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One.

While camping in the great outdoors of Utah’s mountains, our 15-foot, 1960-something travel trailer propane can connected to the Camp Chef grill saw a small grease fire while we sizzled some bacon. It was minor, solved quickly, and the bacon still tasted delicious. The real result was a conversation on fire safety with the seven-year-old and four-year-old.

Stop, drop, and roll is the advice we’ve all always heard. If the fire is in your hair or on your face, chances are you’d still default to stop, to drop, and to roll as the movements have been so engrained to our memories as the proper procedure for this emergency. As for my kids, the older kid knew these words and knew these actions, but the little girl did not. We explained them, showed the motions, and repeated the words. To test the girl, we gave the final quiz.

“So, if you catch on fire, what are you going to do?”

“Cry,” she said.

Appropriate.

A week or so later, we decided to assess the understanding once more and asked the girl a quick question.

“Hey, if you caught on fire, what would you do?”

She paused. She thought. Then the answer came to mind and she lit up. Full of confidence, and a you-should-be-proud-of-me smile, she replied, “Stop, drop, and rock and roll.”

So close.

Two

My first summer read was a book called Beartown by Fredrik Backman, the author who wrote A Man Called Ove and Anxious People. Beartown is such a fantastic read, an instant contender for my top-five books of all time, because of the way it talks about sports and people and community and humanity so intimately.

Right now, I’m reading its sequel: Us Against You, which might be even better than Beartown. After the conflict, drama, and heartache from book one, the town and key people must respond, heal, and hate as they move forward.

There are so many nuggets of thoughtfulness, but I’ll just start with one at the beginning. On page nine, just to kick off the sequel and its narration on the people who affect our day-to-day from the shadows and corners, Backman writes:

“The worst thing we know about other people is that we’re dependent upon them. That their actions affect our lives. Not just the people we choose, the people we like, but all the rest of them: the idiots. You who stand in front of us in every line, who can’t drive properly, who like bad television shows and talk too loud in restaurants and whose kids infect our kids with the winter vomiting bug at preschool. You who park badly and steal our jobs and vote for the wrong party. You also influence our lives, every second. Dear God, how we hate you for that.”

On the one hand, think of the last time an idiot set you off. You went to park in a crowded 7-11 and the truck had crept over the yellow line of its stall and now made it a crowded parking job. Or when you were waiting in line with your kids for a ride and a little kid budged in front of you. Or when you went to a this could’ve been an email meeting. Some small, careless mistake from someone else, not intentionally harmful in itself, that lasted 60 seconds or less and it impacted your mood, your energy, your attitude, and your vibes and maybe set off the rest of your day onto a different, more negative path.

Dear God, how we hate you for that.

On the other hand, what a nice reminder that everything you do matters. To be kind, to do kind. To be intentional – think intentional, act intentional, react intentional. The person in front of you, behind you, on the roadside with you, is a person going through something – maybe an up, maybe a down, but something. They are dependent on you, just as you are for them and if you give one or two small seconds or small acts of goodness – of magic – you never know what mark it’ll make or path it’ll inspire.

And I bet, as I keep reading Us Against You the tone will shift and this side of the theme will shine brighter.