Knowing what hunger is?

I feel hungry.  As I sit on a conference call for work, I'm thinking about what to have for dinner.  I can have leftover meatloaf and potatoes, leftover homemade soup, cereal, pasta, veggies, eggs, grilled cheese, or just about anything that I can whip up.  I am realizing that I have cupboards and a refrigerator that are stocked full of things to eat, cook or make.

Today, I was reminded that most youngsters will come to any meeting if you offer food.  I fed five medical students lunch so we could talk about an upcoming phonathon for the scholarship drive.  They all said that any time I offered food, they knew we'd get some students.  I had extra sandwiches that I asked them to take and bring to their friends.  Five minutes later, someone who saw that they had the food came in to ask if we had any more leftovers.  I am fortunate to be able to have the office supply my lunch and theirs.

This week, I've seen many people begging for food.  I've also seen people who are sleeping on the street.  My gut gets wrenched each time I see a person who I know needs help.  Much of the help they need I cannot give.  I observe that some of the homeless people have what appear to be mental health concerns.  Others may simply be down on their luck.

When I was involved as a youth leader in a local church, we participated in something called the 40 hour famine a few different years.  The youth and their leaders all gathered at one church and spent 40 hours drinking only clear fruit juice.  We educated each other through games and conversations about what it was to be hungry.  These "40 hour famines" helped me to understand what it was like to go so long without food.  I can't even imagine going longer than that.  For that reason, every time I wait a little to long to eat and I get "hangry" I try to remind myself that not all people have a stocked fridge or the ability to order from Grubhub, a local pizza shop, the Chinese restaurant on the corner, go to the bodega to grab a submarine sandwich, or eat cereal just because they are lazy.

Tonight was one of those nights.  I decided to be "one" with my hunger just a little bit longer and walked to the grocery store to get some necessaries (almost out of toilet paper).  As I got home, I warmed up soup I made earlier this week and gulped it down quickly.  I couldn't even finish the blog before I ate.

I'm grateful, today and during this holiday season, that I have food enough to eat and to share with those I love and those I meet.

The Christmas Card joy and challenge.

I began putting together my Christmas cards tonight.  I love finding a card that reflects my mood and personality at the time.  Initially this year, I was going to find a card with a city scene of NYC or of Brooklyn.  I feel in love instead with a great wildlife card that benefits both the National Geographic and feels a little different than the card most people will send.  I want my card to make someone smile and look good enough to go out on a shelf for a few weeks.

I made my list of the people who are getting the cards and then tried to locate addresses for some of them.  In some ways, I wish I had the time and money to send the cards to all of my friends.  I feel very fortunate to have so many wonderful people in my life.  Since the proliferation of social media, one finds it easier to keep track of many more people.  I'm saving for a wedding, so I had to keep the list to family and a few close friends.  That hurts a little.  I want all of the people in my life to know that I love them.  It's actually not just a money thing.  It's also finding the time to write them all out.  I already hand wrote 500 holiday cards for work the week of Thanksgiving.  Between hand cramps and my need to live life, I had to make the list small.

As I write each one, I think about writing a long message and sharing my life with that person.  Fortunately, I get to talk to most of them and share that news over the phone or in person.  I think about how I met with and connected with each person I wrote with whether it be 35 years ago or just this year.  It is a further step in my personal grounding.

When I do write my Christmas cards, I am more and more thankful for all of the love I've shared in my life with such great people.  I find that I also have reconnected to some people through this blog.

To each of the people who reads my little posts, know that I'm grateful for you, whether we know each other or not.  Thanks for caring enough to read these posts and learn about my impressions of life in Brooklyn.

Recovery mode

Saturday morning I decided I needed a reset.  The city and everything in it was starting to grate on my nerves.  My family and friends that don't live in the city had lots of their own suggestions about what I should do to when I was feeling overwhelmed.  I decided to do my own recovery.

Step 1:  Go for a run
Fortunately, I had signed up for an obstacle course race.  The Men's Health Urbanathlon  up in Queens was a great way to start my "reset."  Four miles of running with 12 obstacles exhausted my body so my mind could think.

Step 2: Connect with friends
A college friend invited me to a holiday party.  David and I put on our festive attire and spent a few hours in a cozy apartment (it would be tiny in any other city) talking with strangers and catching up with my college buddy.

Step 3: Hang out with your love

David knew I needed some time with just him.  We left the party and were home by 11:00.  We talked wedding plans, life stories, holiday traditions and laughed a lot.  Sunday, we spent time making breakfast together and talking some more.

