The Plumber, the Stitches, and My Concern

THE SOUND OF FRUSTRATION

From my recliner in the living room, I could hear the older plumber sighing in our kitchen. He and his partner were here installing a new faucet, and his mumbling under the sink was a little disturbing.

When he came up for air, I decided to do the neighborly thing and check in on him.

And for good reason. Earlier that morning, Jeff mentioned he’d heard that one of the plumbers—an older guy—had smacked his head so hard on a cabinet at an earlier job that he had to be taken to Urgent Care for stitches.

So, naturally, when I saw the two plumbers who came to our house—a younger man and an older one—I was smart enough to connect the dots.

The older man looked weary from the first moment he walked into our house. I was concerned that he had returned to work too quickly after his injury.

He’d been through a lot!

FROM CONCERN TO CONFUSION

So I asked him, “Are you feeling okay?”

He said, “Yes, I’m fine.”

I then asked, “Do you need anything to drink? I’d be glad to get something for you.”

He seemed a bit surprised by my offer, but he politely declined and said again that he was fine.

THE PLOT TWIST

Even though I was refused, I still felt good about my small act of compassion. I later told Jeff that I had checked in on the plumber, making sure he was okay after his rough morning.

Jeff looked at me, amused. “That’s nice,” he said, “but that’s not the guy. The one who cut his head didn’t come here.”

Oh!

That’s when I realized I’d been fussing over the wrong man, someone who had no idea why I was acting so concerned about his well-being. He didn’t know I thought he was the injured plumber.

GET THE STORY RIGHT

In my defense, I wasn’t wrong to be concerned. I was just working from incorrect assumptions.

Isn’t that how it goes sometimes? News is passed along to one person, then another, and somewhere along the way, the facts shift either through miscommunication, misinterpretation, or faulty conclusions.

By the time the last person hears it, the story might be barely recognizable.

I learned a lesson that day: double-check the facts before jumping to conclusions. Ask more questions.

And maybe let the plumbers work in peace.


Share your thoughts in the comments.


Surrender to the Moment: 5 Little Things to Give Up

Are You Ready to Surrender?

We imagine that in a moment of dramatic testing, we’d be the one to take the bullet. To make the sacrifice. To surrender ourselves to save a loved one.

Yet we get angry if someone squeezes in front of us in traffic?

Sometimes the small tugs of war are the important ones. It’s the little things that more often test our resolve to go higher.

So how can we be more loving in our ordinary, daily moments of life? One way is to surrender to the moment.

By taking one moment at a time, we can learn the art of surrender.

Our grand moment of surrender is always this one.

surrender-to-the-moment-5-little-things-to-give-up

5 Little Things to Give Up in the Moment

Here are 5 little things we can practice giving up, anytime, anywhere, to gain the gifts of surrendering to the moment.

1. GIVE UP THE LAST WORD

In that discussion with your partner, eliminate a few of your own words and listen to more of theirs. Surrendering the desire to be understood and to get in the last word can make a joyful difference in the climate of your home. Marvel at the self-control you can exercise when you know it’s best to keep quiet.

2. GIVE UP YOUR PLACE IN LINE

That harried mom with the whiny toddler? Let her cut in line at the grocery store. Or make room for that speeding maniac to merge in front of you in traffic. By surrendering your place in line—literally and figuratively—you practice showing kindness to others. Releasing the need to be first is an act of freedom.

3. GIVE UP THE CLEAR ANSWER

Sometimes we hesitate and wait for overwhelming confirmation before we’ll take a risk. But rarely will we have total clarity in the moment. Surrender your desire for perfect vision and look instead for beauty in the uncertainty.

4. GIVE UP DOING IT ALONE

Winning the prize for “Most Independent” isn’t necessarily a trophy you want. Being a loner isn’t the happiest way to live. Practice humility by accepting help from others, and exercise empathy by giving help to others. Moments with others are a valuable source of joy.

5. GIVE UP A SPECIFIC OUTCOME

It’s easier to surrender to the moment if you can let go of the future. Instead of insisting on a specific result, be open to a variety of outcomes. You can’t control the future anyway. This moment is the only time we ever have.

Little Moments Are Big Moments

Surrendering to the moment, even if it’s a moment of creating change for the future, is a pathway to gaining peace. That’s huge.

Maybe these little moments, even this very moment, really are the biggest moments of all.


What little things are hard for you to surrender on a daily basis? What helps you give them up?

Share in the comments.

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revised from the archives


What If Your Body Has Been Doing Her Best All Along?

“Take care of your body. It’s the only place you have to live.”
– Jim Rohn

A SURPRISING CONVERSATION WITH MY BODY

The assignment on our Zoom call two weeks ago seemed simple enough: draw an outline of a body, then reflect on where we feel grief or what part of our body we grieve. The next step? Write an apology to that part.

