It’s midday on a Tuesday. CNN is playing softly in the background as I routinely empty the dishwasher – ruminating over my present state of aloneness.
How much longer until I see my kids?
Tickle and hug my grandkids?
As I separate clean knives and forks and drop them into the slotted drawers, my musings are interrupted by a few key phrases I hear from the nearby television.
Ray Dalio, head of the world’s largest hedge fund, appears with CNN correspondent Poppy Harlow in a pre-recorded interview. Dalio is deeply worried about a divided and profoundly unequal America as President-elect Joe Biden prepares to take power. Dalio warns of a toxic brew: worsening income inequality, political polarization and mounting debt.
“Main Street is in crisis,” he notes.
Though his message is dire, his delivery is calm. Logical. Not overly dramatic. Definitive, but cautious. I further note that he is dressed casually and the backdrop behind him is not carefully curated.
“Wow,” I think, “this guy has it ‘all together.’” He’s a self-made billionaire, a generous philanthropist and a breeder of confidence. My late father would definitely have titled him “a lucky bastard.”
Except, just days after that interview, Ray Dalios’ good fortune took a turn for the worse.
At the conclusion of the pre-recorded interview, Poppy Harlow added a footnote: Dalio’s 42 year-old son was killed in a car crash when his Audi burst into flames after crashing into a Verizon store at a shopping center in Greenwich, Conn. The cause of the crash is still being investigated by police. Devon Dalio leaves his parents, three brothers, wife and a young child.
Ray Dalio’s luck ran out. Ours could too. At any time.
It’s a chilling reminder that money, fame, security, smarts and power – none of that – can protect us from the capriciousness and delicacy of life.
Suddenly I’m tired of my sticky thoughts – unproductive ruminations about Covid – that only mire me in frustration and yearning. I want to leap out of this abyss – but how do I change my narrative?
Days later I get an answer to how I can make my hibernation more productive. My sister tells me about the Chanukah present her daughters gave her and her husband. It’s called Story Worth.
Once a week, Story Worth emails them both questions and they simply reply with an answer. At the end of a year, their stories are bound into a beautiful keepsake book and sent to them. https://welcome.storyworth.com/
There are several hundred questions a giver can choose from or the person gifting can write their own. Below are some samples:
What is one of your favorite children’s stories? Why?
What was your dad/mom like when you were a child?
What have been some of your life’s greatest surprises?
What was the neighborhood you grew up in like?
What do you think are the secrets to a happy relationship?
Tell me about a song that brings back an interesting memory from your youth
What do you worry about?
What are some of the most important elections you’ve voted in, and what made them important to you?
What’s a gift you always wished someone would give you?
What advice would you give your 20 year-old self?
What was one of the hardest things about growing up? How did you get through it?
If you had to go back in time and start a brand-new career, what would it be?
What’s a small decision you made that ended up having a big impact on your life?
I’m not advocating we all go out and purchase Story Worth. I am advocating that the next time we feel ourselves slipping down the Covid rabbit hole of despair, we stop. We then begin the process of asking pertinent and substantive questions to those near and dear. And noting the answers.
Why? Because you never know what curveballs life will throw you. By using this time of self-imposed cocooning wisely, we may find out the answers to a lot of questions we didn’t even know we wanted to ask.
So, if the unexpected tragedy strikes, we will have stories worth remembering – stories worth passing on – to sustain us through the darkness.
It’s Christmas – a great time to start documenting those memories.
And, may each new day dawn gently as we go about Preserving Our Blooms and writing down our stories,
Iris Ruth Pastor