On The Ripple Effect and Kind Words and Pebbles Mattering

“Drop a pebble in the water,
splash, and it is gone;
But there’s half-a-hundred ripples
circling on and on and on.
Spreading, spreading from the center to the sea,
and there is no way of telling
where the end is going to be.”

Tired. So tired. I shook my head as the allergy pill I’d taken fizzled in my stomach. “Sorry man, that’s the price for not sneezing or itching your eyelids off,” it said.  

“But the bottle said Non-Drowsy,” I said. Nothing more from the allergy pill so I chewed a Wintergreen Altoid and then ate six more. I wonder how many calories they have (10).

I passed a smiley-face balloon on the side of the road as it floated a few feet off the ground. I’d forgotten until I saw it again, but had driven by the same one yesterday — then on the other side of the road. I wondered how it’d crossed, where it’d come from, and about how toxic it’d be when withered. Did it escape a car window to tears while mom looked at the clock, swore under her breath and promised to get another one? Or was it let go with “Go! Be free!” wishes to mom’s sigh and scolding about how it’d cost $5.99?

I smiled at the balloon and thought about how connected and disconnected we are from one another. I thought about the ripple effect, helium and how each of us is made partly of stardust.

***

“He’s going to camp,” I said. I wasn’t even pregnant enough to be considered viable and yet I tempted fate by Googling the sleep-away summer camp I’d gone to as a kid. Each year, I couldn’t wait to reconnect with my camp-friends. Of course, leaving and waiting for letters to arrive sucked and I worried about missing out on who’d start wearing a bra and wondered whether any of the boys on my list would’ve said hi to me while waiting in the snack line at the pool.

Camp beckoned though. The horses and the sunrise hikes. The loud dining hall meals, whispers between bunk beds and craft tables and singing around the fire. Maybe that most of all.

I found divinity in singing around a campfire with a bunch of hippie counselors wielding love and guitars.

“We need to take him camping,” I say to my husband. “But not here, there are too many bugs.”

Each year, singing around the fire was my favorite part about camp. I still carry the songs with me, decades later (and have a stolen camp-song book to remind me of lyrics that my swiss-cheese brain threatens to forget). Some lyrics leave ripples that continue to change me even as I continue to change.

“Drop an unkind word, or careless,
a minute and it’s gone,
but there’s half-a-hundred ripples
circling on and on and on.
Spreading, spreading,
from the center as they go,
for there is no way to stop them
once you’ve started them to flow.”

Words affect us. “Are our bodies really part stardust?” he said. We were in the car, driving home from day camp. The night before, we’d talked about how each of us has light inside, and how part of us is made from stardust and God. My son is a sensitive boy and is really hard on himself. I knew he was thinking about something that would probably take days to come all the way out.

“We are,” I said, and he told me about a boy who’d sneezed on him and how he tried to not get mad but the boy’s sneeze had food in it and it was orange and got on his arm and his shoes and probably had germs in it too.

“Well, that’s just gross,” I said, and he laughed. Relieved. “He also pushed the teacher really hard. He’s not bad though right? Even though his orange food with germs was on my arm and he pushed a teacher?” he said.

“Right, he’s not bad but his behavior was. It wasn’t nice to push the teacher… and buddy, having orange food sneezed on your arm is gross,” I said.

***

I talked to my step-daughter’s mom again tonight. I think about the ripple effect.

“What can we do next?” I said, not wanting to let different words out not knowing what ripples they may create. Words affect us. 

***

I think about the ripple effect and about the words I wrote for the 1000 Speaks blog.

“We’re heroes, friends. Each of us and all of us. We’re the ones who can choose light rather than blame, and hope for change rather than fear. Our compassion can change the world.

We choose things each day. While walking to buy coffee and breakfast sandwiches, we choose to see or not-so-much see those around us. While we look into mirrors and feel old or beautiful. When we make a choice between nesting in bed or talking to teenagers about suicide. We choose.”

I believe that. We choose. We choose to drop a pebble in the water and watch the ripples. We choose to debate or disagree with grace or cruelty. We choose what the voice inside our children’s heads will sound like.

I think about the ripples of our words. The ones I type, the ones I read, and the ones I say or hear. I think about the hate on the news and about Black Lives Matter.

I wonder how somebody like Trump ever got so far spewing hatred and bigotry. What the ripple effects from the news these days will be and how the smiley-face balloon on the side of the road will wither and never really rot because it’s made of plastic or something like it.

I think about Our Land and about how what we do in the next five minutes mattering.

About how each day and each minute we can choose to say “Bless you,” or “Fuck you.”

To ourselves. To others.

I want to be the woman and the mom who chooses “Bless you” even when I’m sneezed on with orange food.

“Drop a word of cheer and kindness,
flash and it is gone,
but there’s half-a-hundred ripples
circling on and on and on.
Bearing hope and comfort
on each splashing, dashing wave
‘till you wouldn’t believe the volume
of the one kind word you gave.”

———-

This has been a Finish the Sentence Friday post. This week’s sentence is “I feel the ripple effects of…”

It’s a good sentence because it can mean anything really. The ripple effect of going to Disney. The ripple effect of telling a doctor “NO EFFING WAY” or maybe even advice that continues to ring true with you. So, write about the ripple effect, or the affect it’s had on you 🙂

NOTE: The song lyrics above are from a camp song we sang that does not have an author associated with it in the book I have. Google tells me that it was written by James W. Foley but I can’t find an actual site that’s his. If you know of it, or its origin, please let me know so that I may properly link to it.