The Little Words Mean the Most

#GivingTuesday, day of: at midday, 63 emails have so far asked

 

Given so far to one.

Popular subject line: Today is the day!

Popular enticement: The triple match!

Best art so far: Nashville Rescue Mission (a child's note to God)

 

#GivingTuesday Eve: Someone sneaky's collecting your subject lines

 

There was an unforgettable moment in Nova Scotia. Simone and I had been traveling for days, evading fog. Thanks to road signage, we knew we were still in the province; on land, on a paved road; land of my fore-mothers (and -fathers; today's family doesn't talk much about the men, except for eye rolls).

But Simone and I rarely saw stuff. Grey puffs. A building. More grey puffs. Driving cautiously.

---

This though WAS a cherished clear day. Clear as wisdom. Clear as patience. Clear as love. Clear as hatred discarded by the side of the road; biodegradable hatred; hatred recycling into love of some kind, maybe nuclear fission!

We parked our rental car in a field beside plenty of others boasting local plates. Everyone stared at a chimney at the edge of a cliff. Whatever factory had driven the local economy was gone. Its brick chimney was stark and straight as an exclamation point.

And here came the swifts, doing a pirouette, a ballet, something no human dance company at these numbers could ever attempt!!!

The swifts bed down for the night: Truly amazing ~ once in a lifetime (unless you lived nearby).

Those chimney swifts returning home for the evening?

My point > those are your #GivingTuesday subject lines.

And I'm collecting email subject lines DAY BEFORE and DAY OF.

Down the road some researcher (not me) might (should?) look at comparative results. In my future classes, for sure, though: students WILL analyze the language you used in 2021.

About those students? I'm not trying to train people who agree with me. I'm trying to train careerists whose job is to raise money for an amazing mission ... and to do that with confidence, pride, without regret, without distraction. Today's politics, for instance, are a distraction; as they probably were when Stonehenge seemed like the best idea on earth.

Let's start by admiring chimney swifts on a clear day in Nova Scotia.

 

 

Our Next Holiday Card

 

We were married for 37 years and always sent cards.

         Sim One didn't make it to year 38.

         My beloved died on May 2. Two nights before, she'd leapt screaming from our bed, speared through the skull by a massive stroke.

         Later that dawn, her scans showed the damage. Her brain was a bowl of mashed potatoes. Left on the counter: a loose cluster of functioning organs. But no real Simone.

         So it's up to me now, as the last one sleeping at our rural address, to create our latest holiday card.

------

For decades, Simone and I made holiday cards together. It was a seasonal household hobby (sometimes more a chore than a hobby, if we'd waited too long). We filled binders with examples of our lousy efforts.

         The Golden Rule: avoid any reference to a specific religion.

         So Simone and I sent what we saw as "any-and-all" holiday cards. Whatever holiday you loved, celebrated, honored, respected, felt nostalgia for, bought for, cooked for, endured, feared, despised or simply knew ... Simone and I hoped to drop a calm, cleansed and thoughtful penny into your holiday piggybank.

         To say hi.

         To say we see you.

         To say we hug you.

         To say good luck — since who doesn't need that?

 

 

eat science skirts

 

Simone's body ran cold. Mine ran hot.

         Opposing temps made for an equitable household ... mostly.

         Not so mostly? She'd only eat certain things.

------

Seafood? I'm agnostic. She was against. Wouldn't touch the stuff.

         I can do sushi. Hard NO! for Simone.

         I adore oysters, as reasonable people do. A great source of protein, widely available in coastal waters. They're been cultivated since Roman times; were once "a poor man's food" in New York City. And they do in fact trigger higher levels of sex hormones, real science has found (now you know). Plus oysters are an "excellent source" of zinc, iron, calcium and selenium and a couple of vitamins. A happy memory from my early 30s was gorging on them with strangers in some bare-bones neighborhood bar in New Orleans, washed down with local draft beer. I don't exactly remember what happened next.

         Sim One wouldn't eat anything "that carried its home on its back" (her words). Shellfish were out. Crustaceans were out. That meant that when we traveled together, as she and I did a lot, we'd often end up grumpy, hungry, engaged in a low-intensity fight; simply because we couldn't agree on where to plant our forks.

