A Love Letter to Human Kindness

my life is worth living for its own sake -- but it is worth living to hold something so precious, to live as a reservoir for the kindness that those friends and family and strangers have given me. It is this personal revelation that I wish to share. Because what I understand now, that I didn’t back then:

I eat Blue Bell ice cream because it was my father’s favorite, and I sprinkle it with coffee grounds because my mother taught me that it complements the flavor of chocolate. I pick up drawing as a hobby because I want to draw pictures as well as my brother. I learn how to make red velvet cake because it is my friend’s favorite. I start drinking apple tea because a kind woman in my new workplace once made it for me.

We are all a mosaic of the people we love, and the people who love us. We embody the kindness given to us by others, and we live on through the kindness we give back to them.

I do not consider myself a worldly person.

There are still countless places I have never been, countless people I have not met, and too many things for me to ever know them all. But I can say that each and every place I have been, I have met people who were kind to me, if even in just the smallest of ways. The waitress who compliments my dress. The woman who sees me trip in the road and pulls over to ask if I’m okay. The man who sees me struggling to lift a box of cat litter into my shopping cart and stops to help me.

To help one another is human. To see yourself and the people you love in a stranger, to share what you have with them, is a human trait that transcends any time or place or country.

I write this letter to celebrate the people who have shown that to me, the people in urban Dallas and rural Searcy and all the way around the world in the modest city of Yuzawa. I write this letter to say that wherever you go in the world, I know you will find kindness in people, if only you take the time to look. I write this letter to say that one of the most important things you can do in this life is to leave even a drop of that same kindness in the hands of the people you meet.

I pay for a customer’s food when they don’t have enough money for dinner. I bring homemade soup to my neighbor when I hear that she isn’t feeling well. I go to celebrate my new students’ wonderful choir and brass band concert performance. I try to pay forward the kindness that so many people have invested in me.

Let’s keep going, together.

Spring Book Reccomendations

Written by Cathrine Johnson

FINALLY!!! SPRING!!! The weather is pleasant and warm, flowers are blooming, birds are chirping, goodbye kerosene and hello AC! When it comes to the spring season and books, I think of nature, environmental activism, reflection, self-discovery and that’s what I got for you in this list of springtime recommendations! I’m keeping this one short since I’ve got a lot to do before I leave the JET program in July (more on that in below). If you’ve enjoyed my recommendations so far and would like to continue following my reading journey, I’m on Instagram @c.j.95 where I sometimes share my reads! I’m also always down to chat there about anything bookish!

On to the recs!!!