Note 13,499
How It Started
Twelve years ago I picked up a pen and wrote a thank you note to a woman who hosts writing groups in her home in Virginia. I'd spent a day in a room full of strangers reading raw pages out loud, and she was the reason that vulnerable exercise felt secure. So that's what I tried to say. I held up a mirror of words and essentially asked, "Do you see what I see? Are you aware of what safety looks and feels like in your compassionate hands?" And even though I was going through an unusually rough patch in my life, the note itself was the opposite — an uplifting pause, a win for both of us.
If I'm honest, the project began as medicine, a way to glance away from the heavy stuff. But it outlasted the need that started it — the way a match doesn't need to stay lit to have started a fire.
“What I believe, after more than a decade in this space, is that just about everyone could benefit from a habit of noticing the flares of connection and attention our hearts send out . . .”
Just today I wrote note number 13,498, to Lauren Hakala at my hometown library in Lincoln, Maine. I've recently decided to spend the next few years writing to librarians at every public library across the country — it's the nation's 250th anniversary, and libraries show us what democracy in action looks like. Now that's worth celebrating!
After all this time, here's what still catches me: I thought this would be hard. I thought a project built on noticing good would take discipline — the kind you white-knuckle for a while and then quietly abandon, like the treadmill in February. Instead, it's been the easiest promise I've ever kept. Not because I'm disciplined — I'm absolutely not — but because most of us are trained to scroll past the good stuff without registering it happened, and I stopped doing that. Once I committed to not turn away, I couldn't stop seeing the extraordinary in the ordinary.
. . . it’s like holding
up a mirror
Helping someone see their own wonder.
Once I slowed down enough to notice what my heart was flagging, the material was everywhere. Librarians. Dive masters. The dry cleaner who remembers everyone's name. A researcher I'll never meet, doing work that makes the world gentler. Somewhere along the way, I stopped being surprised by how much awe there is around me..
I don't dwell on that first note anymore. It did its job. What I now focus on is the arithmetic: 13,498 pauses, 13,498 small celebrations, none of it work. If someone had told me 12 years ago I'd still be doing this, a pen drained of ink every few days, I'm not sure I'd have believed it.
The invitation to feel joy surrounds us, but it doesn't intrude if we're not interested. What I believe, after more than a decade in this space, is that just about everyone could benefit from a habit of noticing the flares of connection and attention our hearts send out — because once you start looking for them, noticing stops feeling like effort and becomes celebration.
Here's to note 13,499.
The Recipe
If you need a starter recipe, here's one:
Sit down with 3–5 minutes of uninterrupted time.
Think of someone, or an organization, you've been gobsmacked by today, yesterday, or when you were five years old.
Find a piece of paper (or a card without words).
Pick up your favorite pen.
Write briefly about one specific thing that sparked your heart: a single word, a gesture, an unexpected kindness. (That's all it takes because, believe me, it's the small things that can slay us.)
Imagine you're conveying three additional, unwritten, messages: I see you. I celebrate you. You matter.
Sign it. Seal and stamp the envelope.
Drop it at the post office.
Enjoy how good it feels to know this small act of acknowledgment is helping tilt the scale of the universe in the direction of love.