         Yes, indeed, I am profoundly stimulated by starred Michelin restaurants. Huzzah! In France (thank you, Fab and Jean-Claude!) I've experienced with pleasure 3-stars, 2-stars, 1-stars and really good wanna-be's ... and I can recall almost every plate, every gesture, every route, every plotzed ride home. Simone drove us back almost always, since she was the only one who didn't drink alcohol of any kind. I recall Jean-Claude vomiting a 1-star meal into our kitchen sink as soon as we returned to our semi-15th-century home. A bravo of sorts, J-C! Really. Constellations are stars vomited into myth.

------

My point? I'm happy to grab a bite anywhere. My default palate has low-to-no standards. In addition to 3-star restaurants, I appreciate greasy spoons: all work, little reward, often important for community cohesion. I like diners, too. And I thrill to snacks. That doesn't make me superior. It just makes me easier to travel alongside.

         For more than 20 years, Simone and I enjoyed the rare privilege of having a second home in France (thank you, Alain, for suggesting it originally).

         Re, though: feeding?

         Well, McDonald's conquered France. The franchise is everywhere: small towns, large towns, highways. Micky D's even introduced French children and their compliant parents to dumbed-down Halloween; we witnessed that bizarre advent. One Halloween around 2014 there was knock on our front door in France. There were two ranks: kids in costume with sacks for candy; parents in costume a few feet back, en garde, smoking cigarettes.

         Simone emptied her bladder into many a Micky D. toilet. She'd deign to pee there. She wouldn't eat there. So we'd make our way empty-sacked back to our rental car. "You're a picky eater." J'accuse. My most frequent tease. She'd counter with heat; her squinting face pushed into mine: "No, I'm not!"

------

I loved Sim One so much when she said that.

         I had no culinary standards. Throw anything down my throat, really; my belly harbored a dumpster. Refinement was Simone's domain.

         If the real answer was to throw her on her back, skirts umbrellaed, pound away up the groomed middle ~ she'd be smiling! (Wait. I think I just confused eating with fucking.)

         Sim One was the right kind of picky eater: educated taste; personal, though. She'd learned to discern this from that as a child in France, confronted by every edible known to survival. Not eating certain things was a way of saying this is who I am ... while also saying at the same time I'm certainly not that; please, no. At McDonald's, Mickey D's, refusing ... that was Simone at her French best.

 

 

accidental new word

 

 

aunthetic

 

you're not looking at this a special way

 

YOUR aunts

 

some sent you one way, some another

 

 

 

 

ready?

 

Sim One's brain died. When that happened, she had nothing more to say. I held her hand in the hospital. I read to her from the novel she'd enjoyed the night before.

Eventually, these competent doctors got it into my thick head that she was no longer viable. Eventually, these doctors got it into my thick and denying head that Sim One would never wake up and speak to me again. Not a word. I thought we were on the road to recovery; we were not. That I could hold and stroke her hand as long as I wanted: she'd never squeeze me back. They were technicians. I was a lover. I was a romantic. They were in a different business.

 

And to think this was just an asterisk on an email

 

Here's the truth of it: Most people throw away most of their DM most of the time.*

* This is why writing direct mail still terrifies me ... even after years of training and decent-to-sometimes-great results. The mailbox is a tough, unforgiving, even hostile neighborhood. It's easy to fail there. It's hard to succeed there. It's also why the mailbox is the best school you can attend for donor communications. If you can succeed there, you can succeed anywhere.

 

I love formulas. Professionally, I grew up on formulas.

 

You learn formulas.

 

You practice formulas.

 

You adapt formulas.

 

You replace old formulas with your new, more efficient formulas, as times and transactional channels change.

 

(If you're fundraising for the Vatican, OK, maybe: "formulae.")

 

 

For all you Zoomers ... Shared by Lee K.

"unsubscribes" tormented Simone

 

I see it differently:

 

Each unsubscribe is a victory.

 

Each unsubscribe strengthens your base.