Giving...

Today is Thanksgiving day here in America, so, well, what do we have to be thankful for? If I am being real and honest, I have quite a lot. Quite a lot, when I look at the poor, the huddled and weary masses that inhabit the streets of this city. Those who bundle up in a long flannel shirt on a night when I have dressed myself in my heavy woollen pea coat that keeps me stylishly warm from my neck to the tops of my knees. Those who gather in a lump at the front door of the winter shelter, carrying around their chronic sickness and their drug addictions and their earthly possessions which hang loosely from their slumped shoulders, waiting humbly for a plate of warm food and a comfortable place to lay down to sleep before the day repeats itself again in the morning.

I almost spent yesterday afternoon at home, curled up on the futon with my favorite blanket and a cup of hot tea. But Bob and I knew that Food Not Bombs gathered at 4:00 every Wednesday to cook food to hand out, and since we are normally busy on Wednesday evenings, we felt this tug at our hearts to be there this week for the very first time. The tug was so forceful that, within moments, we found ourselves pulling up to the door of Common Ground Athens, where we were greeted by the aroma of stewing tomatoes in a heavy-duty stockpot, and herbed potatoes roasting in the oven.

I was nervous that Bob and I would be entirely out of place at Common Ground (an ironic fear, I know)--we don't look like hippies or yuppies; we dress very conventionally and drive a 2004 Honda and go to church. What was I afraid of, exactly? That we would be sneered and scoffed at, looked down upon, because we showed up one afternoon to help create a nutritious, vegan meal out of donated food so that the hungry could be fed? People--well some people (these people at least)--are much more open minded than that.

So for two and a half hours we chopped fruits and vegetables, much of it bruised and soft and ready to be consumed or composted, the refuse of local groceries. All the while we chatted with the regular Food Not Bombs volunteers--there were Ed and Sarah, community social workers who are truly compassionate toward those on the cusp of capitalistic society; there was Joy, an ESOL teacher out in Oconee who enjoys just being able to do what she can when she can for a cause that is dear to her; there were Kelly and Dave and Alex, the ones whose wardrobe is your mother's worst nightmare, but who are there at Common Ground on their own time fighting to right the social wrongs of the community. Among such people, how could Bob and I not belong?

We stayed until the end. Once the vast quantities of food were cooked, we helped transport it all down to the shelter at the corner of Hancock and Hull, where a group of about ten people were already gathered, awaiting their hot meal. Everyone served themselves buffet-style and ate all that they wanted, standing around in the dark and cold on the eve of Thanksgiving. Tomorrow, when Bob and I went to share an afternoon and feasting with our family, would these people have a warm meal? Or was this their Thanksgiving feast, this food that may otherwise be rotting in a dumpster or atop a compost heap at that very moment? Struck with that realization, it would take a very callous person to not be thankful--thankful for the chance to be here, shivering and tired, serving a feast of unwanted produce to the unwanted of this city, the ones whose poor and marginal existence many of us choose to be blind to, day by day. But are these not the people that Jesus came for? And if my Lord came and had compassion upon them and went among them and ministered to them, then am I not called to do the same?

Food Not Bombs volunteers get arrested, even beaten in other cities for their activism. I do not know a whole lot about the movement, and I don't know what their other activities may be aside from merely serving food to the hungry. But I felt my body tense up when a police car pulled up and parked perhaps twenty feet from our makeshift banquet table. Well, I thought, better men than me have engaged in civil disobedience, and impacted perhaps more people than if they had not stepped outside the realm of the law. And my mind turned to Henry David Thoreau, Martin Luther King, Jr... But when the police officer got out of the car, he walked around to the back door and helped a brittle old lady out into the cold night. He was dropping her off at the winter shelter. He saw her inside, and then with a nod he got back into the car and pulled away.

We got home at about 9:30 at night, and set about making a vegan pumpkin pie for Thanksgiving. And I was thankful to be in a warm apartment with our oven all fired up and my heavy coat hung back in the closet, making a pie with my husband. In fact, I have perhaps never been more thankful in my whole life.

Happy anniversary to us...

Yay! We went down to Charleston for our anniversary this past weekend, and we had the loveliest time. We saw a bit of the city, including the very beautiful harbor and the historic downtown area. We had a nice lunch on Saturday at "The second-best restaurant in South Carolina," which was a crab shack downtown. It really was delicious food...

