A random act of kindness involving a brightly-coloured bird made my day a little bit brighter recently.
During the Anonymous Art Show at the Ashcroft HUB earlier this year, I bid on several paintings. I certainly didn't expect to win the bidding for most of them; they were just ones that caught my eye and appealed, for one reason or another. One was a cheeky bird on a bright yellow background, and since I liked the look of him I made a minimum bid. Someone else stepped in and outbid me, and I made a note to go back in just before the auction closed and see about increasing my bid.
As it happened, on the afternoon that the auction ended I was interviewing Ashcroft artist Jo Petty in her studio, and was having such an enjoyable time chatting with her and admiring her work that I completely lost track of time. By the time I looked at my watch I realized that bidding on this year's art show had closed, and my cheeky bird would be flying off to another home.
Ah well, such is life. I still managed to get a half-dozen works to add to what I laughingly call my gallery at the Journal office, which has a lot of blank walls to fill and no one else here to argue with what I choose to hang on them. I forgot about the cheeky bird until this past Tuesday, when a woman came into the office and said she wanted to give it to me.
Nina Kabatoff — for that is her name — said she was making this kind gesture for no other reason than that she saw I had bid on it and wanted me to have it. He (I feel sure the bird is a "he") now hangs on the "bird wall" of my office, where he is watching me as I type.
It was a sweet, and entirely unexpected, gesture, and to say it brought a smile to my face would be an understatement. Random acts of kindness are certainly nothing new, but it sometimes seems that they are increasingly lost in a world where the people with the loudest voices and ugliest messages drown everything else out.
I fear we are going to see a lot more of this as B.C. gets closer to a provincial election and Canada draws ever-nearer to a federal one. Not that Canada has any monopoly on ugly election behaviour: the election race in the UK has already seen one far-right candidate hurl racist insults at prime minister Rishi Sunak. At least that race clocks in at a modest six weeks or so; to the south of us, the 2024 election seems to have been going on forever, with presumed Republican nominee and convicted felon Donald Trump showing that the words "dignity", "respect", "kindness", and "honesty" might as well be in a foreign language, for all that he understands of them.
Trump, more than almost anyone else in recent times, exemplifies the ugliness of our age: a man without scruples, morals, or shame who — when presented with a choice — will always opt to go low, as evidenced by his mocking of a disabled reporter, his scorn for veterans, and his open encouragement of sedition and violence. Unfortunately, many have chosen to glorify him as a person to be admired and emulated, rather than condemn him as a man whose sole guiding principle is the pursuit of power, who is loyal to no one, and whose curiosity extends no further than "What's in it for me?"
All the more reason, then, to not only celebrate small acts of kindness, but extend them to others. We aren't all in a position to gift others with original artwork, but anything will do: holding a door open, letting someone merge in front of you, giving a cheerful smile and a warm "Hello!" to the person behind the cash register. You never know what will make someone else's day a bit brighter. And to Nina Kabatoff: thank you, from the bottom of my heart.
