The Girl Scout squeeze

a note from Belle and Harriet

Heart-shaped lichen, spotted yesterday on a walk. Photo by Harriet.

This year, with all its struggles, Harriet has joined a Scouts troop. It’s a brand-new troop of Daisies, so everyone is learning the traditions and pledges and values at the same time, which is very sweet to watch. Harriet has a blue vest with patches and buttons, and she and her fellow scouts have been working on their “friendly and helpful” and “considerate and caring” petals. At the end of every meeting they do something called the “girl scout squeeze,” a tradition that represents friendship between girls in the Scouts troop and Girl Scouts all over the world. Here is Harriet’s description:

So, what you do is you get in a circle. Then you put your right hand over your left hand. Then you hold hands with the person on your left and your right. Then someone starts to squeeze the other person’s hand. Then when they get the squeeze, they squeeze the next person’s hand, and it keeps going like that.

I like watching the Scouts meeting because it feels like a metaphor for the best values of living in community. I’d say that’s hard to come by right now but actually… it isn’t. Everywhere I go, I feel like I’m experiencing small kindesses and acts of generosity and encouragement that are deeply at odds with the news.

Here are just a few from this week, while Bea and I were in snowy Boston and Richard and Harriet were back home:

-Our hotel staff in Cambridge (more on this great trip later!) secretly buying a sled for Beatrice after we asked for a recommendation for good sledding hills.

-Beatrice asking me if she can post a Google review about the hotel “because they are the nicest people ever.”

-Our neighbor Krista texting every time she’s at the store to ask if we need anything.

-Nana calling Richard to tell him he’s a gem.

-Directions given with kindness and patience.

-Cookies and tea with friends old and new.

-Calling a friend to check in. Saying I love you on a phone message.

-A kind email from a former student.

-A kind email from a new friend.

-Writing letters of recommendation. Getting letters written for you.

-At the airport, a man behind us in the boarding line chatting with us, and realizing he’d spoken over Bea: “I’m sorry, I interrupted you.”

-A couple switching seats with us so we could sit together.

-Richard and Harriet presenting us with tulips on our return.

These are dark times, friends. It’s important to stay informed, to call our senators and representatives (including and especially the Dems! who tend to actually have staffers who answer the phone). But these kind little squeezes, whether it’s me looking for them extra hard or an actual increase in friendliness, gentleness, and consideration, they are keeping me going.

How about you, Frog Troublers? Is this all in my mind, am I extra lucky this week, or are you noticing the same? Were you ever a Scout?

P.S. Sylvester and I recorded this podcast with the Hometown Holler, a great podcast about NC politics. We talked about our forthcoming book, The Legend of Wyatt Outlaw: from Reconstruction through Black Lives Matter. Give it a listen? I also loved their recent episode with Robert Reives.

P.P.S. A friend sent this post with a helpful script for calling/writing to your senators and reps about finding their courage. It is extra important right now to tell our Democratic representatives that we support and expect them to use the power of the purse to stop this illegal takeover of our democracy.

Lots of love from us. May you keep your power and find hearts out there.