This Is Why I Believe In Essential Goodness (Saccharine Alert!)

Even though in general I'm really not a joiner (I rarely participate in swaps - two or three in my entire life), last year I bought the kit and made a piece for Beading For A Cure, which I mentioned here.

The time has come to sign up again for this year, but due to lack of job and resultant lack of income, my spending (in order that I might enjoy the fabulousness of unstructured days for as long as feasible, not to mention the possible difficulty in finding suitable employment immediately) is limited to the necessities of food and shelter, with all fluff temporarily on hold. By "fluff" I mean things like beads, yarn, fiber, restaurants, fun clothes (as opposed to The Interview Suit), movies, cleaning person, and so on. And while the BFAC kit isn't hugely expensive, if I'm not even willing to pay $1.99 for the occasional not-new releases from the movie rental part of my local supermarket, preferring instead the library with its rather more eclectic, erratic and limited but very free selection, then the BFAC kit unfortunately just isn't in the budget under the current Austerity Measures.

On the forum which hosts all the BFAC administrivia and communications, I mentioned that I'd have to pass this year, and why.

A couple of hours later I received an email message from someone I've never met in real life, never before communicated with online, neither privately nor as part of a public thread, offering to buy the kit for me. Whether out of delicacy for my feelings or for some other reason, she indicated no desire to claim any public kudos for her generosity, and so while I won't mention her name in case she actually for some odd reason does want to remain anonymous, she nonetheless deserves more than just my private thanks.

I like to think that I'm fundamentally a sensible person with a balanced perspective, but from time to time, someone makes an observation or gives advice that makes me realise that sometimes I may be a little lacking.

Back when I was going through a very rough divorce (my ex afterwards admitted to me that he was on a campaign of intimidation), I gushed to a friend about how lucky I was to have such wonderfully kind and supportive friends. She very sharply said to me "Luck has nothing to do with it. It's because of how they view you, and is a reflection of yourself" which of course was completely contrary to how I was feeling (a miserable wreck) but was far more insightful than anything of which I was capable at the time.

I've never forgotten this, and have been able to gift this to others in analogous situations. It is a gift to be able to make someone realise that they are recipients of kindness not because they or their situations are pitiful, but because their own positive attributes attract relationships with people who like to give tangible demonstrations of their esteem from time to time. In other words, like attracts like. Simple but easy to forget.

Recently some friends made me a very generous offer that I was embarrassed to accept, not because I thought they couldn't afford it, but because I'm not used to receiving gifts that size that aren't from immediate family and it made me a little uncomfortable. Another very wise friend pointed out that to rebuff their kindness for no reason other than my own neurosis would be unkind and hurtful, and that I should get over myself and accept.

I suffered the same hesitation upon receiving the offer from my new kit donor, but for the same reason, was touched and honoured to accept her offer. And when I say "touched", I mean that I cried when I received her email and kept tearing up and sniffling as I wrote to thank her.

(As an aside, even before receiving the kit and therefore completely in the dark in terms of what beads might be in it, I'm buzzing with ideas for the finished item, designs that somehow embody the fact that the end result will have been impossible without contributions from both my donor as well as myself. Absent a kit, I wouldn't be sending in an item to be auctioned).

I feel rich in kindness, as these aren't the only ones. When I was in a shuttered cell, Denny gave me a shawl. Amy gave me some artisan sock yarn because she couldn't believe I didn't have any. My mother sent me a huge gift when she heard I was laid off. Two of my brothers gave me a fraction of their dividends in my third brother's company because I was never offered the opportunity to invest as they were.

And most of this was within the last six months.

I know there's war and murder and rape and child abuse and sketchy mortgages and betrayal and lies and back-stabbing and armed robbery and copyright infringement and elder abuse and treachery and politics and fraud in the world, but when showered with pure kindness, it feeds into my one anti-cynical belief that if people are presented with an opportunity to do a good thing, they will take it, absent other influences. Yeah and I'd like to teach the world to sing in perfect - well, not really, kumbaya sessions leave me all retchy, but still, I am left with a certain hope for the future of humanity.