Step 4: Do something familiar
I woke up before David this morning and put up my NYC apartment-sized, four-foot Christmas tree with lots of fun ornaments.  Most of my Christmas ornaments are in boxes in my Rochester house attic.  It's been five years since I've put up a 9 foot tall real Christmas tree with all the lights and things and spent three days decorating for my big holiday party.  Still, having an hour to myself with some Christmas music putting up the ornaments I've purchased or been given since then was nice.  This is my first Christmas without my gram.  I even put an angel from her tree on mine.

Step 5: Focus on Faith
David and I ended our morning together watching a live broadcast of church.  It was grounding.  I prefer the real thing, but a repair guy arrived unannounced this morning to finally fix the mold and gash in my closet ceiling.

Step 6: Cook and Bake
David and I ran some errands and I dropped him at his place to get ready for the week.  I came home and made two big dinners for the week and baked some chocolate chip banana muffins.  I packed  up half of it in little containers for David so he has meals for the week and drove it to his place.  I didn't even realize I didn't have my keys with me until I got to his place, but luckily he has a spare set that I was able to borrow to get home.

AND...I feel reset.  I can face the crazy crowds, noisy streets and stores, rude people, honking horns, barrage of smells, and all that is Brooklyn for a while longer.

Too much of a good thing

Last night, as I drove from work to home and hopped on the subway to get uptown to pick up my race packet for a race this morning, I felt overwhelmed.  I'm not one who is easily overwhelmed.  Brooklyn, and NYC, can do that to me, though.

It started with the crazy traffic that made my 2.4 mile drive last 45 minutes.  I could have fast walked it in about the same time.  That was combined with more horn honking than usual which was an assault to my ears.  Additionally, the lights on stores, cars, and the street were driving me crazy with glare on my windshield.

I got to the subway platform and was immediately asked for money.  When I got on the train, a homeless man got on at the first stop asking for money.  On the third stop, a young lady was asking for money for a school trip.  Some buskers arrived as we hit manhattan and were playing music for money.  The subway car was so crowded that it was hard to breath.

Arriving to 72nd street, I felt like if I lifted my feet, the crowd would've walked me out of the subway car, across the platform, and up the steps to 72nd street.  Getting out of the subway, there were dozens of honking cars, street vendors hawking books, hotdogs, pretzels, paintings, christmas trees (all the way from Alaska according to the sign), a busker playing saxophone, a homeless guy sleeping on the subway vent, and a lady in a wheelchair screaming for donations.

I walked down the street to get to the store where they had packet pick up.  I was hungry, but didn't feel like eating.  I was reminded why some people are fed by this and others are drained by it.  I'm an extrovert and gain energy by talking with people.  I am left wondering if the people who gain energy in the city are introverts who enjoy the fact that there are few people that you actually have to connect with.  I find that the people here are people that I need to walk by and not talk to.  Talking to them, for some reason, saps my energy instead of increasing it.

I did find a brand new shiny penny on the subway platform on the way home.  I got my packet and made it home.  I made a turkey sandwich and at 7:30, I turned on some white noise and crawled into my bed with no lights and lots of blankets.  I woke up at 5:30 this morning and feel like I can face the world again.

I doubt this is an introvert extrovert thing.  I do realize, though, that I sometimes need to get out of the city to just hear birds chirping and feel nature.  Central park doesn't cut it.

Guns

I grew up around guns.  My dad had them in the house.  My brother and father are both hunters.  I've benefited from their skill at hunting with venison in my freezer and on my table.  My dad was a good shot when it came to taking care of pest animals that were causing damage to our crops or or fields.  Throughout my childhood, I saw guns as a way to provide for your family.

For that reason, I've always been a gun advocate.  I wasn't thinking about guns as weapons used to kill people.  As I reached College age it began to become more clear that the human against human gun violence that I read about and heard about on the news was something much more serious than I ever imagined.  In major cities, gangs were killing each other and crime was in the rise.  This was the early 1990s.  My mom was scared that I would get mugged when I took a bus to NYC.

Fast forward to today where two mass shootings took place in our country.  These were the 354th and 355th mass shooting this year by one person's counting.  Regardless, we all know that something has got to change.

