synonyms for kind

altruistic amiable amicable considerate generous good good-natured gracious helpful humane kind merciful responsive soft-hearted sympathetic tender sweet

I am finally reading Wintering. I found a copy on the street which is how some books arrive when you live in the city.

The jacket was missing so I papered the book using artwork a child had created. When she got home she was moderately upset to see the art repurposed in this way. I removed it shortly thereafter and prepared instead a sort of tissue/paper mâche situation to affix during a zoom meeting, but with a lap covered in a black cat, I rethought my idea, spotting a watercolor set on a shelf near me, just within arm’s reach. A fat little refillable paintbrush that came with the set lay tucked inside. I unscrewed the top of the brush and used my water bottle to pour some water in the general direction of the vessel, splashing much of it directly onto the floor. The cat immediately jumped down. I left the water there to dry up on its own, painted the thing back and front, hands turning various shades of blue.

This is an old story now.

Today I stepped outside to get some air, living in covid time again this week, and let the frustration and thoughts swirl around me. I tried to close my eyes to meditate but it was too hard so I kept them open and let my eyes rest on the various windows, frames lighting up as the sky got darker, little window-doors, framing stories of people gathering, asking about homework, washing hands, washing dishes, washing faces, depending on who what when where. A siren yawned past on a nearby street.

I thought of Joy Harjo, when she says:

I’ll be in a car or a bus or a van or whatever, looking at the houses and the windows and all the storefronts, and thinking about all the different realms, all the different story realms, and how many — every place, every window, every doorway is an opening to a life — a whole different life, a whole series of stories.

A few hours earlier my covid buddy and I were working on class valentines, all 23 of them, and the going was rough. She needed each one to be personalized, otherwise they were “just pieces of paper.” We both decided against the phrasing you are _______ and squashed the very labor-intensive idea of creating 23 different name-based rhymes for 23 different people, but not before a decent amount of whining and a few screams, the two of us navigating the various ways in which these words could instantly be weaponized in a fourth grade classroom. I suggested that maybe she could tailor some valentines to make them a bit more personal while others would remain more general, but she was adamant that that wouldn’t work either. The debate got heated, she collapsed onto floor, I took deep breaths. Though I really wanted to, I did not yell today. Today I asset-framed (I love how you’re considering each person and making sure they’re taken care of) which made me realize mid-sentence that this child was asking me to remember to treat everyone equally. I told her I was glad she was thinking this deeply about how to care for her classmates. She smiled up from the red construction paper and asked, “Where do you think I got it?” I stammered a bit, searching, “from a show? from…school?” She shook her head, still smiling. “…from…me?” She nodded, then refocused on the work at hand, coloring 23 hearts with names on the front and one word adjective describing this person on the back.

Later, we’ll tape a lollipop to them all.