"And that was number one!"

Basically, these fantastic women at the Unitarian community I am apart of came up with this idea: we are now one hundred people. If every one of us did radical, audacious, kind, caring, wonderful things, what a change that would create!

Well, I do some of the things they spoke about already: volunteer, meditate, etc. so this has to be outside my "normal range" in order to challenge and push me. I immediately thought of homeless people. I am really so bothered, as a human being, to wander down the street and ignore people living outside, sitting there. Ignoring is the default, the easy answer. But what do I do instead? Do I give money? I don't have a lot of money to give, particularly not equally or meaningfully to everyone. Would they want anything else? How can I help?

My attempts in the past to rectify this, even minorly, I felt, came off as patronising and not really helpful. Nor did these attempts inform me of how to be an ally in the future.

So, my task for the hundred acts project (link to follow) is that I am going to have 100 conversations with people who are homeless. It is scary to me that I might offend people and I am one of the masses who find security in not talking to strangers so... wow... a challenge indeed.

Except today I surprised myself.

My mom and my Tony and I were walking down the street. I had my brolli, ma had her raincoat, and as the forecast did not call for rain, Tony had borrowed a brolli off of Andy. We were walking down the street to the train and I saw a guy, sitting on the pavement of upper street shivering. Now, I like my brolli. It is cute and small and fits in any bag. And as a bonus, I found it on the tube so it didn't cost me a farthing, but I knew...knew that I value other people more than the ownership of my brolli. I knew this was more important.

So, I ran back and leaned down and said, "Hey. Would you find this umbrella useful?" He said, "Sure, but what about you?" (As an aside, is it offensive to find his selflessness amazing? He is the one shivering in the rain and he is concerned for me.) I said, "My husband has a massive one that will cover us both." He said, "Sure." I gave him the umbrella and caught up with ma and Tony.

"And that was number one!" feeling pleased that I had started right away on my task (not procrastinating as is my default when I find something difficult or scary), but I became instantly aware as well that me feeling chuffed with myself was not the point.

I didn't hear him say thank you if he did and it didn't matter. I remembered my dear, departed Jo who taught me that one.

We finally got home (bah: unannounced engineering works!) and I checked the book of face. I saw one of my acquaintances on their who is living on the street and in shelters in California. Could she be my number two?

Regardless of the number, the take-home point is clearly that homeless people are people, as diverse as any demographic on the planet. They just happen, through circumstance, to live outside. It is obviously way more deep and complicated than that, and inevitably, I will have to face this during this time too, but that means that every one of the individuals I have the opportunity to talk to during these 100 conversations will be as easy or as difficult as any other person to talk to.

It is funny too because in my own weird way, I think this is my way of confronting the fact that for the longest, scariest night of my life, I was homeless. I tried living in a car and it was so so hard, even as it was nothing compared to what the people I will be talking to are dealing with, either in terms of ultimate or material support or in terms of conditions and the time actually spent in so potentially a vulnerable and unstable condition.

I feel gratitude for the opportunity to learn more, gratitude that my first conversation was an easy and kind one (so I can find encouragement to continue, and dare I say it? To be excited), and I feel grateful for the support I get from my community to do courageous things I never otherwise would have considered doing.

Reflections on the quotidian

I de-scaled the kettle today. For most people in the US, making boiled water doesn't require an electric kettle and so this may not make sense, but in England where tea is so English that school kids lecture me on how English it is, Miss, even as I insist that yes and no: tea was brought into the culture relatively recently, one must remove the build-up of a lot of water as it boils away.

This set of facts may already be boring you. In fact, it is not the point of this story.

I was proud of de-scaling. That is my point.

Despite my feminist upbringing and my post-post-post philosophy, I am loving the domestic routines that I have developed. Every school holiday, which (thank the effing heavens) occurs about every 6-7 weeks, I descale the kettle. And get my hair trimmed. And catch up on sleep.

So, while accomplishing the first, I reflected on the quotidian. (In my top 50 words of all time, by the way.) The mundane and the routine, the daily, can become a gorgeous dance, a ballet of balance. And yet, I knew instinctively today that it will someday become a prison of hang-up and unquestioned habit. I knew someday, I would break free of this thing I so enjoyed currently. Over the sink, removing the yellow-white build-up on the inside of our kettle in a satisfyingly effective rhythm, I knew that this was my cycle: create, build, get accustomed, practice, practice, practice, question, dismantle and maybe burn it all to the ground. The routines I mean.

