Let’s face it, these are some bizarre times in America. Simply bizarre and extraordinary. Alas, this week’s Joyful Musings are not to continue the dialogue on new phrases like, “alternative facts” rather, to celebrate fun. Fun, people. And don’t forget how to have it.
Susan Dromey Heeter
Last weekend, my daughter and I travelled to Portsmouth and in our travels went into Macro Polo. Macro Polo is a store in Downtown Portsmouth filled with an eclectic mix of everything – mugs, pins, bumper stickers, an entire section filled with plastic body parts. And it was in this section that my daughter and I both purchased our little plastic hands. For two dollars, we found some fun, some levity, two little hands.
And we’ve used these hands in a myriad of ways; when we attended a basketball game we clapped with our new little hands, ate our strawberries with our new little hands, waved with our new little hands. And, of course, just laughed.
I brought these hands to work, where I reprimanded a student for using her cell phone in class, I used my little hand – “manito” in Spanish, to point out that we are a cell phone free zone. I met a new colleague and used my little right hand for an introduction, obviously I was not practicing that “you can only make a first impression once” concept and will just be considered crazy. Forever. And, yet, we both laughed. Those little hands. I giggle just thinking about them.
And, of course, I carry them everywhere. I think I’ll use them the next time I go through a toll booth, the next time I hold hands during a prayer, the next time I, well, don’t want to touch somebody’s hands – perhaps that guy in the White House with manitos himself. I’ll definitely use my hands in that arena.
It’s good to have fun, to laugh in these trying times. Two bucks. And as I muse joyfully, I think, it’s good to laugh, good to be silly, good to be a little crazy in January 2017.
May you muse joyfully during these times and use your own little hands for good, for joy, for reaching out to help a country, a lost soul, a friend. Let’s get all hands on deck – even the little ones.
Susan Dromey Heeter, a writer from Dover who recently let her hair go au natural white, debuts her new column “Joyful Musings” at InDepthNH.org. Dromey Heeter is a secondary Spanish Teacher at Dover High School and the mother of two teenage daughters. Writing has been her passion since her English majoring days at the University of Massachusetts in Amherst. Dromey Heeter has lived in The Netherlands, Alaska and currently basks in all things New England, including the frigid winters. An avid swimmer, Dromey Heeter’s great passion is to bring back body surfing as most children have no idea how to ride waves without ridiculous boogie boards. She also writes about thrift shopping and all things frugal in a column called “Budget Vogue” for the New Hampshire Union Leader.