The Ninja Hat project

 

Once upon a time...  

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Flower serenade

I started 2020 hoping to complete 6 personal projects for the year. I successfully completed 2 of those projects - the flower serenade and Collabor8 - though it was almost 3 (the house concert pilot was booked and ticketed, but we were shutdown by the pandemic). ...although, I guess you could say this and the post about Collabor8 is kind of 4 (documenting learnings), but this is coming in 2021... 😜 Anyway...

Goal: To challenge myself with creative projects in 2020 that are inspiring and that give back to the community. To do this every other month. To bring kindness and goodness into the world. To remind people of the magic that exists all around us.

FINAL IDEA for proeject one: Maria will sing and play the guitar and I will follow her and pass out roses while we walk around the lake.

Notes, observations, and learnings: 

• Maria asked what my goal was for the day
• It was to bring a positive moment into the lives of 96 people in the hopes that they might then bring a positive moment to 96 more
• I bought 96 roses for $80
• Set up was more involved than we anticipated, and getting to the moment of execution was scarier than we thought it would be
• We both found ourselves pretty nervous and full of excitement and dread before we managed to get to the lake 😁😬
• Buying a cart to haul the roses was key, thanks Maria!
• Two buckets were necessary
• People wanted to follow us and document
• We decided to not do that to keep the exchange purely about the exchange
• This was a good decision
• People were hesitant to take the roses from us at first because they thought we were selling them
• Telling people "it's free" worked, but it also created an energy of taking vs receiving
• If I did it again, I would start with, "may I give you a free rose?" in the hopes that it would be more graciously received
• Once people saw other people with roses they were more likely to take one without needing an explanation
• I didn't discriminate, I offered a rose to everyone we passed
• Men were more likely to take a rose than women at first
• We consistently had great reactions from kids
• Most people thanked me or said something kind as they took a rose
• All roses were individually handed out
• Maria singing was a perfect touch
• She got a nice compliment on her voice
• Made for less talking during the exchange
• Kept us moving
• Was an anchor for me, very comforting.
• Very much added to the moment, like a serenade - why we now call this the flower serenade 💖
• One woman stopped us to say that seeing all of the people with roses around the lake made her day, and that she thought we particularly made the day of an elderly couple she'd passed
• A couple more people commented on how cool it was to see everyone walking around with roses.
• I hadn't considered a collective impact, this was special to discover
• One guy said “Oh, you're just doing it for love!”
• Someone said that seeing so many people with roses around the lake was magical
• Hearing the word "magical" felt like mission accomplished 🙌
• A few people thanked us at the end for the effort/result and one woman made a point to tell us, "You did a good job."
• We were asked by a small group of women if we were doing this for the woman's March
• We said we were not
• When we passed them again later, they told us that they loved us
• There was a lingering desire to give people roses when they were gone
• Post show blues set in quickly, maybe because the roses were gone in about 30-40 minutes 

It was extremely impactful to make eye contact and exchange a smile with so many strangers. It made me feel very connected to the community, and like everyone I saw in the hours following were suddenly familiar.