There Was a Train

I guess I want to write my way back to my comfort zone. People were disturbing this week, hurt people making life harder. It was a hard week that made me want to quit all my organizations, but instead of even thinking of that as a possibility, I immediately took whatever actions were in front of me, which all consisted of writing things. Explaining things, reassuring, soothing, stopping, mending, attempting to divert, hoping to prevent, and always composing sentences. Clear, careful sentences to convey belonging, good intentions, higher purposes, bigger pictures. I really wanted people to understand.

Not me, really, though my view, certainly. I wanted complaining people to hear the ways they were hurting and making things worse. I wanted vulnerable people to be shielded, giving people to be valued, loving people to be appreciated. I wanted all my organizations to work better, to remember their values, and to work harder toward their goals. I expected them to be steadier and not need so much guidance, so much effort. Maybe I hadn't been paying attention, maybe I hadn't been doing my job, keeping the sails trimmed on the ship I'm on.

It is true I was in a work trance. I was so obsessed with making that deadline with those 2543 shirts that I printed them in three and a half days. It's still amazing how fast those 37 boxes were emptied and filled, starting out as t-shirts, getting counted and counted again, getting piled and piled a few more times, in gigantic piles. Seven hundred t-shirts in a day is two tables full, piles higher than your head. (Well, I'm short, but you get the picture.) Maybe you get the picture. I wish I had taken some photos. They started out as t-shirts, became a vehicle for working with kind people, and ended up as keepsakes and working gear for 2543 lucky people who will have a piece of Spirit in the big sense. It was a wonderful thing to do and a lot of work and three and a half days really doesn't describe it at all. Pretty much any description trivializes it.

Just to state it publicly one time, I printed OCF staff shirts for the volunteers. I have been doing half of them, the other 1800, for a few years now, the first year with my broken foot, and oh, that was hard too. But this year I did both halves of the contract, because Bryon nearly died and I took on the job. It was what needed to be done and it was the right thing to do, and right away I decided to do their work but not take their money. I knew they were counting on that money. Bryon and Spirit are craftspeople, and I know almost everything there is to know about the life of a craftsperson after 40 years of it. I know it is a hand-to-mouth existence, and if your hand isn't working, your mouth is empty. I know how hard it is to be a screenprinter and to drive to Portland Market while your partner is selling at the Eugene Saturday Market, to come home and fill in the stock you sold, to maybe get an afternoon off if you force yourself, and to do it every week of the year except the lovely offseason when you do other work. I know even harder ways to do it, like holding down a regular job and still selling on the weekends, or doing it with a child at home, and so on. But the point is that I knew they were in for a rough time and needed that money.  It was in my power to give it to them so I did. I could have used it I suppose, but it wasn't money to me, and it never was mine. And the work, well, I love work, as I've said before, and I wasn't sure I could do it without hurting myself, but it was in front of me so I took it on. It hurt a little, I'll be honest. Fortunately, pain doesn't generally scare me that much. There are other, much scarier things, like seeing someone else in pain. I can take it, I'm tough, but I cry right away when I see someone else hurting. I really have to try to fix it when I see someone who needs help. That's probably why I don't go out much.

I don't know how it is to practically die and to have your partner do CPR on you in desperation and prodigious presence of mind, successfully, and to come back from that and resume a normal life. I know it takes a long time to get back from that. Just my broken foot has been a big deal for the last three years and my life has been changed by it. Bryon has a way bigger challenge, and Spirit has the same one, bigger maybe. They are both still in shock, by my guess. It will take years to wear off. I doubt you are ever the same. But so goes life, it's full of things like that. Me printing massive piles of shirts was a profoundly important thing for a week, but it was nothing compared to what they have been doing.

So it was good to hug them, good to know the check arrived, good to have the feelings of doing a very kind thing, good to shed the tears of it. I did want to get something back, of course, because I am a human and have an ego, so it was nice of Colleen to tell about it at the meeting. I went blank when she did it and don't know what she said, but I'm glad people know. I guess what I wanted was to firmly set in stone that I am a good person. That way, all my past trangressions are forgiven and all my future sins will be overlooked. No? Darn. I'm still just a regular, flawed person who just happened to do one good thing because it fell in my lap? Darn.

I don't know. I'm a better person now. I've never  been particularly generous. I'm actually pretty selfish, and hold on pretty tightly to my stuff and my money and my time and my attention. I don't even give much eye contact. I am not competitive though, that is true. Technically Bryon and Spirit are my competitors. I have probably lost customers that they got and since they're younger, once they do get back on their feet they might get all my customers, since I am going to have to stop printing at some point. Not yet, though. I didn't even know I could work that hard still. It was surprising to even me that I could stand there for six or seven hours straight and just do it, and then go back after eating something and count and box them for a couple of hours. I didn't even take breaks. It seemed like I got stronger and stronger. I thought I would hate chatting with people all that time but even that turned out to be fun. I am very grateful to my old friends and my new friends who helped me do that. They got nothing as well, though I gave them as many tote bags and t-shirts as they would take. I'll continue to give them whatever they will take. I suppose I have my generous moments. I kind of like to give stuff away sometimes.

