kindred | The Direction of Intention

Listen To Beaky [on Not So Flawed Wednesday]

Posted on April 29, 2020 by davidrobinsoncreative

good morning sunshine copy

Today we turn our thoughts toward Beaky. A bright light. Five years ago, on this day, she passed away.

Not only does it seem impossible that she died five years ago but it seems more impossible that I only knew her for 18 months. If you were to ask me how long I knew Beaky I’d say, “Forever.” Some people are just like that. Kindred.

She and I were co-conspirators. We plotted strategies – all unsuccessful – to convince Kerri that her natural curls were gorgeous and did not need straightening. She gave me a lesson in applying lipstick and rouge, standing next to her walker, looking into the mirror, popping our lips. After being catheterized, she cautioned me to be careful what I wished for. “When I was young I wished I could pee standing up.” she said. “MOTHER!” Kerri blushed as Beaky winked at me.

Time and again, I was moved by her kindness, her generosity to others. After taking a fall, rushed to the emergency room, writhing in pain, she looked up at the attending nurse and said, ‘You have a beautiful smile.” The role of nurse fell off, the woman flushed pink and was transformed by the compliment. Beaky did that a lot, she hit people with a dedicated kindness when they least suspected it. Her kindness was not manufactured, it was matter-of-fact. It was sturdy, genuine.

The night before we saw her for the last time, we scoured her house for a blue notebook, the journal she’d kept during a long ago trip through Europe with her husband. Beaky was a recorder of life’s events. Not merely notes, her journals and calendars were threads to a vital time, to living memory. She thought the notebook was lost. When Kerri gave her the journal, Beaky hugged it to her breast and rocked it like it was a long lost child come home.”Oh, you found it! You found it!” she cried.

As we left her that day, she said, as she always did when we departed, “Be kind to each other!” Much more than a salutation, it was an invocation. Be kind to each other.

read Kerri’s blog post about GOOD MORNING SUNSHINE

a close up of Mother/Daughter

Filed under: Flawed Wednesday, Gratitude, Heroes, Love, Uncategorized | Tagged: be kind, Beaky, david robinson, davidrobinsoncreative.com, generosity, Kerri Sherwood, kerri sherwood itunes, kerrianddavid.com, kerrisherwood.com, kind, kindness, kindred, transform | Leave a comment »

Two Artists Tuesday

Posted on February 20, 2018 by davidrobinsoncreative

I love this image. It works as a subtle infinity mirror, two parallel mirrors that create a ripple of ever smaller reflections that seem to extend into infinite space.

Be Kind. The first and most obvious mirror is an ideal and like most ideals it is unattainable. It is unattainable because it is not a fixed state, a grasp-able thing. It can’t be bought. Kindness is not an achievement. Instead, it is a way of being, an aspiration, a flowing river. Like most things unattainable, it is easily tossed into the dustbin of cliches. Why be kind in a dog-eat-dog-business-is-business-every-man/woman-for-him/her-self world?

Be Kin. The second mirror, the parallel that creates the ripple, is not an ideal, it is a simple reality. It is also not attainable because it simply is. It cannot be attained but it can be ignored. In fact to ignore our innate kinship requires a serious dedication to denial, an elaborate fantasy of control. It seems we humans, we makers-of-belief, have a choice to either recognize or deny our kinship.

With inclusion, with the recognition of like-ness, comes the desire to reach for the unattainable kindness. The desire to reach for a greater spirit, a better nature, our natural state.

Exclusion, on the other hand, is a sad and scary state. It is a lonely single mirror, self-directed, single-reflective, a “me” space, and, thus, it is incapable of seeing or participating in the infinite ripple.

On this Two Artists Tuesday, step into the melange and consider looking through the ripple. Be kind. Be kin.

BE KIND. BE KIN merchandise