Fall Picnic and September Sunshine
Hi, it's your friendly neighborhood PTO again.
Please sign up to bring snacks and treats for the wonderful Johnson Elementary staff by clicking the button below.
And please also click below in order to volunteer to help us put on the best Fall Picnic yet!
The thing about asking for volunteers for things is that once is never enough. You just have to keep asking until enough people click the links up there and put their names in one of the little rectangular boxes agreeing to help out. This is annoying to people, this being bombarded for things all the time. This PTO email is just another notification you’re getting on your phone, or one of forty different emails that came pouring into your inbox this evening, all clamoring for your attention or your time or your money or some combination of it all.
It’s exhausting, to be pestered for brain space all the time by other people—just the rumble or the ping of the notification can be enough to spike the anxiety meter, sometimes. I even get a notification on my phone now when my phone decides to redirect a text message to the spam folder! “Oh, don’t worry,” the phone is saying, “you definitely don’t want or need to see this. Nothing to see here at all. Nope. No need to click this notification and see what it is you’re missing. Hope this helps!”
:: Three seconds pass. The tickle at the back of my brain will not be satisfied by inaction. ::
Click.
Hey, it’s Chuck Schumer. I need to know…
Phone was right.
This feeling of being bombarded when we’re probably not really being bombarded, it’s the same thing that leads to the sudden and entirely out-of-proportion “WHAT?!” after a kid comes screaming into the kitchen while I’m making dinner, demanding to know how many words I can name that have five or more syllables, or whatever. It’s not the question that’s the problem, it’s that it feels like it’s the 47th different direction my brain is being pulled at the moment. EXASPERATED! There’s one!
Some people are probably simply better at separating the wheat from the chaff, in this regard. Maybe you have adapted to our modern reality faster than I have, capable of being unbothered by the rumble or the ping, happy to ignore what deserves to be ignored and engage only with that which sparks joy. Or maybe not! Maybe we’re all that frazzled.
I know that I put up with it because sometimes the rumble or the ping is something fully deserving of my attention. Something that I really do want to engage with. Something funny or sad or wonderful or terrible or some combination of it all that fills life with meaning and purpose.
[Shameless transition.]
Something like an opportunity to put your name on something that will ultimately make someone else’s day a little bit easier, a little bit better, a little bit brighter. Something like the Sunshine Committee signup, wherein you offer to bring in a sweet or salty treat as a token of our appreciation for all the Johnson staff does for our kids and our families.
There’s also the Fall Picnic in Johnson’s backyard coming up on Tuesday! We need a GRILLMASTER or two, some folks to help organizing all the food that folks will bring to share, and a few people to help run the games that make the kids so happy. Please click below to help out. And don’t forget to come out next Tuesday evening! Bring a dish to share and enjoy the company of the entire Johnson community.
If this email has only annoyed you so far, here is something that will perhaps spark some joy, as a way of excusing myself.
I know that not everyone likes the same kind of music. Not everything is for everybody, which is good! But here is something that has always made me feel wonderful and optimistic about the whole world and all the people in it, which is really quite amazing for something that was originally a car commercial to be able to do. I highly recommend listening on a decent pair of headphones, or a great big sound system, if you have that available to you. Turn it up.
What a world. (10 push-ups!)
Thanks! See you soon.