From the Folds of Paper Scraps, Perspective and Hope Spring

The Boston Globe

The clear, glass jar sat on her kitchen island for days last January before I said anything. At first there was just a single piece of folded yellow paper inside. But then, come February, there were more pieces of yellow. That's when I got curious.

"What is this?" I asked my daughter, Lauren.

"It's called a glitter jar," she said. "It works like this: When something nice happens, you write it down on a slip of paper. It can be a big thing or a little thing. It just has to be good. Then at the end of the year, you take out all the papers and read them and remember all these good things."

"Had a great weekend with Doug and Mary." "Duke thanked us for the Super Bowl brunch we had." "Lucy told Dave on the way to school that he missed the turn. And he had! A first for Lucy." "Lucy's friends decorated her locker for her 13th birthday!"

Dozens of small moments like these fill the jar. These moments feel large now. They feel huge. As they are read, they take up space. They fill the kitchen. They fill the house and they fill us, too, Lauren and Dave and Lucy. They fill our whole extended family with hope and joy and gladness.

Wow, we tell each other, it wasn't such a bad year after all.

The tragic events of 2016 eclipsed these things. They have dogged us. They make us worry about future. They have us on alert, waiting for the next shooting, the next war, the next act of violence.

This small, hourglass-shaped jar is the antithesis of the big, divided, crazy, complicated world we see spinning out of control, on TV, on the Internet. A world over which we have no control. This jar full of memories brims with good and it is a bright light, because it is the world we know, the world we live in, a world filled with good people and small kindnesses.

Counting our blessings is nothing new. We do this, most of us, at least some of the time. Collecting things isn't new, either. But this combination is and sometimes a combination is bigger than the sum of its parts. Think Lerner and Loewe, the creative partnership behind some of Broadway's most successful musical shows. And peanut butter and jelly.

The glitter jar is bigger than the sum of its parts because good things, written down and dropped into a glass jar, even when unread, are in front of us every day, reminders of the good that is all around us.

When our family gathers for dinner, we play a game: "What was the best part, worst part, surprise part, of your day and what act of kindness did you give or receive?" One person starts and answers all four questions, then that person picks the next person to answer. "The best part of my day was ..."

The kids love this game. Even the youngest. "The best part of my day is right now sitting at the table with everyone and eating this delicious meal that (fill in the blank) worked so hard to make." They learn young to stroke the hand that feeds them.

We have played this game hundreds of times, but this is the only answer I remember, and I remember it only because it is always said. Every other answer? All the "worsts" and "surprises" and "acts of kindnesses?"

All forgotten.

The glitter jar doesn't let you forget. It sits on a counter or a table and says, "Tell me." "Tell me what good thing happened to you today. Tell me about the good people you know. Give me a quick sentence, and I'll give you back an entire story next year or two years from now."

Which is why I am going to follow my daughter's lead and start my own glitter jar today.