A Powerful Primer

A friend of a friend and I recently joined in conversation for the first time, having previously been unaware of one another despite but a single degree of separation.

We spoke about the liberating progress she has made since coming to the realization that she had locked herself out — of herself. That discovery started her on her way to self-understanding and self-acceptance, and while that path may be never ending, it’s a great feeling to depart the start line.

She told me that she was reading Robert Fulgham’s classic book, Everything I Need to Know I Learned in Kindergarten. Fulgham was in the habit of writing a personal credo each spring until he thought to ask himself whether he might be trying too hard. Was it possible that he had learned as a child all the lessons one needs to live successfully and at peace with others?

Fulgham arrived at a timeless list:

» Share everything.

» Play fair.

» Don’t hit people.

» Put things back where you found them.

» Clean up your own mess.

» Don’t take things that aren’t yours.

» Say you’re sorry when you hurt somebody.

» Wash your hands before you eat.

» Flush.

» Warm cookies and milk are good for you.

» Live a balanced life — learn some and think some, and draw and paint, and sing and dance, and play and work, every day some.

» Take a nap every afternoon.

» When you go out into the world, watch out for traffic, hold hands and stick together.

» Wonder. Remember the little seed in the Styrofoam cup: The roots go down and the plant goes up and nobody really knows how or why.

» Goldfish and hamsters and white mice and even the little seed in the cup — they all die. So do we.

» Remember the Dick and Jane books and the first word you learned, the biggest word of all — LOOK.

Planks within the credo, however simple, relate to life’s and civilization’s foundations. They touch on generosity, nonaggression, respect, accountability, work and play, the miracles of life, the inevitability of death and the perils of self-absorption. Having been steered back to Fulgham, I plan to visit his list frequently in the year ahead.

If I were to add to the list, I would tack on, simply, Be grateful. With gratitude comes humility and perspective and egos held sufficiently in check.

I am grateful for having met Dr. Patricia MacEnulty, an adjunct professor of journalism at Florida A&M University. I was inspired to read one of her novels, From May to December, about life in a women’s prison. MacEnulty drew upon her experience teaching at the Jefferson Correctional Institution in writing the book, which reminds us that people, because they are in survival mode, make mistakes that lead to incarceration. It describes the toll that prisons take on inmates and correctional officers alike. It confronts us with the fact that the arc bending toward justice bends slowly.

I am grateful for my new L.A. friend, the poet and publicist Kim Dower, who supplied me with an advance copy of Kristin Hannah’s forthcoming novel, The Women, due out in February. The book centers on three nurses who served in evacuation hospitals in Vietnam while bombs exploded around them and conditions alternated between monsoon and drought, sapping heat and bitter cold.

Hannah led me to try to picture for the first time women in Vietnam, conducting triage, separating men who might be saved from those who could be expected only to die. I thought back to the day when I was fortunate to have received a high number in the Vietnam-era draft lottery.

Robert and Patricia, Kim and Kristin, I will strive each day to be grateful — grateful because I am at liberty to experience the world and think not just about why things are not better, but also to marvel at things as they are.

The roots go down. The green fuse shoots up. I am grateful for my last step and my next.

Go peacefully,

Steve Bornhoft, Executive Editor
sbornhoft@rowlandpublishing.com