Feeding Others

     The topic of feeding others has been on my mind lately. Some of this is undoubtedly because, like you, I have been hearing concerns about the economic downturn causing more and more people to access food pantries. I have also been hearing more about families and communities reclaiming the craft of gardening.
     Recently, I met a young woman who wanted to start a combination community garden and art gallery in our town. I will admit that I was a little annoyed that she was looking for grants to start this project on the middle-class side of town. Our community of just over 110,000 has the 6th largest Head Start program in the nation. It is safe to say that our low income neighborhoods could really benefit from community gardens and the beauty of a gallery filled with local art. Companion tells me not to be too judgmental about her idea. After all, we never know what direction ideas will flow.
     A week or so later, I got an invitation to join a church group as they served a meal to the homeless at our local overflow shelter.  The overflow shelter came about several years ago after a homeless man froze to death on the streets of our town. His death made obvious what homeless advocates had known for quiet some time, we simply did not have enough shelters to house the homeless during the harsh winter months. Social services agencies and volunteer groups decided to create a seasonal shelter system.
    So, I found myself at the overflow shelter offering colas and root beer to homeless people who came into the shelter for the night. At the end of the night a tall African-American man with a salt and pepper goatee came up to the table. "I want to you to know," he said, "we're not all just homeless bums here. Some of us are plumbers, electricians. We had jobs. We can work but this Reaganomics has got us down. If you ever need anything done, come see us, we'll help you. We'll work without a contract. You know what I'm sayin?" I nodded and said "Yeah, I do." He thanked us for the meal they'd just finished and walked away. We were thanked in so many ways that night that I felt like I was the one who had been fed.
    This past week, I interviewed the director of our local Daily Bread program. This program offers hot meals at our local Senior Center and delivers hot meals to home-bound low-income seniors. In most cases, the service is short term while the senior recovers from an illness. However, some seniors with chronic conditions that can be managed in the home also receive meals. This service is part of the safety net of community services that can help delay nursing home placement.
     While talking with the director of the Daily Bread program, I learned about Mr. Washington, the owner Washington's Cafe and Record Shop. It is not clear whether the Cafe continues to operate as a business. What is clear is that, at a time when the Daily Bread program was having a hard time finding volunteers to deliver meals in a predominantly African-American, economically depressed neighborhood, Mr. Washington and his son were willing to prepare and deliver 30 meals a day, five days a week. Mr. Washington still prepares and delivers meals.
     Then, on Thursday, I got to ride along with an 84 year old Daily Bread volunteer who has been delivering meals for 27 years. She continues to deliver meals even though her husband, and driver, of 62 years passed away in December. Turns out she wasn't really very interested in talking about herself. She put me to work, she talked about the people on her route, and she introduced me to some of the people who received meals. She told me about a man alone in his home on a Thanksgiving Day who completely changed her way of thinking about other people's lives and motivated her to a lifetime of volunteering to make sure that homebound seniors had hot meals and a smiling face to say "hello" to them, even on holidays.
     When I was take Gerontology classes, I had the good fortune to learn from a professor who had been involved with a hospice program in Oklahoma. In one of her lectures on letting go, she talked about how hard it can be for family members to accept the day that a loved one stops eating. How family members can try so hard to coax of loved one to continue to eat.  Failure to eat can be a sign that the body is shutting down. I can tell you from watching the elderly in nursing homes and from trying to nurse elderly pets in the home, that both of these facts are true. 
     We understand that people (and animals) must eat to live. I am reminded of a story called "Stone Soup." The story is told in different ways, but the general storyline is this: a group of travelers arrive in a village with nothing put an empty pot. The villagers are either not willing or not able to feed the group so they start a fire, fill the pot with water and a stone. When the villagers ask what they are doing, the travelers answer, "Why we're making soup. It would be perfect with just a bit of ....." Individual villagers are generally willing to share a little bit of seasoning, a little bit of carrots, a little bit of corn, maybe even a little bit of meat. Before long, the travelers have a wonderful soup, enough to feed themselves and the village too. 
     "Stone Soup" is usually told as a story of cooperation. I have seen this story played out in our town over the last couple of weeks. People are  being fed through the caring cooperation of others. But this is also a story of giving. Of realizing that whatever we have to give on any particular day, a bit of seasoning, a carrot, a little meat is enough - if we can find a way to add it to what others have to give. I am reminded over and over again that as much as we idealize independence, we cannot survive alone. We must reach out to one another. How often do you find that reaching out to end the isolation of others, and even to end your own isolation, involves sharing a meal? How are you or the people in your community making "Stone Soup?"

