Rock Talk

Look what I found at the LeClaire, Iowa Community Library! I found this TRUST rock first. It was on the top step, by the railing. I thought it was so cool. I didn’t pick it up, but rather, ran inside and grabbed my phone to take a picture of it. 

Then my eye caught the red one with a white star/flower painted on it. It’s a smaller pebble and it was sitting on a large landscape boulder. I noticed a corner of a white paper sticking out from underneath so I picked it up. On the bottom it read: “By. K.W.  Maryville Rocks 865.  Please post  pic to FB”

I went back to the TRUST rock to check for a tag on the bottom. Sure enough, the same tag was there. I decided to walk around the library to see if any other painted rocks were hiding in plain sight. The smallest of the three pebbles, a little yellow guy,  I found on the edge of a window well.

Courtesy of Google Images

I wonder how many hands and how many different terrains those rocks passed through to get from Tennessee to Iowa. Maybe someone visiting Nashville found one at Tootsies. Maybe one of these little rocks spent time at The Land Between the Lakes. 

Courtesy of Wikipedia

I’d like to think the one that says TRUST had a stop at Christ of the Ozarks, near Eureka Springs, Arkansas. Maybe one went to the top of the Gateway Arch in Kansas City, Mo.

This artistic form of communication is delightful, and you don’t have to go far to find a Rock Group in your area. Wendy Reyes, a former colleague of mine, started QC Rocks (Quad City Rocks.) You can find them at https://www.facebook.com/groups/1101977619903168/  The Quad City Times did a story a few months back about Wendy and QC Rocks. You can read it here: http://qctimes.com/news/local/bettendorf/rock-your-world-facebook-group-sends-positive-greetings-via-rock/article_0073f289-ce04-5c12-b400-fe90d3108777.html

This past summer the national news had a feature about a woman who wrote inspirational messages in cards and randomly left them to be found by others.The story was about how her random messages seemed to be picked up by just the right person. The person who needed those words of encouragement the most right at that moment. 

In fact, I’ve written a couple of notes myself to library patrons. As a library clerk I see a lot of what’s going on in our patron’s lives based on the subject matter of materials they’ve had shipped in from our cooperating libraries.(Kind of like the mail carrier, right?) A person’s library check-outs are private and not to be discussed or shared with others in any way.

Ummm… I may have overstepped that line when I wrote two post-it notes one day. One note was to a patron I know well. She’s always checking out self-help books. I think she’s a lovely person and too hard on herself. I put a note to that effect in a book she had on hold. And signed my name. The second note went in a pile of cookbooks. The subject was healthy eating when dealing with cancer. This patron had six different books on the topic shipped in from other libraries. I just felt the need to tell them I was praying for them. I did not sign my name to that one.

That day I felt great! I was “being the good I wish to see in the world.” That night, instead of sleeping, the privacy policy ran over and over in my brain. What a way to be fired.  Well, I wasn’t fired. The patron who knows me thanked me for the kind words.  As far as the cancer patient patron’s note, I don’t know who they were,or if the note gave them any comfort.

I don’t think all of this creative communication is random at all. I believe good people are working hard to make our world a better place: one.person.at.a.time. That’s all. Just one person at a time. Let’s help each other friends.

Until next time,

Be Good to Yourself.

~Nadine