171. Pink for awareness.

Its October. Breast Cancer awareness month. I don't do themes on this because that's...not my thing. I just write. However...pink is growing on me and it was time for a change. Digg it and wear some pink this month.

Lately I've been posting randomness. Poems, pictures, videos, playlists. Little writings. Here I am though. Welcome back.




Education costs money. Information is priceless.

That is the slogan I can use for summing up the week in short. I learned that this week. Well, I understood that this week. I suppose I always knew, but when you feel it...it's something completely different. I could go on and on about the difference between knowing and feeling...but that's for another time and place.

For the past two weeks in my rec class we have been performing a series of workshop activities that have us opening up our hearts and minds into places that they didn't necessarily want to go. At the beginning of the workshops I gave myself reason to say that these were opening up my heart and mind into places that they didn't want...or need...to go. I have since changed my mind on that. You'll see why.

We were asked to put our heads down and stay silent for a while. A bunch of 20 year olds doing meditation for no apparent reason seemed a little off when I'm used to jotting down notes in a notebook and reading power point slides until my eyes hurt. It was nice...it was relaxing. We were asked to think of people...any people...who have impacted our lives. The first ones pop in my head and they are obvious. Then...we are asked to think beyond family...to think beyond your best friend. We were asked to dig deeper and think of people who made an impact a month ago...a year ago...five years ago...when we were a child...and so forth. We were then asked to keep our heads down and think if those people were positive impacts or negative impacts. We were told that most would have only the positive impacts in our minds...but the next challenge was to think of at least three people who impacted our lives negatively...or better yet...people who impacted our lives so positively...and then it ended negatively.

Our heads rose and we were asked to jot down names of people that came up in our mind. Anyone who made an impact...a significant impact...write them down. I had a hefty list ranging from close family and friends to past coaches and teachers to severed relationships and those who I only knew for a very short period of time. Once the list was created we needed to choose some people. Any people on our list who seemed to make the most impact. One had to be negative...the rest could be positive. Again I chose the obvious when I did it the first time. After a moment to really consider everything I ended up choosing four. I feel as though everyone's impact on that large list has had a different effect on me...and different doesn't mean greater or smaller. Different means...just that...different.

My four:

A family member. A small child. A lost relationship. A man I met one time and one time only.

Family member: It's typical to see...and not so typical to feel. I'm lucky. I'm probably the luckiest girl in the world to have grown up with her best friend. Not everyone can say they have always gone into a situation with someone right by their side. I can. For that...I am blessed. I am impacted daily through happenings, sayings, wisdom. What I lack...they have. I wouldn't be who I am today without them...and as cliche as it sounds...I'd rather sound sappy than to take someone that means the entire world to me for granted. The impact has been felt since day one and although I can't pinpoint an actual chunk of time that has done the most for me...it is because each new day brings about a new finding within myself...thanks to them. I suppose if I had to sum the impact itself up...I'd say that I've never met anyone so in tune with how they view the world. As righteous and worldly as I try to sound...I'm a small figure in how they can walk through life never cursing the days or cursing other's ways. If I end up embodying even half of who they are by the time my days are done...my life will hold more meaning than I ever thought possible.

Small child: Once a week I am blessed enough to get to spend time with my little friend. Children are cool...for lack of better words. Children are honest. My two year old friend has taught me much about myself. I find myself more aware of my surroundings when I'm with him. He's curious. He asks questions. Where in life am I that I have forgotten to ask questions about what's going on? I sit confused most days as he goes along learning about life from people ten times his age and has no idea that although I'm educating him....he educates me. He gives good hugs. Better hugs than I get from old friends and new friends who think that a one handed hug is sufficient when all I really want to to do...where I really want to be...is held. He doesn't care if I come over in basketball shorts and a sweatshirt. He knows no color, no race, no orientation. He knows his "ash a ley"...and that's that. He's impacted my life in the simple yet expansive way of letting me feel okay to be myself, to let myself be hugged...to let myself be looked up to literally..and figuratively. He has taught me that knowledge is expressed through actions as well as words. He is someone I look forward to seeing week after week. I can't say that about many people anymore.