Here is what I wonder when I hear about them:
1.) Is it television violence that these people grew up with causing this? I did a speech in high school based on the book called "The Plug in Drug." That advocated that violent crime rises as violence on tv rises.
2.) Is the mental health crisis in our country out of our control and could it have been stopped before the deinstitutionalization of most of the mentally ill in this country in the 60s.
3.) Why is it easier to get a gun than it is to get a drivers license, health insurance, or a decent apartment?
4.) Would a change in price of guns change this?
5.) Would the elimination of guns all together help?
6.) Would restrictions on the type of gun one is allowed to own help?  After all, you don't need an AK47 to kill a deer and feed your family?
7.) If people kill people and not guns, how can we fix the people?
8.) Is this a conspiracy in our country?
9.) Are there other things controlling these gunmen that we can figure out?
10.) Is the growing politicization of our country and the larger divide between conservatives and liberals to blame?

No matter what the cause is, we need help to fix it.  I know that some in my family and some people I know are worried about "them taking away my guns." In reality, would it be so bad if every gun owner had to get gun insurance and past a test every year or every few years?  Would that help?

Please, God, help our country, our government, and our gun-lovers figure out a solution before more innocent people die.

And I cried

I mentioned my prayer for World Aids Day earlier.  I spent most of my day in the office on hold today.  I had calls to insurance companies and to the IRS.  I was disconnected three times and had important phone calls come in while on hold during two other occasions.  It wasn't until 1:30 that I got out of my chair to go grab lunch.

As I sat eating my lunch at my desk, I scrolled through today's news.  I learned that more people died of AIDs between 1980 and 1995 than the number of American troops killed in Vietnam.  I read a compilation of stories from people who survived the epidemic while their friends passed away.  I cried a lot.  I realized that lesbian woman were much less at risk and were some of the first and only one's to help take care of gay men who were passing away because their families were ashamed and scared.  Entire neighborhoods were wiped out.  The government's response was to mock people and to provide little assistance.  They called it the gay cancer even though people of all races and sexuality were getting it.  Little research was done and fear spread.  People died...lots of people.

I got back to work with a heavy heart.  I worked on holiday themed things and stuff that didn't require much thinking.  Then my assistant reminded me that there were panels from the AIDs quilt in our lobby. Did I know anything about the AIDs quilt?  Yes, I helped bring some of the first traveling panels to Hartwick back in 1996.  That was the first time I associated AIDs with people's faces and names.  I remember being touched by the quilt then.  I read the panels made by friends and family members.  I giggled at some of the photos of the people who passed because of their outrageous and unapologetic clothing and was a bit ashamed.  I wasn't quite my own self yet.  I hadn't decided what a man I would be.

Today, I went with my assistant to look at the panels here.  I explained to her what each panel meant.  I read the names, saw the photos, and I cried some more.  I didn't break down sobbing, but was close.  Similar photos and panels now only represent men and women who I knew wanted to be themselves.  I was proud of the fact that they dressed, did their hair, and sang however and what ever they wanted.  They were truly themselves.  I feel like at 38, I am myself too, now.  I love bow ties and bright colors.  I like cuff links and fun hats.  I like trying new things with my hair.  I have sequins and satin and plenty of costumes to wear to parties.  I love being me.  Sadly, this made me cry more.  To have such vibrant lives cut short hurts.  There were panels of women too.  I wondered what their story was.

I will continue to cry until we find a cure for AIDs or a full prevention of HIV seroconversion.  I will cry for future people infected and affected around the world.  I will cry for those people who didn't get to live a long life being truly themselves.

My prayer for World Aid's Day

It was 1996 when I really started to learn about AIDs and HIV.  We had heard about it in high school and there were references on the news, television, and the movies.  Back then people who were HIV+ were pariahs and if they got full blown AIDs, they were dying quickly.  I got this pin at Hartwick College.  One of my friends had an uncle who died of AIDs.  She herself has since passed away at a young age from ovarian cancer.  She wanted people to know more and for us to find a cure.

This pin has seen better days, for sure.  It's been scratched, nicked, thrown around, moved to different cities, and has lost its luster.  In some ways, the search for a cure is the same thing.  Now there is a search for a cure for everything else too.  With the amazing advances in preventing the spread of HIV+ from one person to another, and the medical advancements that have all but stopped death from AIDs in the developed world, the search for a cure has almost slowed.

My prayer today for World Aids Day:

Creator, Loving, and Healing God.  First, thank you.  Always thank you first for all you have done and will do.  Thank you for medical advancements like Prep, Truvada, and medicines for people who are HIV + to lower their viral load to undetectable.  Thank you for holding my friends who are positive and those that don't know in your hands and comforting them.  Thank you for the brains of the scientists who have achieved this much and are poised to achieve more. God, my God, please help us find a cure for HIV and AIDs.  Give strength and peace to those affected by this both directly and indirectly.  We feel your love and know that you can help us all, so that the world is free of both the disease and the stigma against those who have it.  

Amen