Our campsite was adorable! We cooked some of our own food there, and it was nice and quiet. Hot in the tent, but we were in a very shady spot so it was bearable.

The beach was amazing--the waves were enormous on Saturday afternoon, I think mostly because it was a breezy day and the tide was coming in. But we body-surfed ourselves silly--and red. Poor Bob had quite a nasty sunburn on his shoulders, although we took the obvious sunscreen precaution, and were not really out all that long.

We went back to the beach later that night (after getting a quick coffee fix at Starbucks), and it was just beautiful. I tried to take some pictures, but it was too dark out to see anything. But the sky was half clouded and half clear. Some stars were twinkling down so brightly, dispersed between the intermittent clouds, and then there were patches of sky that looked completely black. As always, I was amazed by the ocean after dark, which sounded so enormous even though most of it was invisible, black and melting into the black sky. We walked up and down the beach for about an hour and a half on Saturday night, just enjoying the quiet, the coolness, the breeze, and the amazing display in the sky. Every few moments or so a distant lightning would strike behind the clouds, so that they were lit up in the foreground of the sky. When this happened and the clouds were outlined in the silver-gray lightning light, the night sky behind them looked blacker and the stars appeared far more distant. You could really see the layers of heaven shining out in those brief, dazzling moments. We left the beach around ten o'clock, at the time when the mandatory lights-out goes into effect for the benefit of the nesting sea turtles.

Sunday morning I woke up at the crack of dawn and shortly realized that I was awake for the day. So to amuse myself, I decided to walk around the campground and take pictures. As I approached the lake, I saw a large white blot out on the greenish water. As I crept closer, I realized that a white crane was standing out in the middle of the lake. He was keeping perfectly still. As quietly and gently as I could, I began inching closer, trying to see if I could get close enough to take a really good picture. In the end, the picture below was the closest I was able to get to him; he kept taking flight and moving across the lake. I spent nearly an hour stalking him that morning, but he was going about his business and had no mind to keep still for my amusement. So I crouched from a distance and just watched him for awhile. I watched him catch his breakfast from the middle of the lake, using his comic-looking neck thrust to dart his head swiftly down into the water. I watched him walk around the opposite bank for awhile, pacing among the trees as if he could not decide what to do with the rest of his Sunday morning. Finally, he crept off into the trees and I never saw him again. On my way back to my campsite, some wild turkeys crossed my path. I stopped for a minute to see if they would scramble away from me, but they seemed altogether undaunted by my presence. When I got back to the tent, I woke Bob up with the irresistible smell of peanut butter and banana oatmeal (which I didn't eat--I made myself some blueberry oatmeal earlier when I woke up). He ate, we packed up the tent, and headed back home.

It was so sad to leave. We had such a lovely time down there, and I wish we could have stayed an entire week. But I cannot be sad, because the time we did have was absolutely wonderful.

Sunday, July 23, was our actual anniversary. We cracked open a bottle of champagne when we got home and celebrated. Then we made ourselves a completely vegan pizza, complete with homemade yeast-risen whole wheat dough. Bob is a pro at handling pizza dough, being the pizza man for seven hours a day at the dining hall. He crimped the edges of the crust and the pizza just looked so delicious! It tasted great too. It's so good to know that when we become vegan we can still enjoy pizza--it had so many delightful veggies on it that I did not miss the cheese in the least.

After pizza and bubbly, we walked to Vision Video (the best rental store ever, at $1.61 for a five-day rental) and rented Charlie and the Chocolate Factory. Both of us grew up on the old Gene Wilder movie and have been reluctant to see the new Johnny Depp take on our beloved Willy Wonka. But I'll give any Johnny Depp movie a chance. It actually turned out to be a very good movie--not freaky and dark like I had anticipated. Now it's hard for me to say whether I like the original movie or the new, completely different film better. Both have some very strong points, and both have very unique styles that almost cannot be compared.

So that was our first anniversary. I guess we're not newlyweds anymore, though after several months you could hardly be connsidered newlyweds anyway. Our first year has been the most wonderful time of my life--I can't wait for the rest of eternity!