for those about to rock

bread before bombs

one of my coworkers is married to a u.s. army soldier who recently began his 2nd tour in iraq. within her department and the other ones on our floor, she organized a drive for cookies and other treats to put together a goodwill package to send to him and his company.

i was floored when she showed me the unoccupied corner office where she was keeping all the donations. you should've seen it. wall-to-wall, piles of brown grocery bags full of plastic wrapped dishes of homemade chocolate chip, boxes of oreos and those new cookies that are part candy bar stacked high on the desk. i noticed that somebody had even included a cookie recipe (kudos to them for using brown sugar) along with his or her donation.

i don't bristle or scoff at culturally-approved tokens of patriotism like i would've when i was younger and angrier, but all the same, this office crammed with sugary goods donated by a diverse group of people, many of whom will recede into anonymity after signing their names to the card that'll accompany the package, struck me instantly as so, so much more symbolically powerful than a yellow ribbon could ever be. empathy transcending politics.

posted by jomilkman @ 8:00 AM