Back to School

It’s been a long time since kindergarten, but I remember one of the basic lessons was “Use your words.” When did so many of us forget that?

Oh, it’s undeniable that there are people saying lots of words all the time about everything, whether or not they are knowledgeable or if it’s any of their business or if it’s true. That’s not what the phrase “Use your words” really means, though, now is it?!

Use your words.

I think it means words are the tools by which we (should) share our thoughts, needs, fears, and joys.

Using our words also requires us to listen to words spoken to us. We need to hear and comprehend what others are saying.

Which leads me to the thorny problem of disagreement.

Right now, I feel like I am living on the line of scrimmage in a championship football game where the refs have all been locked out of the stadium, the teams have thrown off their helmets, and the fans are throwing beer cans at the players. All that matters is whether your team is “winning,” even though no one can really tell what constitutes a score.

Disagreement is a natural part of life when there are two or more people within communication distance, so I would like us to try harder to use our words to try to understand each other. Even if we can never come to agreement on an issue, to acknowledge the humanity of others instead of pigeonholing them into broad categories that remove the need for us to actually talk with each other before we decide whether they might have something good to offer us is the adult thing to do.

Do we really need to repeat kindergarten? Well, I could use a nap.

My boyfriend, Mr. Hershey, never barked a cross word. I miss him.