An excerpt from the December issue of the Anecdotally newsletter

We’re not visiting the elite tonight. We’re visiting everyday people. Because every one of them has a story.

They moved through the cemetery, stopping at the graves of ordinary men and women— people history would mostly overlook. At each stop, there was a moment that connected. A choice someone made. A hardship they endured. A small act that mattered.

By the end of the walk, the message was clear. You don’t have to be extraordinary to be great. … The stories that land most powerfully aren’t epic. They’re human. They come from small, specific moments that carry a bit of truth or wisdom.

From this excerpt, I created the following lyrics (and the song above).

Ordinary Men, Ordinary Women Lyrics

The moon hangs low above the street tonight,No velvet ropes, no golden light,Just whispers in the shadows, soft and deep,Where ordinary hearts lie half asleep.

The graveyard holds markers of broken dreams,No crowns of fame, no grand schemes,Just names carved deep in weathered stone,Each one a world, now left alone.

Oh, every soul’s a song unsung,A story created, rung by rung.You don’t have to be the best to be great.Just tell your story, just be straight.

It’s not the epic stories that count.It’s the small stories that mount up,Human stories that speak so true.Human stories that so few knew.

The janitor hums a tune so old,The waitress counts her tips in copper gold,The barber sighs with scissors in hand,All creating farewells no one planned.

Ordinary men. Ordinary women.And all the stories that might have been.A hard choice someone once made.A sadness that will never fade.

Oh, every soul’s a song unsung,A story created, rung by rung.You don’t have to be the best to be great.Just tell your story, just be straight.

Ordinary men. Ordinary women.And all the stories that might have been.A hard choice someone once made.A sadness that will never fade.

Oh, every soul’s a song unsung,A story created, rung by rung.You don’t have to be the best to be great.Just tell your story, just be straight.

Inspired by the Anecdotally Newsletter edited by Mark Schenk: https://www.anecdote.com/newsletter.

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If by Rudyard Kipling

If you can keep your head when all about youAre losing theirs and blaming it on you;If you can trust yourself when all men doubt you,But make allowance for their doubting too;

If you can wait and not be tired by waiting,Or, being lied about, don’t deal in lies,Or, being hated, don’t give way to hating,And yet don’t look too good, nor talk too wise;

If you can dream—and not make dreams your master;If you can think—and not make thoughts your aim;If you can meet with triumph and disasterAnd treat those two impostors just the same;

If you can bear to hear the truth you’ve spokenTwisted by knaves to make a trap for fools,Or watch the things you gave your life to broken,And stoop and build ’em up with wornout tools;

If you can make one heap of all your winningsAnd risk it on one turn of pitch-and-toss,And lose, and start again at your beginningsAnd never breathe a word about your loss;

If you can force your heart and nerve and sinewTo serve your turn long after they are gone,And so hold on when there is nothing in youExcept the Will which says to them: “Hold on”;

If you can talk with crowds and keep your virtue,Or walk with kings—nor lose the common touch;If neither foes nor loving friends can hurt you;If all men count with you, but none too much;

If you can fill the unforgiving minuteWith sixty seconds’ worth of distance run—Yours is the Earth and everything that’s in it,And—which is more—you’ll be a Man, my son!

If you can fill the unforgiving minuteWith sixty seconds’ worth of distance run—Yours is the Earth and everything that’s in it,And—which is more—you’ll be a Man, my son!

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I always arise as the horizon reddens. Rays of sunshine bending round the global curvature urge me up for yet another day. A gentle awakening.

So many days now, so many urges. Her voice of choice was cool and refreshing, like the sound of water in a rushing stream.

You will write this down. Now. Awaken and rise.

Crisp and cool the days are now. Must be early fall. No, it is my birthday this week.

I was born during the hot and muggy month of August on the Delaware River. The rapids were still running. As were the trolleys. My mother said she brought me home on one. Five cents.

Ah yes, the days are cooler now, the summer's shorter.

Excerpted from John Graves’s novel Life by Chance.

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Isaac spotted two empty seats ahead and tapped John’s shoulder. He didn’t want to miss what would happen in this auditorium today. Two minutes later, his eyes met hers, and Isaac didn’t know why, but it stirred something in him, drawing him closer to her, perhaps an urge to know more. His sense of detachment and high intelligence quickly surfaced, urging him to break eye contact immediately.

And yet he kept staring into those ocean-blue eyes, the swirling whirlpool of emotions hidden in the depths, passion on the ice, and Isaac blinked.

After a few minutes, it was Nancy’s turn, and Isaac’s breath hitched higher unknowingly.

Excerpted from Thrall Conspiracy: Genesis by John Sorflaten

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I told my wife she should embrace her mistakes. She hugged me. I liked it.

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At boot camp, the sergeant made a new recruit sweep the sunshine off the sidewalks in front of the mess hall.

It took the recruit all day.

This military joke is subtle but likely quite accurate.

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Late Thursday night,after five hours of struggling to breathethrough the titanic gurgle in your throat—only once squeezing my handto let me know you heard me,

you abruptly grasped more resolutelyas one might clutch an arm while fearfully steppingfrom raft to boat on turbulent seas

You gripped my hand as if I were a fulcrumpivoting you from one place to another

And then you opened your eyes,looked at me, closed your eyes,and died—

“Oh, sweetheart, you died,”I cried,“I can’t believe you died.”

In silence, more profound than the deepest forest,I lay next to youmy fingers gently running throughthe soft silky hair on your bellyuntil your core was as cold as the rest of you.

Excerpted from Beloved by Lois Tschetter Hjelmstad.

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Find Joy (an excerpt)

Les and I had compiled a quiz of sixty-five questions about our marriage, the years when the kids were home, and old family stories. Riveted, our children wrote fast and furiously, compared notes, and laughed uproariously at every time-worn joke.

The only glitch occurred the second evening. As we were taking pictures in front of the restaurant, Les almost fainted. The boys managed to half drag him across the gaudy flowered carpet to a private dining cove, where I stretched him out on the floor until he had recovered enough to sit up and eat his dinner. He laughed later, “It wasn’t all bad. Our waitress wore a very short skirt.”

Our Big Bash anniversary weekend exceeded all expectations. We put aside what lay behind and refused to ponder what might lie before us.

And we remembered once again that joy and sorrow often occupy the same space.

Excerpted from Abidance: A Memoir of Love and Inevitability by Lois Tschetter Hjelmstad.

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