Last month I went to Big Bear to celebrate my birthday. We stopped to watch the sunset from the edge of the lake. I stood up on the edge of a massive rock to watch the colors of the sky change and the shadows that were cast on the water. As I stood there in awe of nature and all its glory, I noticed the ducks in the water forming the craziest ripples around them.
One duck was gliding effortlessly over the water. The most brilliant ripple followed its stoic glide. Behind that duck were a bunch of other ducks. Each seemed to be doing its own thing. Each was creating beautiful swells of water all around them.
One dove into the water disappearing for a long moment. I leaned forward a little afraid it wasn’t coming back up, but, at last, it did. When it did, the fiercest ripples formed around it. I watched these ripples grow, expand, and continue almost across the entire lake. I was hypnotized by the picture being painted in front of me, the beauty and flow created by these ducks plunging in the water, coming up, and the ripple effect unfolding from their actions. I sat there as the sun was setting, watching the ripples being created and I was reminded why I chose to call my organization The Advot (Ripple) Project.
One move, one action creates a ripple that can have such a long reach.
My family was on rocks a little further away from me. It was quiet. I looked at my girls each on a rock. They were laughing, and so sweet. I can’t believe how big they are. God only knows the ripple effect of my every action, how it affected them and the impact it had on them.
I sit down on the rock. It is that golden hour and I hear her voice in my head.
“You know, Ms.,” she said.
“If I graduate high school, I betcha my sister and brother and other sisters and brothers will do the same shit.” She added, “I be doing my GED here. As much as this place is fucked, I can do something with myself.”
This conversation was years ago with a young woman who was locked up in a county juvenile detention facility.
“You will be an example for them,” I told her.
“That is messed up,” a different girl said to me.
“How the fuck she go being an example being locked up?”
“No,” I said. “She is being productive and that is a good thing.”
“What is productive?” one girl asked.
“It means she is making good use of her time here,” I say.
“You can’t say good and doing time in the same sentence, Ms. THAT’S messed up!” Everyone laughed.
The young woman getting her GED wanted so badly to create a ripple effect of change in the minds of her siblings. You see, she had 6 siblings, each one from a different father. There was a grandmother in the picture who helped the mom, but apparently, the house was a major center of drug dealing. You would need a tsunami to create change in that environment.
When she got out, she was proud that in the time she spent locked up she graduated high school and was able to complete her GED. Sadly, her addiction got the better of her. It certainly didn’t help that when she was released, she went back to the very place that got her in trouble in the first place.
Although this story doesn’t have the happy ending I wanted and prayed for, I do know that three of her younger siblings actually stayed in school because of their sister. They managed to stay clean, and one is going to community college.
She told me this when we met at an alumni gathering we had before I lost touch with her.
“Ms., I did it. I had a triple effect on my family,” she said.
“You mean ripple effect?”
“Nope! I mean triple effect – three out of six. Three of my siblings be doing school, and staying out of the hood, away from the gang.”
I looked at her and knew she was using. I gently asked her
“What about you?”
She smiled her beautiful smile and said, “I’m the original.”
I think she wanted to say the origin, but I wasn’t sure.
“I was proctive. You know that word you told us.”
“Productive?” I asked.
“Yeah,” she said. “I was that and then they learned from me.”
That is the beauty and tragedy of ripples. We cannot control them. They go out into the world, change, and have the capacity to touch people and generate good. Once we send them, they go, but we stay.
The ducks didn’t move much in the lake, but the ripples were all over the place and had a very wide reach.
My girl was the origin of change and quite an original.
She was productive and so incredibly smart. Her siblings were deeply affected by her. She absolutely sent that ripple out. Sadly, she couldn’t send it in to take care of herself.
I sat on the rock and felt my eyes well up with tears. If only she could see herself the way we saw her. If only she could be sitting where I am and see the scope of her heart. If only the odds were not stacked so high against her.
If only….
