Sitting Between Strangers

12/10/16
#keepcalmWRITEon Day 10
**

Today was Connie's funeral.

Her service was very nice.  The pastor referenced Galatians 5:22 as one of the verses that he felt defined Connie and her life.

"But the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness,  gentleness and self-control."

This was so lovely to hear.  I smiled when I thought of how much I loved Connie and how awesome she was.  I sat thinking about the last 5 years, since I got to meet Connie and started working at the mental health center.

I sat between two strangers at the service.  Three people who came to the service on their own. We actually sat in the additional room, separate from the main chapel, and watched a live stream of the service on a giant television. It honestly felt no different than being in the main chapel. At one point when the tears hit me, I just bowed my head and buried my face into my scarf. The woman on my right gave me a tissue. The man on my left patted my arm.   
I recognized him from around town, and from the mental health center (I would say "from seeing him around the office"....but I don't work there anymore! I'm still processing that, especially these days when I think about my CKMHC cowokers..).

He was one of the adult clients Connie had worked with at some point. 

When the officiant asked for stories and memories of our beloved Connie, I felt him shuffle around.

I could tell he wanted to share a story, but we weren't in the main chapel, so I thought about how he and others may not get to share their hearts.

After the first person was done speaking, he stood up.

It dawned on me that he didn't realize that those in the main chapel, including the officiant, couldn't see him.  Only those of us in the same room with him knew he wanted to share.

He sat down when the second person started speaking.

This happened once more, but this time, I stood with him.  I leaned in and quietly asked him if he wanted to go to the main chapel and share, and he said yes, so, while the third person spoke, and our room full of people watched, I put my arm through his and we went over to the main chapel.  An usher was able to help him get next in line to speak, and he was able to share sweet words that brought tears to many.

I think it was important for him to get that opportunity to speak.  He got to share from the perspective of having been an individual who Connie had helped, in her work at the mental health center.

I was so glad I was sitting next to him.

"...patience, kindness, goodness..."

Nothing to Eat

“There’s nothing to eat!”

I knew Daddy had a temper, but I had never expected to see it flare at those words. 

“What did you just say? See this pantry full of food? There’s stuff in the fridge, too.  Don’t you EVER say something like that to me again, do you understand?”

I was a teenager who was usually respectful and put-together, but for some reason, that day, I felt whiny and demanding.

I don’t know what had triggered my whining.  I don’t even remember exactly when this happened.  I think it was sometime during my sophomore year of high school, about 4 years into my sports-playing, and just as long since I had started to become exposed to the habits and convenient food of my friends at school.  We were a Hispanic family living in Arizona, and I was the first of two who were born in the United States.  There was a lot of learning and adjusting to do.

That whiny day, I saw something in my father’s eyes that told me I didn’t even know the half of it.  I was smart; I was sensitive.  And I knew that I had struck a chord.  Perhaps that day I was in the mood for a frozen chicken breast, or canned chicken noodle soup, or I was pouty because there were no Honey Buns.  But my parents never, ever let us go actually hungry, and in my teenage angst, I wasn’t even aware of or grateful for that fact.

I never even thought about what my parents sacrificed to make sure we had our carne asada, our beans and rice, and our corn tortillas.  I still don’t know.

I wasn’t even thankful for the aromas that fill a kitchen when your mom is hand-chopping onions and tomatoes for guacamole, or when your Nana is pulverizing and blending red chiles for sauce.

I never thought about how many families go hungry.  No, I’m not talking about Ethiopia or some other foreign country, although that is an epidemic of its own.  I’m talking about the people we work with, go to school with, and make eye contact with daily through our respective windshields.

How many dads in Chicago won’t eat tonight because they’re making sure their babies have bread and milk?  How many grandmas in New York are walking blocks and blocks to the market to get tonight’s dinner for their grandbabies, whose mother passed away, a victim of illness or murder, and left them to her, with a limited income and minimal resources?

And yet we whine when we can’t have our soymilk, or gluten-free bread, or quinoa.

This is isn't just me making crazy stories up in my head.  We need to start putting faces to these stories, because they do exist.  Every human life is a story, and we tend to make our food choices so quickly and abruptly, as if we can’t possibly affect our neighbor.  We spend our dollar without recognizing its power, and we are so skewed in our thinking that we don’t even recognize privilege in our lives, even as we are drowning in it.

