My Dearest Friend,
Here I find myself on the fifteenth day of April in the year twenty, twenty-five. We are four months into this year and it seems to be going so quickly. Minus the days that feel like years, anyway. I hope I find you well and in good spirits. I’m sorry to say that I’m …
I’m tired. I have not been sleeping well. Every night my dreams greet me with groups of villains to fight. From ghosts to tire rim stealing thieves, I angrily fight them with everything I have in me. Those who sleep near me can testify to this as my words, shouts and even kicks have been heard and felt throughout the night. In my defense, the kick would have gone pretty much unnoticed, minus the shaking of the bed, had Jason not been sleeping sitting up. My foot, angled upwards toward the face of my attacker who held my hands in steadfast grip, would have harmlessly swiped the air above him and not hit his shoulder blade, had he been lying down. His hurt moan woke me quickly from the fight and I did apologize profusely.
But I digress, the dreams. The dreams are so draining because they are incredibly vivid. I work all night to triumph over whatever obstacle that has been thrust into my path that by morning, I feel as though I have not rested at all. I’m sure that it has something to do with the atrocities this administration keeps putting into place. It leaves those of us with a good understanding of things, with a strong feeling that we are spiraling out of control towards complete and utter chaos. And perhaps these dreams are my mind’s way of dealing with it all by trying to create things that I think I can defeat, in order to give me a sense of control. Strange as it may be that a building full of angry ghost children would seem more solvable than keeping the Republicans from implementing societal fixtures that are hurting people. Kind of makes one think a little bit.
As this realization has begun to occur to me, I have worked even harder to try and control the things that I can control. Things like, the organization of my books. My books, which offer an escape from the nonsense of this world. I have been scanning the ones I own into an app and moving books of the same genre or author together on my shelves. I have gathered materials to create gifts and things of beauty for other people to enjoy. Because as you may remember I do enjoy creating things even if they are not always the most perfect pieces of art. I have also been working to help people especially when I can do so on the downlow. I have been trying to encourage others to use the emotions of anger and the need to do something to put that energy towards helping those who are most harmed by this administration. And you know me, I can not ask people to do something that I am not willing to do myself.
So thus begins my story from the other day. In case you were not aware, we had three tornadic storms pass through our area in less than a couple of weeks. There was a great deal of rain that came with it. So much rain that we sent the rainmaker packing. Our land and rivers could not handle the water so we had another big flood. They said it was the third largest that we’ve seen and the biggest flood since the one in twenty - o - eight. Even with all the preventative measures they have put into place over the seventeen years since, our roads still flooded under the weight of all this water. People who are unhoused had their campsites flooded and had to be rescued. I knew this was a big burden for them because they do not have insurance in place to protect their possessions. I’m sure they lost everything they own or the greatest majority of it and they probably did not have much left before the flood. I can not stand the thought that they have to start all over again without help. So I took my own funds, went to the store and picked up a cart full of items to fill the pantry by the library. I like to fill this pantry because there are no requirements for someone to take something. No paper work, no waiting for approval ,and no sermons, just open the door and voila take what you need.
So I made my careful purchases of things that I thought would be most helpful, food with lids that could be opened without tools, ready to eat food that was individually wrapped, solidly made socks of all sizes, water bottles with easy to open lid and a hook to hold it in place without needing to carry it in hand, toothbrushes with brush protectors, toothpaste.. Etc. And then I went to pick up Lexi from school. Lexi likes to help me do these things. I call them my partner in crime and we call these things our secret missions. Our good trouble as you will. Lexi was excited to help because they had had a rough day at school that day and it makes them feel good to help others. When we got to the library, I pulled out my foldable wagon. This is the first time I was getting to use this item and I was excited. I had wanted one for a while and after the accident, it became apparent that my days as a pack mule were over so I made this purchase to help me. We filled up my blue wagon with the items and pulled them over to the pantry. The pantry had no one by it so we quickly began to arrange the items inside. As we were working, an older gentleman came over and sat by the pantry. I figured that he was waiting so I tried to hurry and get every option in the pantry for him to look through. A young girl witnessed us filling it up and brought over her unopened snack and asked if she could put it in too. We cheerfully said yes in praise and stepped aside so she could add her contribution. When we were close to the end and I was juggling the cups of peaches trying to get them to fit in with everything else, a woman stepped up beside me. Naturally I smiled and said hi. She did not smile back. She had on several layers of clothes. Clearly more than the temperature called for and looked a little worse for wear. She asked me in a rough tone if I had an address.