It becomes a little tinderbox for the rage I (and probably most people if they let themselves) inevitably feel at being boxed in tigers in a society that thinks much, much less of us all and expects things completely opposite to our natures.

This was a happy sacrifice. Someday this routine will be a happy little ephemeral moment only.

Today I saw the future, and like the certainty of forest fires scorching the earth and opening up pine cones so that new seeds can germinate, I found a little bit of peace in this.

A year on...

I am glad I saved this blog. Because I feel like writing again. The book of face (with so little of either) does not serve me well and I find the character-limit... limiting. And everything I want to put on there feels like I am exposing too much when I do.... I want to write: I will have art damnit! And it feels like I am yelling at my co-workers.

So, instead I will reflect into the void and trust that those who want to participate will and those who want to hear it can, while those who do not, do not have to be yelled at about my intense need for art (that follows along closely with my intense wishes that my sensitivities were other than they are).

I have been a writer since I discovered the combination of blank books and learned how. Blank screens will do for now.

An impulse.

I haven't written in nearly a year. I started writing and then I stopped. Everyone has a blog or two. I follow odd ones, or none at all as the mood strikes me. I am fascinated or overwhelmed. We are creating all this text. Tap tap tap. And who will read it all. My heart hurts with the thought of the abandoned words, not really existing anywhere, and everywhere at the same time. The abandoned blogs. The lost hours and impulses and thoughts and tangents. All those gorgeous tangents.

And then I just sit back and remember the story of the woman that burned her journals. She burned them all and couldn't write until she knew that they would be burned.

And I am not her. I want someone to read this, oddly, but I am not exactly sure why, but for some misaligned hankerings of my ego, to be lauded and honoured for my genieus.

But maybe I will sit back and say, hey, I am the product. And resist the capitalist implications of turning everything, even me, into a commodity for value.

Or maybe I will think of another circle to go around in my head.

Back to School

I was running in nearby Grovelands Park last night, enjoying the sunny cool weather now that we are back in London from our journeys around the US. (It was about 90 degrees Fahrenheit there. I can't seem to get celsius, even though I have been living with it for years. I just made celsius sound like a disease.) I was enjoying the Fall-ness (ahem), the Autumnal quality of the air when I happened upon a football practice. Boys were wearing pinnies, but I didn't pay much attention or observe much else about the practice because I was suddenly drawn back pretty much against my will to the Falls of Michigan past.

I remember returning back from vacations with my family much like the one Tony and I just returned from: hot road trips where we stayed with a lot of family and made distances, not always space or time to relax. Great holidays, like this one. Not anything I would trade for the world, but always felt abrupt when we returned.

Before you even got a chance to unpack (I still haven't for example), you were back to school (with or without the apparently requisite supplies or new clothes) and suddenly there was that first soccer practice. You might be on a new team, mostly not, but there were changes. New kids. Same kids only bigger. You were bigger. Suddenly you were in that next grade, the one that intimidated you last year. And the air turned colder, and you remembered that however impossible it may seem, where there had been the utter, dire necessity of popsicles and air-conditioning, there would soon be the necessity of massive winter coats and layers of clothes and rubbing your hands together and sticking them under your arms and between your thighs to keep them from needing to be removed by a medical professional. Or so it seemed.

It seemed impossible. And yet here it was, the tangible evidence. Those falls introduced me to the sensation that time was going too quickly. Perhaps it is because summer was (and will always be) my favourite season. But most likely it was because that week or two right before and as school starts, time becomes distorted, like it does in so many other lovely and breath-takingly heartbreaking and aching moments of our lives. We anticipate and resist in equal measure. We are scared for change and hungry for it.

And now I work in a school and want to become a teacher. The idea that this annual sensation, as crisp and painful and cherished as it is and all the memories and associations that it attaches to is something I am inviting into my life is mind-blowing for me. Not only because it is something that scares the hell out of me, but because I know that fear is exactly why this is the right choice.

An open letter to the Amazon help-desk with a shout out to Jah people...