We had already spent an hour talking about hangups we have with our bodies and how to make peace with them, to go along with our theme for March, “My Body.” (This month we’re also reading Returning Home to Our Bodies for a book club; it’s excellent so far!)

I sketched a rough figure and drew arrows pointing to my stomach. It has always been a source of frustration for me—even in my youth, when it really wasn’t a problem, but I still believed it was.

But before I could apologize to my stomach, my stomach threw an accusation back at me:

“You realize this is the best I can do with what you give me.”

Okay, fair point. While I try to eat fairly healthy, I do still feed junk to my stomach more often than I’d like to admit.

THIS WORD FEELS WRONG

The next step of the body exercise was to reduce our previous statement down to three words. I knocked off all the words except:

“This is best”

even though nothing felt best about this exercise so far.

Then, from those three words, we had to choose just one word.

I circled:

“Best”

But really? Best? It felt disingenuous. It’s a word I never use in talking about my body.

As the days passed, however, I continued thinking about it. And started seeing some truth in it. My body has always done its best for me—protecting me, caring for me, moving me through the world wherever I’ve wanted to go.

No matter how I’ve treated her, she has always shown up for me and stayed with me, even through injuries and pain.

A TOUCHSTONE FOR GRATITUDE

To complete the homework assignment after the call, we were asked to create a Body Touchstone—something meaningful to hold onto, marked with the word we chose.

This part was easy. I picked a small seashell from a past beach trip. It serves a dual purpose: it reminds me of my One Word for the year, Ripple, since it’s from the water and has ripples on it, and it once housed another living creature—just as my body is home to me.

I wrote Best on the inside of the shell.

I know my body and I will continue our ongoing discussions and arguments (and sometimes shaming battles) about her flaws. We’ve done it for years. I hope one day we’ll stop—and we do better now than we have in the past—but I’m also realistic that an aging body can be even harder to accept.

Yet I’m still grateful for my body’s persistence and resilience to stay with me until the day I take my final breath. She and I are together in a tight relationship of ripples. Some things I do will affect her more than other things, and vice versa. But either way, we’re inseparable.

I put the shell my pocket each morning. Several times a day I reach down and touch it, each time reminding me to speak to my body with gratitude instead of criticism.

She’s not perfect. But my body is the place I began, and the place I start anew each morning. She is the best place for me to be.


Share your thoughts in the comments.

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How Is Life Different Today Compared to When You Were a Child?

“There is nothing permanent in the world except change.”
– Heraclitus

I’ve working this month to make final edits on the answers for my Storyworth memoir that I began last year.

Here is question #28 from it. I wonder how you would answer it:

How is life different today compared to when you were a child?

This is my answer:

One of the biggest differences I see between life today compared to when I was a child is this: Instead of having to go out to interact with the world, the world now comes to us.

  • We can see and talk to people in our homes while they are physically present in their own homes instead of having to literally put our bodies in the same location.
  • We can shop at stores from home and have the items arrive on our front porch instead of driving to the mall.
  • We can look up any information from home (or wherever we happen to be) by pulling out our tiny phones instead of having to go to the library to look it up.

Now that AI is easy to access on everyone’s computers, it’s said that things are going to continue changing even more. I am just now learning how to use AI and am amazed at what it can do.

Is the world better with its digital connections and information? In many ways, definitely yes. In other ways, maybe not so much. We’re already seeing both positive and negative effects from technology. It’s still too soon to tell the long-term effects that it will have on humanity.

Nevertheless, pending a major disaster, there’s likely no turning back from the massive changes that have already occurred because of computers and the internet.

And I can’t even imagine the ones still yet to come.


How is life different for you from when you were a child? Share your thoughts in the comments.


Is There a Hidden Ripple Right in Front of You?

“All that you touch
You Change.
All that you Change
Changes you.”
– Octavia Butler

SUNDAY AFTERNOON IN THE BIG RED CHAIR

We snuggle into the big red chair, my three-year-old grandson and I, settling into the quiet joy of a lazy Sunday with nothing on my to-do list. His little arms rest beside mine as we munch on our afternoon snacks—veggie straws for him, animal crackers for me—while his current favorite show, Daniel Tiger’s Neighborhood, plays on the TV.

In this episode, Daniel is anxious about starting a new school. Through the screen, Daniel asks a question: “Do you go to school?”

My grandson nods, completely at ease. Yes, he does.

In the next scene Daniel plays with blocks and other toys in his new classroom until it’s time to clean up.

Daniel then asks another question: “Will you help me put the toys away?”

And without hesitation, my grandson gives an answer I won’t soon forget.

LOOKING BACK, LOOKING FORWARD

Lately, I’ve been tracing ripples—my One Word for the year—both those that led to me and those I hope to send forward.

As I look backward, I find ripples from my ancestors to me. I sift through old photos from my childhood, piecing together stories of the past. I turn the pages of my mother’s handwritten journal, hearing her voice in words she left behind. We clear out my late uncle’s house, discovering bits of his young adulthood we never knew.