A busy life

     After a long period of staying away, I've gone back to church. My absence had more to do with me than with the church. Mostly I was just too busy. Finally a church friend, encouraging me to come back, said sometimes just being there is what the spirit leads us to do.
     Like most of my friends, he knows I always have a lot going on. Case in point: Just today, after we finished a potluck meal, a friend who has always lovingly harassed me about my "active" life said, "Grace, let me ask you a question."
     "Am I going to be embarrassed to answer?" I responded. A lady sitting beside me laughed softly.
     "No." She answered and went on. "At Christmas it was web design and now it's writing. What are you going to do?"
     "Both." I answered. "I'm still taking a web design class and I've started research for a book I want to write." And it is true. It is also true that I am busy. In a good way.
     In the upcoming week, I will interview two local folks who are committed to helping others in their community. One is a volunteer with a meals on wheels program that serves shut in seniors. The other is the director of a local agency that offers services to the homeless and near homeless. I will write articles from both of these interviews and submit them to a local weekly paper. And wait. And hope. And start looking for the next story.
     I will read. I have a rough outline of one novel and seem to have at least one more that fires off some brain neurons from time to time. The first novel has a time span from about 1830-1930. If the second one actually takes shape, it will span the 1700's. So, I am selectively reviewing nearly two hundred years of American history, especially focusing on the American experience of emigration from the East Coast to the West. Right now, I am reading  Orphan Trains: Placing Out in America by Marilyn Irvin Holt, On Writing Well by William Zinsser, and book five in the Harry Potter series. 
     On Tuesday night, I will go to class. I will learn all about type fonts (again). This time I will be learning what works on the web.
     Over the next couple of weeks, I hope to begin work on a Training Manual that I have been chosen to write for a statewide social services organization. That will keep me busy for several weeks.
     And, Monday through Friday, I will happily join the ranks of fortunate folks with a full-time job.
     Saturday is our family rest day. Sunday I'll find a spot in a back pew of my favorite church,  spend a few hours on research and writing, and prepare to start a new week.
     As I understand it, these are all things all beginning writers must do - interview, read, write, work to pay the bills, make time for family and nurture the soul. It is a busy life. In a good way.

Building a Platform

Some of you may be wondering why in the heck I decided to start a blog. If you know me well, you know that I always have an opinion about something and I'm usually not afraid to share it. But that isn't what is motivating this blog. Actually this blog is the result of an article I read in Writer's Digest about building a "platform." The concept of building a platform is based on the realization that writing is a business. Those of us who are just getting started don't have the advantage of a publishing house to market our work. We have to find ways to let the world know we are out here. So, here I am, working in Central Illinois and using a blog to reach out to family and friends in as far away as Virginia, North Carolina and Oklahoma. Like everything else, it will be a learning process. I am excited about the journey. Feel free to follow along.

Bucket List or Karma List

Her once white blond hair was now the color of wet sand. The light streaks that showed in the kitchen's harsh fluorescent light were not sun highlights. They were evidence of the passage of time. As she pointed them out to her companion of 25 years years, she said, "If there's anything I've been meaning to do, I'd better get to it."
     Companion replied, "Ah, a bucket list or a karma list."
     She went to work and sent an -mail to to a local newspaper editor whose church she had once attended. She said she had always wanted to be a writer. She asked how a woman near 50, with two advanced degrees, neither in journalism or fine arts, or even communcations, could become a professional writer without having to go back to school.
     He replied "Miss you. Come back to church." Then he asked, "What do you want to write?"
     She shared her list of works, a couple of articles in a newspaper nearly 20 years ago, lots of research papers. She said that she was most intersted in human interest stories and that she was probably most qualified to write about aging and social programs. She said that she had an interest in social history (especially the histories of disenfranchised people), nature and photography and that she enjoyed research.
     He responded "I don't have any openings right now. If you would like to try a freelance article I could work with you. They run 600 words and pay $50."
     She wrote back, "I'm not looking for a job." Followed by a smiley face. And then, "I am looking for freelance opportunities." Followed by another smiley face.
~~~~~~~
     For nearly as long as I can remember, well since high school at least, I have wanted to be a writer. The twists and turns of life and my own internal messages about what is and is not possible have kept me from doing the one thing in my life that I have always felt I most wanted to do.
    Lately, I have been researching the history of the Santa Fe Trail for a novel of historic fiction that I hope to write. Someday.
    Today I decided that I don't want to wait two or three years to finish a book that I have no guarantee anyone will read. Today, I took an active step toward following my dream. If all goes well, I'll get some experience working with an editor and a get few by-lines under my belt. A bucket list or a karma list? Time will tell. Wish me luck.