Staying Power #154: "It's Never Too Late"
Look what you did. Look who you are.
Last week I invited you (and other Rafters) to add your name to my red “I am part of everybody” coat. (If you missed that invitation, you can still accept. It’s never too late! Just email me at phyllis@phylliscoledai.com.)
The response to my invitation was so gratifying! In the photo you can see some of the new names I now carry lightly and warmly upon my back.
To celebrate these latest “signatures,” here’s a chapter from my book Staying Power: Writings from a Pandemic Year. While there’s much about the pandemic we’d all like to forget, I’ll always remember the folks from around the world who wrote to me from their great isolation, asking me to add their names to my coat as a gesture of shared humanity. They’d done so after reading an essay about the coat published on Daily Good.
The pandemic has receded now, but the messages I read from Rafters this week have been very similar in spirit to those I received in 2020. My takeaway? Our desire for deep community is ever-present, and the simple act of sharing our name can be a start.
Like I said earlier, it’s never too late.
[excerpted from Staying Power: Writings from a Pandemic Year]
This morning, I woke up to a flood of emails from the US, Malaysia, India, Spain, Canada, New Zealand, Austria, Australia, France, South Africa, Great Britain, Belgium . . . people like you, asking me to write their name on the lining of my red coat. They believe in the power of community. They understand that their lives are bound up with the lives of others. They know that they belong—or that they want to belong and are struggling to find a way.
Even now, as I write, my laptop is pinging—more incoming requests from around the world. Forgive me if I have to mute you for an hour to concentrate. And if you’ve already written me and haven’t heard back yet, please try again. This is a three-ring circus of community. Come one, come all!
Many of your messages include snippets of your stories:
The health-care worker exhausted from the pandemic.
The English as a Second Language teacher needing good news after a long day at school.
The woman wanting to encourage her spirited ten-year-old granddaughter to keep building community.
The reader who feels exceptionally alone after a recent move to a new state.
The couple depressed by the election season and the divisions in their country.
The woman unable to sleep, worrying about the coronavirus and wildfires.
The seventy-six-year-old widow, separated from her family, “working hard to monitor what she feeds her soul each day.”
The reader whose little sister had died of cancer only hours before.
The man signing for both himself and his differently abled friend who speaks through a voice synthesizer on a computer.
The “hermitess” in rural Montana who fills her hours knitting, weaving, sewing, and walking the mountains with her dog.
Multiple individuals who, having struggled for a lifetime “to fit in and belong,” are starting to carve out their own spaces to be.
The woman whose sister and husband are both terminally ill.
The aged reader, isolated since March 6 except for grocery shopping, who writes, “Seclusion is changing me. I trust it all.”
And the list goes on . . .
So grateful or so hungry to belong, you’re using this very simple act of signing a coat to affirm that you matter—and that everyone and everything else matters too.
Beyond your stories, you often share with me details about your names:
Treasured nicknames.
Names with sacred meanings.
Birth names written in mother tongues.
Reclaimed names.
Monastic names.
Maiden names used as a way to bless deceased parents.
Invented names representing parts of you you’re trying to recover or nurture or become.
Shortened names, so as not to take up too much space on the coat. (So many of you are worried the coat will run out of room. O ye kind folk, have more faith! This coat can carry the world.)
When requested, I’ve inscribed names with hearts and smiley faces and peace signs and paw prints and trefoils and maple leaves.
Some of you ask me not to bother signing your name. “My name’s not important,” you say. “It will pass.” Instead, you ask me to inscribe an affirmation:
Hello everybody, I’m here with you.
Never Give Up. Love Never Fails.
One Family on Earth.
May all beings have enough of everything.
You are, therefore I am.
You Matter.
Le deseo paz y tranquilidad, amor, paciencia y compasion a todos que mas lo necesiten. Nos tenemos que amar unos a otros. (I’m just learning Spanish, so correct me if I’m wrong, but I think this translates to something like: “I wish peace and tranquility, love, patience and compassion to all who need more of it. We have to love one another.”)
Over and again, your emails have come laden with precious tears. Probably every third email mentions tears. (I wipe them gently from your eyes and cheeks.)
Some of you tell me you’re now planning to start your own community coats. (Go for it, people!) Others of you intend to ask relatives to add your name to a piece of clothing they wear regularly, to bind you together across distance during the pandemic. (I love it!) One of you asked permission to send me your signature on a piece of cloth, so that I could tuck it into a coat pocket for other people to sign. (Sure! My pockets are bottomless.)
“What keeps you warmer,” one of you wondered, “the coat or the ‘everyone’ on it?”
You know the answer. I can’t separate the coat from Everyone, or Everyone from the coat. I’m warmed by you all. And I bless you now, even as you have blessed me:
Metta.
As-aalaamu alaykum.
Mitakuye oyasin.
Beannacht.
Mahalo.
Kia ora.
Namaste.¹
Deep peace.
1 Translations: Metta is Pali for “lovingkindness.” As-aalaamu alaykum is Arabic for “Peace be upon you.” Mitakuye oyasin is Lakota for “All are my relatives.” Beannacht is Gaelic for “blessing.” Mahalo is Hawaiian for “thank you.” Kia ora is Maori for “Have life.” Namaste is Sanskrit for “I bow to you.”
The Gentle Nudge
Join other Rafters this week . . .
THURSDAY: Poetry Pick-Me-Up (Zoom, 12:00-1:00PM Central, at this link)
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Ever so grateful for what you bring to the world!
I'm so happy that you signed my name on your coat. :).
And again, thank you so much.