dear young activists,

On the wall of my bathroom, just to the left of the sink, there is a worn piece of white paper with the following printed on it. (It serves as pretty good food for thought while brushing my teeth)

'Do not depend on the hope of results. When you are doing the sort of work you have taken on, especially an apostolic work, you may have to face the fact that your work may be apparently worthless and even achieve no result at all... if not perhaps results opposite to what you expect. As you get more used to this idea, you start more and more to concentrate not on results, but on the value, the rightness, the truth of the work itself. And there, too, a great deal has to be gone through, as gradually you struggle less and less for an idea, and more and more for specific people. The range tends to narrow down but it gets much more real. In the end, it is the reality of personal relationships that saves everything...'

Thomas Merton (letter to a young activist)

5 dollars

Yesterday I gave a man that was homeless standing next to my car 5 dollars. It was at a frigid intersection of slushy streets and cold souls and cars making more noise and producing more steam than normal. I don't know that I have ever done this before. Donations to charities, yes, shelters, well of course. But directly to the person - I guess not. In college in a social work class we talked about this topic. Giving money to people that is. Some students argued it would be best to directly hand them food, or even a piece of warm clothing. Others said it was probably more helpful to give money to organizations that work to fight homelessness. Or donate food, clothing, and the like to local free shelters. But then I wonder if some people will fall through the cracks of this method if they don't have the knowledge of where these services are, and a way to get to them.

At the red light where I handed him my crumpled 5 through a cracked, frozen window, time stopped. I felt it stop. And there were thoughts and feelings I had, although now I can't really remember them. I love when time stops. It doesn't happen much, but when it does- what a gift. When time began again, he said "thank you ma'am, you are very kind. May God bless you, may He bless me, and may He bless everyone in between."

The light turned green soon after, we waved and smiled, and just like that I went on with my day. His days are different than mine. They are colder and probably more lonely too. We are all different but the same snow falls upon us. The same sun warms us and the same wind tells us stories. Life is not something handed over to us by generations above, it is something we borrow from the generations to come. Thinking about this, I began to feel sad. Not in a guilty way but in a way that just made me wonder 'why?' about people and their experiences and so forth. Last night I booked a flight to visit my friend Nicole in Alaska for a week in May. As I let 500 dollars go from my bank account, I thought of the man standing on the street corner who changed my morning. WHY kept coming back. Why is my life the way my life is and why is his life the way his is. And why are the lives of everybody in between the way they are as well?

Anyways- back to my story. As I finished my drive home I began to think about 5 dollars. I don't think twice before spending 5 dollars. Ever. If I want a latte, I buy it. If I want Burt's Bee's lip balm, I buy it. If I want a new shade of nail polish, I buy it. And I never think about it. I never think about where that money goes and the fact that it's not even about the money in the first place. 5 dollars is nothing to me. I don't respect 5 dollars. Perhaps 5 dollars to him was the first meal in days. Gloves to warm his hands. Or maybe it wasn't. A lotto ticket or a pack of butts. I wonder if it even matters anyways - eventually energy from food will wear off and smoke from cigarettes wither up into nothing. None of these things are for forever. I'll never know. But what I do know is that I don't need any more lip balm. So for today, the hope that maybe 5 dollars was important to someone else has to be enough for me.

People make assumptions all the time. Assumptions about everything and everyone. You do it and so do I. I'm admitting that. I'm on this new kick of admitting things. To myself, and to other people. It's pretty freeing. There is strength in weakness. I'm learning that and I really like it. So I am going to assume that the best possible thing happened with my 5 dollars. Why wouldn't I assume that? My friend Corey taught me that 'love expects the best'. So even though it's hard and the world continually gives me reasons to not believe in the silver lining, does not and should not mean that I stop searching for it. So, I'm going to have faith in the simple words from behind the swirl of icy air that his breath produced.

May God bless him, you, and me... and everyone in between.

little bee

I am reading a book I really like. And there is sort of a catch-22 for me when I start reading a book I really like. I get lost in it and want to read it all the time for hours. But then since I like the book so much, I don't want the process of reading it to end so quickly either. So I have to balance it. Because if I really like a book, I don't like to read it in one day. And of course if I really like a book, I can't stand to not find out what happens and finish it. Sometimes I use the stories of others, mainly memoirs, to escape a little. To become a part of someone else's story for a bit. So when they end, I sometimes feel sad. Anyways, the book I like is called Little Bee. It's by a dude named Chris Cleave. I've never even heard of him. I won't tell you anything about it though. You should find out for yourself! All I will say is that I am only on page 84 and I'm already suggesting it publicly without even knowing how it all turns out in the end. So that can speak for itself I guess.

If I ever write a book, I hope someone who has never heard of me goes and tells their 17 blog followers to read it while they are only on page 84.

the weekend

This weekend I had some visitors. It was just what I needed. Because for me, the 'weekend' is Tuesday/Wednesday. So this past weekend, it was my friends weekend, but my mid-week... so I felt exhilarated by being out and about with them during their visit to Syracuse. The four of us all slept in my bedroom. Although there was other space for them, there is something more fun about a sleepover in the same room, even if it's crowded and slightly less comfortable. And for those two nights it made me feel like I was a little kid again. I liked that.

Feeling like a little kid makes me feel better. It's probably because I had a great childhood and parents who would walk through fire for me. And as a kid I always felt really safe. I feel lucky because I'm sure some little kids live in fear. Not everyone grew up with a warm blanket of refuge wrapped tightly around them. So when I am sick or sad or something goes wrong in life, I often long for my house. My shitty twin bed. My fridge that is really old and makes a lot of noise but always has food in it that I want to eat. My couches in my basement. The comforts.

When I can't have them, I need something that feels like them. My people. Reflecting on my weekend, I am really glad that 'home' has learned to travel. Home came to me, we trashed a tiny room, and spent way too much money eating every meal out. What they say is true - it's never what you have or what you do, it's always who you're with.

raining words

I took a break for a little while. I am back. The picture thing was fun...I liked remembering to bring my camera everywhere with me in hopes of capturing a morsel of life. And I loved sharing the little things in my past days with all of you. It made home, literally and figuratively, feel just a little closer. And I like that. I needed that.

There will still be pictures, but probably not as many. I think 2011 is calling for more words from me. I'm a writer at heart. None of the pictures I took were really very good anyways :) Words are powerful and I like that feeling. Rudyard Kipling even went as far to say that 'words are, of course, the most powerful drug used by mankind.'

So words it will be. I'm not really sure how it will look...stories, quotes, questions, jokes...maybe one, maybe all. Whatever I need to say - because it's my story. Who knows. There is really nothing to writing. All you have to do is sit down, breathe, and stop being afraid to feel what you feel. After all, perhaps tears in a writer may mean tears in readers.

My goal is to feel alive. I don't want to just tell someone it was raining, but have them experience the sensation of being rained upon.

I'm not quite sure how to do this... but I am at least going to try.

Thanks for following the journey.