Hi. My father has been getting me gift cards from amazon.com for years. Recently, I relocated to the UK permanently and so far I have not been able to order *ANYTHING* with my gift card. The lovely pannier bag for my bike could not be shipped here. The runner up pannier bags on the amazon.co.uk could not use my gift card because they are non-transferrable, even between different parts of your own company. And now, I find out that I cannot even download mp3s with the dang thing!!! This is RIDICULOUS. So, is this an end of a family tradition for gift-giving via amazon or can you people suggest something I *can* do with my gift card?! Right now, it seems like a pretty piss-poor situation. PS To the person reading this, I realize that amazon is a HUGE company, anti-union and probably not nice to workers. And I realize that the person reading this message probably has utterly no control over policy, so know that I do not mean to direct *any* of my negativity at you, but the ridiculous company you work for. I hope they treat you better that this utterly outlandishly frusterating customer policy regarding gift cards would imply. Be well and thank you, Britt

a visit to Moldova, the poorest country in Europe you've never heard of

It was great to have you two here. Hope the trip back was not too hard. But you have now toured a part of the world that will be off the tourist trail for a long time and you know why. I am sorry about all the food and drinking but folks here have so little to enjoy and they want to show visitors their best and boy did you get it. Hope you all have time sometime this week to catch up on you sleep. Love, Mom

Pan Godchaux
In Moldova!!
www.pangodchaux.blogspot.com

Britt Doughty-Godchaux to Pan, anthony

5:07 PM (2 minutes ago)

Hi Mom,

No worries about anything. It was a lovely lovely week, even with all the poopy business and drinking. Actually, the drinking was fine. We just weren't used to it.

But we made it to the airport with three-and-a-half hours to spare before our flight, miracle of miracles.

It was sorta amazing. And I wanted to tell you a bit about it. I think Na'ima might be interested in it as well.

So, the taxi driver who drove us to Georgia-lesc [sp] (who kept singing the sappy English love songs along with the radio, which was adorable particularly as he had that captain's hat and reminded us of Bluto) got us there within 40 minutes, including when he turned off the car to drift down hills and save gas. There was a line there, but people didn't exactly speak English. In fact no one did, really. The tip there is to find a car to ride in at the *front* of the queue. The people at the back were nice and offered, but then you had to wait. Instead we found this lovely Moldovan couple who work in Belgium (and spoke French... thank goodness we do a tiny bit too) and they were at the front, but not the very front. But then the guy went and talked to the guard and suddenly (like 5 minutes later) we're zooming through. We were to Galati in no time and they dropped us (refusing any money) off at the correct bus station with 40 minutes to spare. Ana was a doll, waiting for us when we arrived. She chatted and was lovely. Apparently, she told John that the 6am from Cahul to Galati was very unreliable. (Good to know, eh?) And she also said that the GSM trans doesn't run every half-hour, but that other mini-buses might. We parted by saying, "see you in London"! The GSM trans website seemed to be correct and we caught the 8:30. Nice bus (air con) and it cost 80 ROL for the both of us. We arrived at the Gara de Nord at 1 (since there was a bit of a traffic hold-up on one of the one-lane-highway parts and the driver did some very ballsy, fancy tricks to push us to the front of the jam) and then caught the 1:39 bus (that came at 1:25) to the airport. Along the way, there was about 1/15th of the traffic there had been, and we got there in little over a half hour. Then we got our flights back, but because our connection in Amsterdam was so tight, our bag was left there, which was yet another blessing in disguise as then we didn't have to haul back all 19.7 kilos of it on our tired, poopy backs on the tube and train. KLM delivered it to our door a few hours ago, free of charge.

And I just unwrapped Iona's home-made wine and it made it safely. The dirt on the side of the pop bottles was still in tact. Good job wrapping those up. Feel free to bring more at Christmas (if you want... hint hint).

It couldn't have worked out better if we had planned any of it.

Tony would like to add that the sweetest bit is that the 500 MOL bill will be waiting for you at X-mas when you arrive.

In any case, I would not try to recreate this set of miracles to get one to from Cahul to Bucharest, BUT if you can find a good way to Galati, it is an easy, potentially more flexible way to Bucharest.

And may Moldova stay off the beaten path. When we got back to Bucharest, we were sorta simultaniously appalled at the way that capitalistic "success" manifested while simultaniously wary of getting ripped off because of the profiteering mindset. We did not get KFC as Tony's tummy was still terribly off and it is still normalizing today. Luckily, his work shifts got cancelled anyway.

We are home, sleeping, resting (well, I worked today) and recovering.

Thanks again for everything. Thanks for going to Moldova which is as ridiculous as it is lovely. I think it has cured me of any need to ever go to Russia though, so it was a money-saving trip indeed.

Anyway, say hi to everyone there. Thank Parascovia and her family again for the hospitality!

Love you. Talk soon,

Britt