Safety pins remind me of two things:
1. I used them for 15 years to keep cloth diapers on my babies.
2. It is high time to stop using safety pins to take up the slack in many of my clothes, since I lost over forty pounds to separation and divorce stress/trauma.
I need to sit down at my sewing machine and turn my skills to my own benefit, for once, so that I can face my new life 'put together', not 'held together' by a temporary and insufficient means, for...with repeated wear, the "safety" pins will mar the fabric.
And yes, I am speaking metaphorically as well as literally. Wearing my heart on my sleeve or lapel, is supposed to signify that I have a heart for everyone who is not / doesn't look / doesn't think/believe/dress like me.
For heaven's sake.
Perhaps actions, decorum, deportment, behavior need to speak for themselves, so that they are "seen" before an individual's dress can be scrutinized for a safety pin.
Perhaps what we all need to wear, is a pleasant countenance, instead of bleak, blank eyes and sour, long faces. A ready smile makes anyone approachable and comforting.
So many good causes have their own familiar ribbon nowadays, it is an effort to keep up on what each represents. The good, old symbols like the Flag or Lady Liberty don't seem to inspire as they once did, especially for the generation who has been instructed that these symbols apply only to white males whose ancestors had house servants (in the privileged north) or house slaves (in the south) to polish their silver spoons. But wear a ribbon, by golly, and you are truly "making a difference!"
I spend my every day on being a positive role model of kindness, firm work ethics, clear thinking, and mercy to other people's children. I practice tolerance, baby, like you would not believe, as I attempt to redirect young minds from their pettinesses to each other, to the acquisition of knowledge which some insist is "boring," simply because they don't care to learn about it. I assure you, I am "making a difference" in their lives, each day.
I know myself to be decent, merciful, dependable, honest, clean in every sense, and "safe" for other people to approach.
Consider this, too: anyone with devious purpose could put on a safety pin...but if you are looking for the outward sign...while you should be looking on the heart...
There is a greater need than ever, to be wise as serpents, while we are striving to be gentle as doves.
There is a greater need than ever, to look one another straight in the eye. That is where you see what you're dealing with.
