,” right out there on the corner.

Hopefully, I was in key. But whatever.

I sang another line, “It doesn’t have to be a snowman.”

He laughed, waved, honked, and moved on to his destination.

Here’s the thing: The world didn’t end.

He laughed, waved, honked, and moved on to his destination.

And that’s what I’ve learned too. The world doesn’t end if someone sends you a mean email. It continues on. You might react. You might not, but the moment will become another and another.

The song itself, “Do You Want To Build a Snowman,” is all about a younger sister wanting to connect with her older sister.

It’s poignant. It’s a plea. It’s a hope for rebuilding.

But when that younger sister sings it, she’s taking a chance, she’s being brave. And what she’s met with is a closed door and silence.

Isolation. The lack of connection. Those are painful things, but it’s hard to reach out, to ask, “Hey. Do you want to build a snowman. Hey. Do you want to connect. Hey. Look at us, both humaning out here. I see you.”

When we became full-time parents to a little person with oppositional defiance disorder and a bunch of other things, our little person always would say after one of their big blow-outs, “Why are people so nice to you?”

“They aren’t always,” I told them and they aren't, but they mostly are . . . And I always said, “I’m not sure, but I think it’s because I love people so much so I try to be kind to them.”

“Even people you don’t know?” They were pretty skeptical honestly because this lesson hasn’t made it through yet.

“Even people I don’t know.”

I have been so lucky in this life because I get to know people who go out of their way to be kind to me. People who offer split pea soup because they know I love it. People who tell me I can rant when I need to. People who just read my books and support me on Patreon or here. People who I get to be a part of their literary and book journeys. People who yell, “Hey! You want to build a snowman?”

People look for connection—good connections—not just outrage. Though it seems like outrage wins a lot, right?

Anyway, I know how lucky I am. I want you all to be lucky, too. I hope you can be brave enough to see the gifts when they are given to you, and that you can give them right back. I hope that we can build some snowmen together.

And no, it doesn’t have to be a snowman.

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