Monday Minute #3

Right Now, Words Are Fresh Air

I used to be one of those introverts who, happily in my element, pedaling as fast as I could in the anonymity of my NYC spinning class, would flinch and grimace when an exuberant fitness instructor exclaimed, “Ok team! Now, high-five your neighbor!”

Today, I would pay good money to be able to high-five my neighbor, my postal worker, my grocery store clerk, my boxing trainer, my students. But until we can leave our homes safely again, gleefully fist-bumping strangers and hugging our friends, let’s use words to hold each other up.

First, let’s notice the language of others that invigorates our hearts, guts, and brains this week.

Let’s listen for a word, a phrase, a passage…in an online class, a reading assignment, a news article, a book, a social media post, a letter, an email, a poem, or a song…that makes us pause, hope, smile, laugh, think, remember — or just take a needed deep breath.

Let’s notice if someone else’s words uplift us for an instant. Snap us out of a momentary or prolonged funk. Inspire us to get off the couch. To create something. To move our bodies. To join another virtual get-together though we might not really feel like it.

Then, let’s use our own words in response. Let’s write a text, a card, a social media post, a DM, a thank you — to that person. Let’s tell them exactly how their words reached us.

This week, I’m going to write to two people whose words grabbed me by the shoulders, shook me out of my sulk, and said, “Get up, right now; do this; do you; be you; keep going; don’t stop; who cares what anyone thinks; move, write, create”:

• Cohl Love (Brooklyn Law School, 2022), author of Unbound: “I don’t run off blood, but off of ink.”
• Dessa, author of My Own Devices: “Loneliness is the fare that you pay to be free.”

A positive word or two can carry someone else through this. Let’s use our words.