Being helpful and prepared was like a silent mantra. She yearned for the day when someone would need…something…and she would pull the (exact) (right) object triumphantly from her car’s trunk as if it were Mary Poppins’ purse. Yes, let us enjoy our spontaneous picnic with the blanket I have right here!
Somewhere in the middle of that discussion, I was hyperlinked back in time to this moment in my early twenties when I had yet another temp job, sitting in the lobby of an insurance company. I was subbing in for the receptionist who was on vacation. On the final day, I listened to the staff upstairs as they enjoyed their holiday party while I sat and looked out the window, watching ice pile up on my car…
As the election season has dragged on this autumn, I’ve found myself falling back in time to that time four years ago when the wheels of change were starting into motion for me. The actual week of the election I was still trying to juggle my full-time job as the managing director of a dance company while also conducting a storytelling residency at Virginia Tech.
On their first date, my grandfather nearly made a drastic mistake, telling an off-color joke about squirrels to my grandmother. Even though she was quite the prude, she chose to look past his Navy boy ways and focus on the handsome blue eyes. Thank goodness, and probably thanks in no small part to my grandfather, she loosened up over time.