People actually do kind things and generous things constantly. It's a river of kindness that flows for lots of people and probably the bitter people are that way because they know about the river and they can't seem to find it. They'd like to feel it or they're afraid of it, or they hate it because it makes them feel things, but I personally really want to stay in that river a little longer. It reminds me of the Brownie Ways where you do secret good things for people and you try not to get caught doing them. Come to think of it, I have been doing that all my life, then, because I was a Brownie when I was six and I have the scrapbook to prove it. I know I was a good Brownie and yes, I admit it, I know I am a good person. I don't need to be told,  or recognized. About all I want is a pie, I'd kind of like to treat myself to a pie. Cherry I think. It's almost cherry season so maybe I will.

So yeah, the work trance, the river. I experienced a dynamite metaphor this week and that's what I sat down to write about. I took a quick drive in my car to drop off some junk at the Free Tree and get some soda ash fixer down on Railroad Ave, and what do you think happened? I got caught at the train crossing. It was a classic. It was a really, really long train. This probably happens every day to people who live down there, probably at the same time, and they know to avoid it. I turned off the car and settled in, thought about turning around but I like graffiti and thought it might be good (and it was, really great graffiti) and as I waited and waited I was smiling because it's uncommon to just sit there in a car like that. People are generally in way too much of a hurry for that, and I was having a busy day. But the train just rolled and rolled and finally it stopped and blocked the street and then it actually started going in the other direction. I knew just how long it was, and here it was going by again. I was smiling even more, of course, at the silliness of me sitting there waiting when I could be turning around and would have been home long ago if I had, but I just had to wait it out for some reason. I had invested my time in it and I wanted the full value of my investment. I don't really understand it and the metaphor isn't really even clear to me, but there it was, an interlude in my day when I was just sitting and waiting, unnecessarily, for the business of the train and the dead trees upon it, all neatly sliced and stacked and labeled, with the cryptic messages of the trainyard travelers on the boxcars in the middle. Finally the gates went up and we all proceeded and were not much changed, but it was amusing. It was amusing enough that later that day, I went into the bank and the tellers were bored. The teller practically grabbed at me when she saw me, just for something to do at 4:30 to get her to 5:00. So I felt that she needed to hear something amusing. I felt it was my duty to tell her something amusing.

Fortunately, I didn't have to tell her about the train. Just a few moments before, as I had approached the bank, a long, long white stretch limo went by and a young woman with long blond hair stuck out her head and said loudly, "Have an amazing day." She didn't say it to me, especially, or even joyfully, especially, though maybe I was the only one on the street right then, but it wasn't particularly personal, and I was already having an amazing day, so I didn't take it personally. And I had plenty of joy from the train, so her lack of it didn't bother me, though I noticed. But I did give it to the woman in the bank. I tried to amuse her with it. We had a little chat about it. She thought maybe the young woman in the car, on a weekday, must have been having a pretty amazing day, but I disagreed. If she was having such an amazing time in the limo, why was she hanging her head out yelling to me? Why was she actually hanging her head out telling me what to do, when in fact I was already doing what she was telling me to? I didn't get too far into it with the teller, since she quickly got bored again with my somewhat trivial story, and our business didn't take long, and I was going to be late for a meeting, so I left. She told me to have a good day as I walked away, but I corrected her. "Have an amazing day," I said. I hoped that she was grateful for my effort to amuse her, and made it to 5:00 with ease, and that it had all added up to a win for all of us. I know I made it to the meeting on time. But I doubt she got an amazing day out of it, probably just had an ordinary Wednesday night at home with her cat. Maybe she washed her hair, and watched reruns of CSI. Then again, she might have seen something amazing online, as many of us do pretty much every day, being amazed, amused, being taken out of our ordinary existence with the wonders available on Facebook.

Because an ordinary day just isn't good enough. We're really not supposed to have ordinary days. They're all supposed to be amazing these days, with peak experiences, big plans, meaningful encounters with incredible people doing unbelievable things. This is what Facebook tells me anyway, and women in expensive limos. I don't agree, of course. I really like the ordinary days. I like the ones where I just do my work, eat dinner on the deck watching the regular birds, wear the same clothes, hang the same laundry, watch the same garden plants do their incredible but ordinary things, know the answers on Jeopardy. I guess that is why the ruby-throated hummingbird gave me such a piercing look today. I think I was supposed to snap out of my ordinary self and realize it was an amazing day that I was having. Like all the others. I think I'm living a very special life. I think I'm lucky to be here. I think I had a moment as an ordinary hero, and it was good. Now I have to get to bed, and back to work.