Red wigs on bikes

Late last week my dear friend Der Lovett invited me to join him and a bunch of folks on a bike ride.  The bike ride being a fundraiser for his friends Amie and Harper and an act of love and support that brought me to my knees and has stayed with me in my thoughts.

Recently after being blessed with a new baby into their lives,  Harper was diagnosed with ALS or Lou Gehrig's disease.  ALS is a disease that hits people between the ages of 40-70, in which the person slowly looses muscle movement and control, leading to inevitable paralysis.  Meanwhile the mind is left completely unaffected.  The bike ride was organized to raise money to help support Amie and Harper, as time progresses and the family's challenges become greater.  The idea was that each person would donate $10.00 and join in this long meandering bike ride around NE Portland.. oh yeah.. and everyone wore RED wigs.  Lovett Deconstruction matched our "teams" donations to make a pretty substantial overall donation. The organizers were expecting about 300 people to show up and it was such a beautiful sight to see.  Amie, Harper, and their little baby joined us on the ride via pedicab.

I was deeply moved by being a part of this bike ride.  It was an incredibly creative and deeply heartfelt act by a community of friends and supporters.  It reminded me that by gathering together in large numbers we could raise a lot of money and provide  a tangible show of love.  There was a sweetness in the air, though I knew the seriousness of Amie and Harper's future, I also felt comforted by this simple act of human helping human.  It was humbling to realize that all  of us are always just a step away from loosing a loved one.  How precious all this is.....all the more reason to don a red wig and celebrate one radiant evening together.

Two ways....

"There are only two ways to live your life.  One is as though nothing is a miracle.  The other is as if everything is."  Albert Einstein

Sunday afternoon

Sunday afternoon came around, and it was time for the "dog'gone dogooders" to head downtown to the weekly Potluck in the Park. This is a completely volunteer run event that just celebrated its 18th year of service.  Every Sunday afternoon, rain or shine, a free meal is available to anyone, and we are talking a nutritious and bountiful hot meal.  Various salads, casseroles, yogurt, breads and fresh fruit are just some of the choices available to the almost 400 folks that come by.

We showed up early to sign in and orient ourselves.  There were a lot of volunteers helping out and that isn't counting all the folks who had been gathering food donations all week long and cooking the food on Sunday morning.  There was a tourist couple from NYC who registered as volunteers through Hands on Portland, with the intention of participating in the place they were visiting.  Brilliant!! Once again, I was really impressed by the number of kids that were volunteering that day.  My own world as a young person was so self indulgent, I can't begin to imagine the effect it would have had on me to offer my time in support of another human being.

Once I started serving food, it was a whirlwind of activity peppered with moments that made me laugh and moments that slammed into my face the reality of poverty and homelessness in this country.  It is only recently that I am beginning to experience relationship with another person across class lines.  I am realizing that I have come to rely too heavily on my assumptions of another person based on how they look, making me lazy and likely to dismiss.  Assumptions have stunted the curiosity that leads me to want to hear another person's story.  It feels like a tool I misused and neglected.  I've also become aware of how much censoring takes place in the formalities of my day to day life.  Time spent around people experiencing homelessness has been filled with personal questions, outbursts of anger, exclamations of joy, contained quiet, random acts and a huge spectrum of personal space boundaries.  Its dynamic, it feels like vibrant complicated life.

Rooted

Keeping up

As I sit here, a big pot of heirloom tomaters from the garden is bubbling away on the stove. Another round of canning tomato sauce for the winter is underway. It almost, and I emphasize almost, makes me sentimental for the coziness and the hearty meal of a dark winter evening.


This is our first season preserving the bounty, and I am humbled by the amount of time and labor that needs to be invested. But oh...what an investment in riches it is! We have canned cucumber bread and butter pickles, cucumber relish, jalapeno peppers, pickled beets, and tomato sauce. We have been racing to turn our basil jungle into tidy little pockets of frozen pesto. We have frozen grated zucchini for many future zucchini breads (chocolate chips to be added upon baking). All those mighty little seeds we started so many months ago have turned into plants, thriving and ripening and eager to feed us. It fills me with a deep sense of contentment to acknowledge the riches I have now and to set them aside, to tuck them away for later. Jars that are to be opened in the depth of winter, to nourish a gathering of friends and family.

Dog'gone Do-gooders

Once upon a time, blessed with the resource of time, if not money, a crew of friends decided to form a volunteer collective. A superforce that could organize and be available to volunteer at a moments notice.

It was a diverse group of folks, circles within circles of friends. And though it was a bucolic city in which they dwelled, there were a lot of places where their time and attention could make a difference. So they all looked deep into their hearts and thought about the values that were most important to them. The issues that both gave their lives force and made their hearts ache. For one girl it was protecting, loving and caring for animals. For another it was cleaning and maintaining the beautiful wild areas around the city. There was one who had the gift of art and wanted to use it as a vehicle for connecting with others.

And lets not forget the girl who had a big bug in her butt about food security and food justice. This girl loved to eat, and loved to eat local and nourishing and most of all loved to eat yummy. She wanted everyone to share in the access to the bounty that was possible. She wanted to help people grow food and help people afford food. And so she chose the Oregon Food Bank learning garden as an opportunity to gather up the volunteer collective and send them out into the world to create a ripple. Eight grouped together that day and showed up on a sleepy Saturday morning. There were other people from the community who were volunteering that day...and teenagers at that!

And so these 8 scattered amongst the vegetables and weeds to water, harvest, clear ground and generally have a good chat while getting some stuff done. The girl's father came along that day too, and though he had never worked in a garden before he had a good time and had to be dragged away from the incredibly gratifying job of weeding.

The group went on a tour of the Oregon Food Bank facility. The girl was absolutely floored by the perfectly executed and well organized warehouse. Everything was in its place and perfectly dialed in. The food bank was reaching sooooo many people which was amazing...but sooooo many people were in need which sucks. It was an inspiring and humbling experience and the girl was committed to figuring out a way to become a superhero of the urban food movement.

choices

"Every time you spend money on food, you are voting for the world you want" John Kinsman