Acknowledgements and End Credits

Lately I’ve spent a weird amount of time flipping through books to read their acknowledgements pages.

According to People Who Know Such Things, the thank-you lists authors often include in their books provide a good place to find names of literary agents ― including, I hope, one who might like the book proposal on which I’ve been feverishly working for many weeks.

I’ve always mostly ignored acknowledgements pages. Turns out, they can be pretty doggone interesting and sometimes even qualify as legit tearjerkers. Who knew?

The acknowledgements page is such an interesting anomaly. How often do we see, concisely and right there where we can find it, a recounting of the work that went into the creation of any one object?

Movies have their end credits, of course, as do video games. (I learned just now that the credits for “The Return of the King,” from the "Lord of the Rings" series, last nearly 10 minutes. But don’t quote me on that because I didn’t fact-check it. Also, those credits include a nod to the movie’s “cockroach wrangler,” which is fantastic.)

Such recognition is rare, however. Most people who create most things never get the chance to show the world a list of folks without whom the created thing would not exist.

Can you imagine how different the world would be if everything came with an acknowledgements page?

Say I go to the store to buy a turkey. With my receipt, I’m handed a list of all the people who contributed to that poor, cold bird ending up my shopping cart. The people who raised the grain the turkey ate. Who pumped the water it drank. Who constructed the fencing that kept the turkey from flying away. (Turkeys can fly, right?? I feel like I should know that.)

If we actually gave credit where credit is due, everything around us would come with a list of People Who Made This Possible. The bushes outside my window that give me such pleasure as I toil at my desk represent the labor of people I will never know. The keyboard beneath my fingertips, my faithful yellow mug stained with tea rings, the sage-green blanket around my shoulders in my chilly sunroom ― how many people gave of themselves so these things could exist so I could be warm and productive and comforted?

The lists would be overwhelming. Then again, there are worse things than being overwhelmed with appreciation. I wouldn’t mind giving it a try.

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All my prowling through books’ acknowledgements pages got me thinking who I might include in that section of my book when it’s ready to be published. Big thank-yous to several people who are behind me whole-hog will come easy and be a joy to write. But the longer I think on it, the more I realize how many, many people played a part in the creation of this person who wants to create this thing.

I am who I am because of the people I have encountered in my life, from the fifth-grade teacher who wrote on her painfully shy student’s report card that I had a pretty smile (which makes me cry even now, as I write about it forty-some years later) to the oral surgeon who was so sweet and so kind, as he yanked my broken tooth out a few weeks ago, that I couldn’t help but want to be a better, stronger person.

Had one person in my decades of living not said that one thing, not shown me kindness that one time, not stood up for what was right and inspired me to want to do the same, I would not be entirely me.

The people in your past make you you.

And the people whose lives you touch ― you make them them.

We create one another. What I do and say impacts you, and what you do and say impacts someone else. Your smile or kind word might not completely change someone’s life. But it becomes part of them. 

You get added to their end credits.

What we do matters. I don't know about you, but that sure makes me want to go find someone to be nice to today.

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End note No. 1: I typed the word “acknowledgement” six times (now seven) in this post, and I spelled it correctly EVERY TIME. I’m proud of myself for that. It’s always been one of my problem words. Nailed it, baby!

End note No. 2: This Thanksgiving, as my family eats our poor turkey, we are going to share our “thankful-fors” from the year. My list is going to include the people who read stuff I write. That’s you. Thank you for giving me a reason to do a thing I love.

End note No. 3: I looked it up…wild turkeys can fly, and actually pretty fast. Just not very far or very high. You go, turkeys!

Want to leave a comment? Tell us one thing for which you are thankful that you think nobody else will mention. Or tell us one person you would include on the acknowledgements page of your life's book. Or, what the heck, tell us both.

Happy Thanksgiving, friends!

Choose your leaders

I woke this morning, the day after election day, to a shock.

No, not that my candidate won or lost. What made me exclaim in alarm was the number of people who got out of the house yesterday to help choose the city’s next mayor.

I shouldn’t have been surprised. I know voter turnout is often abysmal in non-presidential elections and lower than it should be even in hotly contested, headline-splashing races. Still, it saddened and worried me to see that a mere 12% of Jackson residents ― 3,761 voters in a city of 31,000 ― cared enough about who governs their city to cast a ballot.

The candidate who claimed the mayoral seat, the incumbent, won by 279 votes.  Had 300 more people, not even 1% of the city’s population, made it to the polls, the race could have gone the other way

I don’t have a dog in this fight, as they say. I voted, and I have an opinion about who I think was the better candidate, but had you disagreed with me and cast your ballot the other direction, I would still have heartily cheered you on, because you took three minutes to fill in some ovals to have your say in the future direction of the city we share, the city we all want to see prosper, the city where we all want to be safe and have a chance to live the best lives possible.

I’ve been in a non-voter’s shoes. I’ve stood on the sidelines in many an election, declaring I didn’t know enough about either candidate for my voice to matter and choosing to let other people, people I assumed were wiser and more informed than me, decide who should be in charge.

That was before I started work as a reporter a few years back. Covering city government and school board meetings, reporting on organizations vying for a piece of a city’s financial pie, watching leaders who are also humans squabble and bicker, and sitting in court rooms and police stations and residents’ kitchens, seeing up close the impact of the decisions made by a community’s leaders, opened my eyes to the impact of every ballot.

Who we choose to put in charge matters. And it’s up to us to accept the responsibility of making that choice.

I hope I’ll never miss another chance to vote.

I do, however, regularly miss other opportunities to decide who controls my life.

While political leaders wield significant control over our communities, other masters have even greater say in the big and little moments of each day. Those masters reside not in City Hall but inside our heads.

When it comes to casting a vote for how I will approach a problem, treat my neighbor, or make each day count ― gosh, I have not always handled those elections well.

Too often, I start a day determined to stay positive, to work hard, to maintain control, only to give way to distractions, cower in the face of challenges, and leave emotional messes all over the place.

How easy it is to cede control of our days to fear, anger, self-doubt, laziness, those clever tyrants that sneak in and claim authority we have not granted them.

And how shocking it is that we willingly follow, forgetting we have a vote in how we live our days.

We can’t always control all our circumstances. The people we put in charge ― or let others put in charge ― shape the world in which we move, and sometimes that world strikes wicked blows and erects insurmountable roadblocks. But we — not they, not circumstances, not anyone but you and me — get to choose how we respond.

Day not going well? You can choose to keep going. Discouraged? You can choose to believe in yourself. Angry? You can choose to be nice. Sad, disappointed, worried? You can choose to cling to hope with every bit of strength you’ve got. 

I know, I know. Easier said than done. I talk a good game, but I know good and well that within the hour I will have broken my own rule numerous times. But I think I’m going to stick my “I Voted” sticker on my desk, a much-needed reminder that I, that we, have a say. That we get to choose to live generously, to love recklessly, and to fight fiercely for what we believe matters most.

Vote, friends. Vote for your leaders, and vote for what rules your days and your hearts. You have more power than you know. 

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Although this post mentions elections, I’d appreciate it if you would NOT share political opinions in the comments below. The internet offers lots of appropriate spaces for that; this is not one of them. If anyone has exciting news to share about voter turnout in their local elections, please do share, and I’d love to hear how you took charge of your day today.

As for me, I need to post this and go back to working on my book proposal. It scares the daylights out of me, to be honest. But I get to decide whether to listen to the taunting voice of Goliath or to keep going, slingshot in hand.

I choose the slingshot.