What IS the Daily Napkin?

How the Daily Napkin began: My husband and I were married in the winter of 2004. He is such a blessing in my life! We have done a lot of healing work together. The first day he was headed back to work I was filled with love for him.

It Started with My Mom

I remembered that when I was little, my Mom would write our name in fancy lettering on our brown lunch bag, or “I love you” on our napkin, with a little flower or some other drawing. I LOVED that. It made me feel good. So, I decided that I would do the same for my new husband. I tore off one of his brown paper towels, folded it in quarters like a card and wrote “I love you” on the inside, with a little heart, and hid it in his backpack near his lunch.

He Didn’t Say a Word

He didn’t say anything about it, yet I kept doing a new napkin each day all that first week. After all, I was doing it for him, not recognition for me. After the first week, however, I started to get bored with saying the same thing over and over. I started free-thoughting, uplifting or thoughtful things and I continued writing those every workday that I could. There were very few that I missed (Maybe 1-2 days in 6 months). He still didn’t really say anything. But, that did not matter to me.

He came home from work this one day, about 6 months into it, with a plastic shopping bag stuffed full of the napkins. I was shocked. I said, “You never used those?!”

Golden Messages

“Of course not,” he replied, “this here is gold! It’s pure poetry.” I didn’t know what to think about that. My heart filled up to almost bursting with appreciation for this sensitive and loving man who would not throw away my daily scribblings. I found out he would hang them up in his cubicle at work, and change out the display on a daily basis, as long as the message was not too personal.

Daily Practice – The Daily Napkin

I continued the daily practice for years, until Marshal retired the end of 2015. We had many, many bags of napkins through the years. After the first couple years, Marshal said I should create a book of the napkins. I’ve never gotten that far with the process, however, we did start a practice toward that end at that time.

It expanded to be OUR ritual of the heart, as Marshal started typing them up every day, and emailing them back to me. He many times shared the messages with his friends, who then frequently commented back to him positively.

We decided to share them as a blog with you. Since Marshal’s retirement, I decided to incorporate the almost 2,000 poems here instead. May you enjoy them. May you find your own daily ritual of the heart. It so feeds the spirit.