dear friends,
Last week, I pulled out my ironing board to press a navy linen suit that I wanted to wear to sit shiva with a dear friend who had just lost her father. The suit was wrinkled from having worn it the week before to a celebration of life for a wonderful man who was part of our family for decades. This spring has been a season of losing loved ones.
As the iron heated up, I went to my linen closet and reached my hand above my head into a small basket where I keep all my ironing-related accessories (I’m short, so I reach above my head and feel my way to what I’m searching for a lot). I was “looking” for my press cloth. (If you’re unfamiliar with a press cloth, it’s a very thin cotton cloth that is placed between the hot metal iron and the fabric to be pressed in order to prevent the clothing from developing a shine.) I hadn’t used it in years, and we’d moved apartments and lived through a pandemic in the meantime. I wasn’t sure I still had it.
My grandma cut this press cloth for me from one of her own when I left for college 35 years ago. I didn’t think it was a big deal if I couldn’t find it, but the moment I touched it, tears flooded my eyes. The thing isn’t much to look at, a pale blue rectangle with raw edges stained in some places and iron burns in others, but it radiated decades of my grandma’s love, kindness, and care.
And that’s what inspired me both to write this newsletter and to adopt a practice I’m naming “a call to heart.” It’s early days, but I’m finding that calling to heart is like pressing fast forward through commercials: it gets you right where you want to be, without all the unnecessary (and frequently distracting and unskillful) detours.
Let me explain…
We’re all familiar with the advice that tells us to think about how we want to be remembered. The aim of this counsel is to guide us to a broader perspective on our own lives so that we can live in a way that aligns with what really matters to us, but the word remember comes from Latin for “call to mind.” And while the mind is a fine place to start, I think what most of us want is a call to heart. There’s no harm in living a life centered on impressing our fellow humans with our accomplishments and successes, things that can easily be called to mind, but when I think of the people I most admire, it’s what my heart feels that sets them apart.
It’s like what Maya Angelou (probably) said, “I’ve learned that people will forget what you said, people will forget what you did, but people will never forget how you made them feel.”
The practice is simple but not easy: Whenever you’re about to say or do something that will impact another human being, pause for a moment to think about how it will likely make them feel. Your guess may not always be right, but the simple act of trying makes a huge impact.
For me, the hardest part so far has been to remember to remember, but those times when I pause, whatever snarky comment I think is clever and will “put someone in their place” ceases to be clever. I can get my point across without being careless with someone else’s feelings. More interestingly, it’s becoming much easier for me to see the goodness in other people’s efforts, even when those efforts “fall short” when I am calling to heart rather than calling to mind. The mind is so good at finding fault, and the heart simply doesn’t work that way.
Okay, that’s all for this week. I wish you all full hearts and success with whatever you’re working towards.
warmly,
alison