I can tell you that I was not sure where this was going so I probably responded quite weirdly “Yes.” Her face grew even more agitated as did her voice. Gruffly she added. “Well I hope you are adding to it and not taking from it.” I looked at my wagon which now held the empty bags and packages from where we separated some items and then back at her.
“We are filling it up.”
“I hope that’s what you’re doing. You need to make sure it goes to people who need it more.”
Her tone was very accusatory at this point and made me begin to feel as though I had done something wrong. I looked at the gentleman who had been there the whole time, she had called him grandpa so I knew that she knew him. I gestured toward him with my peach filled hands.
“He has been here for the majority of the time we have been here and he has watched us fill it up. You can ask him.” I went back to work as she stood there radiating anger that I did not comprehend. Again she began to speak angrily at me about how she thinks a camera should be put up to watch people who take from the pantry. She said this would keep the wrong people from taking items from it.
My friend I must be honest with you, at this point I had started to become quite vexed myself. Here my child and I were trying to do something to help people. We were not expecting accolades or a thank you. We do not need praise. We simply wanted to give what we could to try and help. I had purposely chosen this spot because of the lack of requirements for someone to take something. This need to rank the needs of people has frustrated me for a while. Now I know that some people are in more need than others, I get that. I know there are certain situations where we must triage the needs but not here. And I am very aware that there are a few people out there who manipulate the help that is offered. But as I have said before, I truly believe that if someone does those things it is on their conscience. It is not for me to withhold my aid simply because I do not know how much they really need it. That would be wrong of me for not trying to help when I could. If they took my help when they did not really need it it is on them to live with and answer to. So I begin to bite my inner cheek as I finish what I’m doing. The lady is continuing on her tirade and Lexi is nervously holding on to the wagon’s handle. I look over to the lady and start to explain the water bottles and such. I told her we got them because I am sure people lost such items in the flood and I wanted to help replace them. This was clearly not the way to go either. She looked at me like I was stupid and added.
“Flood? That was not a flood. You all do not know what a flood is….”
At this point the Bill Bryson voice that I had been listening to for the last week on Audible resounded in my head. “Now lady since you clearly don’t like me being here or what I’m doing then you don’t get to get any of it. You can just take your angry accusatory words and walk away because none of this, I mean absolutely none of these items that I paid well over a hundred dollars for will walk away with you. Do you understand what I am saying?” Echoed through my head because I am far from a perfect person and I feel like Bill would have sided with me on this stance. But I swallowed it down, like a jagged little pill and smiled her way as I shoved in the last cup of peaches into the now swollen full pantry.
“All done.” I made my smile larger even though it was the last thing I wanted to do at that moment. “Help yourself.” I embarrassingly did a Vanna White wave of the pantry then turned to Lexi. I took the wagon’s handle from them and said, “That’s it, we are all done. Let’s go.”
Lexi looked nervous and stuck close by me as we walked to the car. Once we were closed up in the car they began to express their anxiety of the situation we had just been in. They were upset and did not understand why the lady was being so mean to us for no reason. That they had been so excited to help after the crappy day at school and now they were feeling even worse. I calmed them and told them that they had done something good. That we were helping even if one person gave us a hard time. That the lady was not really complaining about what we were doing but her complaints were more about the circumstances of everything in general. That she was probably having a bad day and we would never know what happened to her before she came up to us. As I was telling these things to my kid, I realized that I was also explaining them to myself. I had been maddened and hurt by the lady’s actions too but had to tell myself it was not really us that her anger was for.
It is not always easy to help someone. Just as it is not always easy to accept help when it is given. That does not mean we should stop trying to help nor should we stop accepting it. It means that we as a society need to work on taking away the stigmatisms that surround aiding people. In a country where some are trying so hard to put a theocracy in place, those same people seem to have lost touch with the Love Thy Neighbor and the golden rule. It is up to those of us who work to help people to make things change and strip away the stigmatisms that have been unnecessarily placed around aid. As we do so it will not be easy, like this trip to the pantry, and we may have to fight our own inner demons. But if we keep this work of paying things forward, the “giving things away for free” complainers will realize that one day they may need it too. And we are able to help them because we kept it from being taken away.
Here is hoping for a better world.
Until next time we meet in good trouble,
Your Kindred Spirit Michelle
