Saturday, May 27, 2006

More Than I Expected

As a former bartender and waitress, I’m very familiar with cutting fruit into small slices in an assembly-line fashion at 8:00 on Friday nights. Tonight, though, while I was doing so, it was for an entirely different purpose.

I posted earlier tonight that I would be spending my evening doing a homeless outreach. As I anticipated, I returned home with a newfound appreciation for how fortunate I am. What I didn’t expect, however, was to come home with a newfound appreciation for the self-created communities that are often ignored, very much marginalized, or viewed through the lens of eyes wrought with naïve misconceptions – including mine before tonight. These are the communities that people without homes in our city create for themselves.

The trepidation I felt before we left the church tonight, when I was being read the “rules” – don’t close your eyes if anyone asks you to pray for them; always keep your partner in sight; remove all jewelry and leave all electronic devices back in the van – was replaced by an incredible feeling of respect for the men we met. I thought I would enjoy the company of the other participants in this group, and I am doubtlessly going to be participating with this group on their monthly excursions, yet I had no idea that I would be introduced to new groups, new communities, probably those who have it hardest in this city, and to be so excited to see them again next month.

After preparing sandwiches and a fruit punch (for which I was responsible for cutting the above-mentioned fruit) at a school/church in Queens, a van filled with people that I had just met (except for the friend who brought me there) took off for locations in Manhattan that one would ordinarily consider to be chi-chi. Madison Ave, Park Ave, and Lincoln Center were all among the destinations. At each pre-designated location we would stop, and at the outset I saw only the most expensive restaurants and buildings fronted by white-gloved doormen, yet within certain corners or under the outdoor overhangs of certain churches, I was introduced to communities of homeless men who had lived in these exact spaces for obviously a long time. The veterans in the group I was with were familiar with the homeless gentlemen we encountered, and the two parties greeted each other by name and chatted like old friends while our party passed out sandwiches, fruit punch and prayers. Being a newbie, I was fairly quiet, except for one stop at which one of the men was wearing a Boston cap, and we engaged in an in-depth and intriguing conversation about, of course, the Red Sox. At the beginning, his buddy remained lying there on the white pavement stairs, cursing out the Mets’ bullpen and how they had blown yet another Pedro start. He was listening to the game on his earphones. Eventually, he sat up from his sprawled out position and the three of us began discussing Pedro, the Sox, the Mets, the damn Yankees, and the Hall of Fame.

I am not in any way minimizing the all-too-serious situation of homelessness in the city of New York. What I am saying is that I am in awe of the way that these men (I only met men) have been able to create their own worlds and communities – and maintain much of their sense of selves and interests – while trapped in the shittiest of situations.

This night’s worth of cutting fruit was infinitely more meaningful than the ten (gasp) years of time I did it with regards to my livelihood. Tonight, I did it with regards to our humanity.

1 Comments:

At 8:21 AM, Anonymous Anonymous said...

Beautiful writing.

 

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