Did you know that your morning McDonald’s coffee or pop is a luxury?  There is someone out there who can’t afford to spend that $1.08 because she has to keep the lights on at home, so she muddles through the morning fogginess from sleep deprivation, and makes it through her day without a caffeine fix.  Oh yeah, she worked a double –shift last night, too.

Do you know how many parents argue and cry because they can’t do anything special for their daughter on her 12^th birthday? How much they would love to take her out to the buffet for some fried chicken and mac and cheese, but they just can’t? And we fling around lunch dates, everyday occurrences, and don’t even bat an eye.  Half the time we’re rude to the wait staff too. 

I get really mad and worked up about our entitled, self-indulging ways, but I’m not just all talk.

Twice now this year, I’ve challenged myself to eat simply for a week straight.  Seven foods and nothing more.  I narrowed it down to beans, rice, lentils, oatmeal, apples, eggs, and barley.  That’s it.  No butter.  No hot sauce.  I wanted to know what it felt like. ( I was inspired by the book "7" by Jen Hatmaker)

Do you realize how often we eat “what tastes good”? How much “fun food” we keep around the house?  Could you, could we narrow it down to just survival?  Why are we so obsessed?
Let me get something straight.  I make less than $30,000 a year.  I am a single gal, and I pay all my own bills.  I already eat simply.  I don’t exactly get to sip on a pumpkin-spice latte every day. 

But yet, I know I am privileged. 

It really is all about perspective.  And fresh perspective?  It can really flip your life upside-down.

At the Laundromat

I'm at the laundromat right now.  Yup, even laundromats are jumping on the Wi-Fi bandwagon.  In my case today, it's handy because I've been in a blogging mood.  

Anyway, so yes, I do my laundry at the laundromat.  Partially because it's easier for me to do it all at once, and partially because I never got enough money together to buy myself machines for home, plus I was afraid of buying machines because I thought this somehow made me "permanent" in my duplex and that it would be more difficult to move later on, should the time come to find a different place to live.  

(I've actually finally gotten a hold of some machines, but now, I'm just too comfortable with my routine.  After all, I've spent over 2 years doing this! Isn't interesting how we form habits?)

I've used public laundry since graduating from college.  I was fortunate enough to have free laundry at my dorm on campus for 4 straight years (ah, the advantages of a small Christian college in the Midwest!).  Before that, my parents always had machines in the house. I only remember the washer breaking once, ever.

Anyway, I've gotten to observe lots of different people over these 2 years.  Some, I recognize, but not always.  No, not everyone in the laundromat is "dirty".  I think that's a huge misconception, and perhaps even one that I was guilty of having.  No, not everyone in a laundromat is "scary".  Just because there is a single man over folding his socks all by his lonesome, and he may look a little raggedy, doesn't mean he's out to get you (or steal your laundry detergent).  

Once, about a year and a half ago, I observed a rather impatient man.  He seemed very frustrated, and as I watched, I became pretty worked up.  Turns out a different man, one who may have seemed a bit "eccentric" or "different",had accidentally put one quarter into the first man's dryer.

The first man was throwing a fit! He was yelling at the second man, complaining, "Yeah, you just put that in MY dryer" with this horribly demeaning tone of voice.  This guy didn't seem to notice that he had gotten the attention of several of us around him.

The second man just remained quiet.  

I stayed quiet over at my folding table for about a minute, and then I felt moved to act.  In the olden days, Won't Take No Crap Gilda probably would have engaged in a yelling match with Impatient Man.  I felt a little bit of that rage; I tend to stick up for the vulnerable if I see them being attacked.

Instead, I walked over to the Quarter Man, and I said, "Here's your quarter back", handing him one of my own quarters.  He smiled and thanked me.

My heart was pounding a little bit.  Maybe jumping into cruelty like that, with a small act of kindness, is all that has been required of us all along.  

About 2 minutes, the owner of the laundromat, a lady with a long, blonde braid, walked over to me and said, "This is for you.  I saw what you did."  And she handed me a coupon for $2.00 off my next wash at the laundromat.  

It was pretty cool.

I felt such satisfaction in my heart that day.  I knew I had done the right thing, and somehow shown the man that he still mattered, that he wasn't a nobody like this bully was trying to make him feel.

Perhaps I continue to come to the laundromat in the hopes of more such encounters.  Not so that I can receive something in return, but just so that I might never grow so jaded and hardened that I can't see the simple needs of my neighbors.  

After all, people are people.