Anonymous

I value my refrigerator for more than its cooling properties for it also serves as a canvas to display our lives. Some people don’t like to have anything stuck to their refrigerators because it looks messy and unattractive. Not me, I cover every inch of it with photos of family and friends, the Dudes artwork, gift magnets and magnetic words to arrange into spontaneous poetry, anything that is meaningful and it all started with one piece of paper 30 years ago.
Back then, I was a graduate student working three jobs and life was a whirlwind. With school and work, my schedule ran around the clock 7 days a week. I usually managed few hours of sleep a night, just enough to keep me from losing my mind. However, I thrived on it. I was busy doing whatever it was that a young person was supposed to do; get and education, make money –  lay the groundwork for the rest of ones life, whatever that was supposed to be.
My schedule of things “to do” gave me direction and purpose. Unbeknownst to me, it provided a very shaky framework to build an actual life. Without focusing on making it to work on time, getting a research paper finished, preparing lesson plans for the next day and trying to navigate the social scene, I had absolutely no idea of where I was going or why.
One night, while I was closing up the health food restaurant where I worked, I noticed my boss had tacked up a piece of paper on the wall next to the cash register. The restaurant, like my life had been so busy that night, I hadn’t noticed it until I was left by myself cashing out the register. For some reason, the words written on the paper by an anonymous writer spoke to me. I made a hand written copy to take home and printed a copy at school the next day. I took a magnet and fixed the freshly printed copy front and center on my refrigerator. Seeing it not only everyday but, every time I opened the refrigerator gave the words an opportunity to penetrate my busy life and distracted mind. I found myself consulting the words on my refrigerator when it came time to make decisions or evaluate aspects of my twenty something roller coaster life.
It became my mantra, my philosophy and over the past 30 years that piece of paper has been a constant, a reliable friend, a strong supporter, and invaluable mentor despite the ever changing refrigerators beneath it. So, this week I gave the Big Dude the task of taking down the pictures of special moments in all of our lives, the latest artwork brought home from school and the magnetic poetry. But, I gave him specific instructions to leave the torn, tattered and yellowed piece of paper for me to take down. The process had become a sacred ritual and I had to be sure that the paper would be carefully stored while waiting it’s next home on whichever refrigerator that may be. The words read: