Semesters seem to happen in great spurts of time and energy. Time is quite different before and after them. Within the semester, focus is concentrated on each of our graduate students and their learning. Preparation hopes to create a learning place that is open and stimulating, yet structured and supportive. By November, all is created. Focus changes, much as the leaves, toward seeing the end of the semester and cheering ourselves (self and other mentors) and students on toward the finish line. Late in the semester we refine the final assignment, the Synthesis Journal, picturing reflection, packaging and closing for the students and also for us. We envision the link between the end of Fall and the beginning of Spring semester. For some, that will be a time of refreshing and refocus - a break from the intensity of TEAM. For others, it will be a time to hone skills and build a strong base.
November also starts the holiday season.
Most holidays throughout the year are at our home. We love the preparation and the events. Each has its own characteristics. Each is special because of who is with us. In many ways, preparing is much like team - different people joined together in a place. Our best chance at what we seek to create is to make an environment in which people blossom, converse, and feel at home. It is they who are the focus.
Thanksgiving, though, is different. We don't create it. We step inside it and participate in it. Thanksgiving day is one year at my sister's and the next at my niece's. This year we'll be at my niece's. The day before Thanksgiving is my family's day at a tiny soup kitchen in Harlem, run by French nuns from La Fraternite de Notre Dame. The bishop and nuns serve about 200 people each day throughout the year except for Sundays. They have tables and chairs for maybe 20 people at any one time and people stand on line outside and then a line inside. People with their food eat, chat, and leave. All know that they need to move along to let others in. How the nuns, with a few volunteers, do this every day is beyond us because we need the 5 or 6 of us working as hard as we can for six hours to pull it off. We serve the soup kitchen's Thanksgiving feast. (Thanksgiving day has the churches in the neighborhoods open for all so the people who come to the soup kitchen regularly have their Wednesday feast at the soup kitchen and another one on Thursday in one or more of the churches.) We serve turkey (donated turkeys are delivered to restaurants throughout the city who offer to cook them). The nuns deliver them a day or two in advance and then run around town picking them up in the wee hours of the morning the day we serve them. The soup kitchen has huge ovens and refrigerators and a stovetop with a tiny prep area. In front are sterno-like units on one side of a counter where people come to get their meal. So... turkey, gravy, sweet potatoes, rice, cranberry sauce, a vegetable, juice, bread, butter, and dessert. My dad is usually in charge of the juice. He gets to stand on the other side of the counter and greet everyone. My husband is usually in the back, cutting the pies for dessert and helping the bishop and nuns preparing the food to bring out to us. Serving from the huge heated trays across the counter are my sons, myself, and usually one or two Rotary scholars (we are often hosts for Rotary scholars in the city and feel this experience is special in their year in New York). Needless to say, there are dozens of little tasks that make this work with 200 people moving through our line. We greet people. Everyone has preferences - dark meat, light meat, no vegetables, etc. All are warm and appreciative.
This day is important for so many reasons. My children (ages 31 and 35) think it's the best family day of the year. My younger son takes off from work and flies into LaGuardia in time to spend the day. Although my mom doesn't participate, my dad understands that when we were growing up, we didn't drive through Harlem. Now, we park on the street and become part of the neighborhood. My dad speaks oodles of languages and loves that he can speak French to the nuns and bishop and Spanish to the neighborhood people. My husband and I marvel at the impact on us and how tiny the effort is. Our being there for one day does not really help any of the problems or issues. It does, though, allow us to step inside the space of others who are hungry and glimpse what their lives are like. It is more of a gift to us than our gift to them. It's incredibly powerful. It leaves us with images of people and thoughts about need in community.
What does this all mean? For me, November has a rhythm that's quite different from other times throughout the year. The semester is in full blast with classes, workshops, and varied meaningful experiences throughout. We begin to plan for the closing of the semester in December. We think about the workshops and their relationship to our teaching - to life experiences and our teaching, to the growth of our students and our own learning throughout. Life changes, though, abruptly on the Wednesday before Thanksgiving. Whatever life looked like and however rich some of our workshops, being inside the soup kitchen tells us a different story. It's a story that we haven't created and we are not poised to fix. It's a slice of life that always leaves us with myriad questions. What can help? How might one see ways for the hungry to take charge of their lives, get jobs, and make self-sustaining lives?
Thanksgiving day follows - beautiful, plentiful, and filled with chatter and warmth. The contrast is dramatic. My family and I have acknowledged to one another that we do not feel thankful that we have our Thanksgiving day, knowing that others are not as fortunate. Rather, we feel thankful that we are able to create our lives in ways to make some things happen. We are free to do so because we can support ourselves, ask questions, decide how we wish to invest our time and energy. We are grateful to have Wednesday and Thursday of Thanksgiving.
For me... Thanksgiving and TEAM are integrally related. Life and learning continually blur. That topic is for another blog... another day...
2 comments:
Thank You so much for sharing your blog. I know you said that you had no intentions on sharing but in doing so you gave so much. It was thought provoking, sensitive and filled with the spirit of humanitarianism. I love what you said about Thanksgiving, how you step inside it and participate in it. How your family thinks it’s the best family day of the year and how you step inside the space of others, the slice of life that leaves you with many questions. How poignant were your words. Your description of your family and their experience at the Harlem soup kitchen was very visual and I could envision what the day might have been like. The Bishop and Nuns must be grateful for your help and enjoy how your family is so giving. Especially how your Dad can communicate with them and the local people. I read your blog twice, it was a message worth reading again. Ps. Your other topic for a blog sounds intriguing, on Life and learning continually blur.
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