And I look forward to ripples I want to create in my life to positively affect others. I’m working on my end-of-life plans to make things easier for my children when I die. I’ve been writing down my stories for a Storyworth book to leave for future generations. I’ve been organizing keepsakes for my Grand Box, tucking away treasures I want my grandkids to have in the future.

But has there also been a ripple unfolding right in front of me that I haven’t recognized as such? One that my grandson and Daniel Tiger are showing me?

THE RIPPLE OF NOW

It’s this moment.

Yes, it is good that I’m looking to past ripples and preparing future ripples, but a living ripple is here now. Just as my daughter and I used to watch Mr. Rogers together years ago as mother and daughter, so her child and I are now watching Daniel Tiger today as Granna and grandson.

After Daniel Tiger asks his TV audience for help, my grandson gives a quick, clear answer that I need to hear: “I’m at Granna’s house.”

(Duh, Daniel Tiger.)

That’s it. No excuses. Simple and to the point.

He can’t help there because he is here.

And here is where I am, too.

I recognize I won’t be here forever. Life continues to swirl around me and change every day, for each of us. No two hours are exactly alike.

But this day, this moment, is where the most important ripple is. And it is exactly where I want to be.

Daniel Tiger


Do you need the reminder, too, of the saying, “Be where your feet are“? Share your thoughts in the comments.


6 Books I Recommend – March 2025

“Every book makes a mark, even if it doesn’t stay in your conscious memory.”
– Katarina Janoskova

Here are 4 nonfiction books and 2 novels that I recommend from my recent reads. 

[See previously recommended books here]

NONFICTION

1. Meditations for Mortals
Four Weeks to Embrace Your Limitations and Make Time for What Counts
by Oliver Burkeman

Meditations for Mortals

Highly recommend! (And I now understand why it was highly recommended to me.) I read the short 28 chapters in Meditations for Mortals during the 28 days of February as an apt reminder that I’ll never get everything done—and that it’s perfectly okay. Burkeman (also the author of the fabulous Four Thousand Weeks) offers a freeing and practical guide to embracing imperfection and focusing on what truly matters in our limited time.

2. The Nocebo Effect
When Words Make You Sick
by Michael Bernstein

The Nocebo Effect

We all know about the Placebo Effect. But what about it’s opposite? The Nocebo Effect is the dark side of expectation—how believing that something will make us sick can actually make us sick. This is a very interesting book, but it might make you question whether you should read all those “This medicine may cause…” disclaimers in the fine print.

3. What’s Our Problem?
A Self-Help Book for Societies
by Tim Urban

What's Our Problem

I found this book very intriguing, agreeing with much of it and disagreeing with some. Tim Urban provides his own framework on why our American culture is so polarized and messy right now. He is both serious and witty in the book as he delves into politics and cultures with commentary and great illustrations. The book deserves a second reading because it did make me question some things, but it’s very long, so I probably won’t read it again.

4. Too Much and Not Enough
Sacred Thoughts Said Out Loud
by Karen Shock

Too Much and Not Enough

My in-person book club just finished this one. Written as free verse poetry, Karen Shock is very raw as she describes her journey through spiritual betrayal and healing. She offers hope to those wrestling with religious doubt and disillusionment.

FICTION

5. Here One Moment
by Liane Moriarty

Here One Moment

Highly recommend! This is such an interesting novel about fate, uncertainty, and human connection—perfect for my Ripple theme this year. The plot centers around a flight attendant and the passengers aboard a plane when a mysterious passenger starts predicting deaths. I found it riveting. (The audiobook is fantastic also! Hearing the reader helps identify which character is narrating each chapter.)

6. The Guest List
by Lucy Foley

The Guest List

This is a twisty thriller set on a remote Irish island, where a glamorous wedding takes a horrifying turn. Narrated by varying characters, this one kept me so intrigued about what would happen until the very end. I need to look into more novels by Lucy Foley. 

WHAT I’M READING NOW

  • Fluke
    Chance, Chaos, and Why Everything We Do Matters
    by Brian Klaas
  • Revenge of the Tipping Point
    Overstories, Superspreaders, and the Rise of Social Engineering
    by Malcolm Gladwell
  • Nexus
    A Brief History of Information Networks from the Stone Age to AI
    by Yuval Noah Harari
  • How to End Christian Nationalism
    by Amanda Tyler
  • You Don’t Need to Forgive
    Trauma Recovery on Your Own Terms
    by Amanda Ann Gregory, LCPC
  • Secrets of Adulthood
    Simple Truths for Our Complex Lives
    by Gretchen Rubin
  • Hope Dies Last
    Visionary People Across the World, Fighting to Find Us a Future
    by Alan Weisman


What good book have you read lately? Please share in the comments.

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