Lost relationship: They all become lost at some point I suppose. If it's not by a choice in one party or the other, death will part the two until they can be reunited once again in a different space. It wasn't like the rest I must say. Every relationship is different. This one fit the mold of everything I wanted, nothing I needed. That's the beauty of the teaching...you learn the difference between a want and a need. Once you can decipher, you realize that it becomes more of a blessing than an actual thirst. A blessing sounds much better than being parched for something and having it be imperative, doesn't it? Relaxing, calming, escaping, and worth it all come to mind. I wrote poems, I read poems, I held hands, I danced, I sang, I watched waves crash and I made peace signs in the sand. It ended. They became sorry. I became sad. They became not so sorry. I became confused. They became invisible. I became bitter. I then realized that I learned more than I lost. I felt how something real should feel. It didn't matter how it ended. It doesn't matter how it remains. It matters...that it mattered. I will say that again...it matters...that it mattered. The impact was felt with a resounding pulse. My heart is happy that they are now happy with who they have. I truly mean that. The impact is I have learned something that is worth everything. The impact of a negative...is ultimately the impact of a positive.

Man I met: I was 16 years old, a sophomore in high school. We were expected to go on a field trip to the Tenderloin, one of San Francisco's corridors to one of the most eye opening parts of the city...the country..to date. The Tenderloin is a place where homeless live. It is a place in the city where shelters line the blocks, corners are run by drug dealers and prostitutes, and it is a free haven to all who can't go anywhere else. This is not a pretty place...not at all. It is not meant to be. The school would take students down to the main shelter and, for one day, open their eyes. Each student wrote a list of three jobs they placed in order of "ideal" to be put in for the day. Not everyone would get their first choice. Not everyone would get their second choice. But this day was supposed to be what we made out of it...so it was not supposed to be easy. Some jobs were day-care personnel, which meant taking care of the foster kids...playing with them on the jungle gym and such. Another job was packing canned foods for the food banks to hand out. Sorting out different foods and making sure everyone got equal amounts. I had put down these jobs..and ultimately got my last choice...dining room. It was the most intense as far as experience and it wasn't a first choice by many. Me and five other people were assigned the duties of serving food to the homeless and walking around refilling water glasses for them. This hall was incredible. The doors opened up and hundreds and hundreds of men, women, and children piled into empty seats and sat patiently waiting for a meal, their only meal...for the day. I served...observing...wondering...watching. After our service was over we were allowed to have a plate of what they were eating and go sit in the break room. I picked up my plate and walked to a table filled with people...and sat down to eat. Break rooms don't teach you anything. Tables filled with the people who many don't look in the eyes...teach you everything. I met a man that day named Charles. I haven't used anyone's name in this until now. But Charles is very unlikely to read this ever. See, Charles lives on the streets of San Francisco. Everyday at 12 he comes to the food hall for his lunch, hoping that it isn't fish...he didn't like fish much. He carries his only prized possession- his sony walkman disc player and a cd caselodge filled with his favorite cds (no wonder I dugg this guy). Charles asked me why I wasn't in the break room. I told him I didn't know...because that was the honest truth. He asked where I was from and what my story was. I told him I was here on a field trip. He thanked me for coming to serve him and his friends food. Imagine that...I'm telling my story and he thanks me...for something I had barely done. I then asked him to tell me about his life. He tells me its the same routine every single day. He enjoys it...although he misses his old life very much. See, Charles was a fireman. He fought forest fires for a living. He loved it. He had a big house that he had pictures of him standing in front of....nicely dressed with a perfect car that he was leaning up against. He told me that one day it all changed, when he got burned in a fire. He then showed me his arms and legs which had scars up and down them from the burn. He told me he lost everything after that. He never would be able to work again after his disability. He got into some bad habits, made a lot less money than before, and felt as though he lost a part of himself. I cried. I know it sounds insane but..I sat at that lunch table that day crying because I felt him. I saw what I had been missing. Each person has a story. Each person comes from a starting line and ends up in a race that they never thought they would end up on when they come to a finish. That is life. That is beautiful, hard, scream out your wildest fears...life. I left that day knowing I'd never see Charles again. Knowing I might never make it back to eat another lunch with him...as he referred to himself as a "traveling man". Yet Charles left an impact on me that I will never forget for as long as I remain here. Charles was homeless. Charles was burned. Charles got one meal a day. Yet Charles smiled when he spoke. Charles thanked me for serving him a hot plate of food. Charles shook my hand and told me that I was a good soul. Charles doesn't know it...he will never know it...but he impacted my life that day.




I was asked to contact these four people and tell them that they impacted me in one way or another. I could do it any way I felt comfortable...or not so comfortable..but it was something that was encouraged by the workshop. I contacted two out of the four. One by word of mouth...face to face and phone. The other...by a letter. Both were without hope or agenda. Both were for myself. I didn't need to explain the impact they had made...just that they had made one. The other two I have yet to contact...for obvious reasons. Someday I'm sure. Blessings occur each and everyday and this is living, breathing proof of that. I am inspired. I am impacted. I am ever thankful.


Peace and Blessings, ya'll.