We finished out day two at Noah’s Bagels in downtown Santa Cruz, and an afternoon snack turned into dinner with two small children miles away from home and a day of rain. We were glad for our snug trailer to come home to, and we finished out the day with Rudolph the Red-Nose Reindeer on video (hence the no batteries), and Tom and I tucked into bed early, watching the Shield (hence the no batteries as well), and reading. We needed an early start the next morning – at 8:30 am we had to be at St Francis Catholic Shelter to help out with their daily lunch meal.
It was a little funny that in order to be on time we brought our toothbrushes and so at 8:20 in the vacant lot behind the shelter we were all spitting toothpaste into the weeds and combing our hair. Things were in full swing when we came in with a handful of white-haired ladies wielding chopping knives, tattooed young men wiping down tables, and a gentleman who was clearly not operating on quite the same wavelength washing dishes. St Francis offers basically a day shelter – bathrooms and showers, a lovely noon meal, a gorgeous garden to spend tie in (and to queue up for the meal). There are outdoor facilities for the visitors, a twice-weekly clothing room where those in need can pick up items of needed clothing, and a lovely large bright yellow-painted high-ceilinged room with a picture of the last supper adorning one wall, Jesus on the cross in 2/3 size on another, cabinets holding supplies on the third, and the fourth a bank of windows onto the garden and porch area.
Christine was the head chef for the day – there’s a guest chef for each day of the week. A no-nonsense short-haired coke bottle glasses woman with a stern look and a great recipe for chili, she had things going in the kitchen. Josh, a twenty-something tattooed guy with a buzz haircut and who you’d expect to see giving dirty looks on the corner with the skateboarders helped arm us with rags for cleaning the tables. Another few older ladies who it turned out were sisters at the Catholic hospital nearby were buzzing about, and Will, a twenty-seven year-old Army vet (no Iraq or Afghanistan amazingly) newly arrived in Santa Cruz and gainfully employed at Taco Bell were on the crew as well. The center paid only one individual, an ex-engineer who applied for the open position a few years earlier and seemed to do it well. Sawyer and I were put to work collecting, cleaning and filling salt and pepper shakers while Tom and Jordan folded laundry. We helped wipe tables and chairs, sweep the floors and tidy up. The big excitement came when the boxes of donated desserts came in and we placed them appealingly on trays next to stacks of just over or under ripened bananas. 75% of the food at the shelter is donated and it’s pretty clear from where. It’s also fascinating to know nearly the exact cost of each item and where it comes from and to see how darn much of it gets tossed. Thankfully into gratefully open arms in this case.
Starbucks was responsible for a great deal of what went on the dessert trays - $1.75 muffins, 3 for $2 mini scones, $1.75 cookies all lined up in rows by my semi-drooling children. Donuts came, too, as did coffee cakes and a few pastry rings I’d swear were descendants of kringle. I got to cut them all into pieces, but the kids got to arrange wearing plastic gloves so huge on their little hands it made them operate as if they were wearing space suits on their bodies. Safeway’s loaves of sourdough and French are in abundance although the jalapeno cheddar from an unknown bakery is the clear favorite. I’ve paid over $2 a loaf at Safeway many a time for loaves that on this day I cut and sliced and tossed into breadbaskets three at a time without a piece going to waste.
Another family of tall blondes having loud discussions about their tennis matches and holiday plans helped early on but left after a couple of hours. They had a teenage son who seemed to be getting a lot from the experience which was great. We were asked to stay for the long haul – to help in the dining room as they were short handed for servers and cleaners – we were thrilled, of course. Tom and Jordan left at one point to pick up a load of donated poinsettias to replace the silk flowers in mini vases that adorned the tables, and Sawyer posed for pictures in the garden crèche with the Virgin Mary (he seemed as comfortable with her as with his own mother – we are so similar) and we sang This Old Man all the way through twice. It was a gorgeous morning, but the closer we got to noon, the more the storm clouds advanced and by the time we left, it was raining in the garden but sunny out, a neat little miracle for the kids to exclaim at.
At 11, the volunteers swelled with an interesting influx of meal servers including an Asian man with Down’s Syndrome who loved to give hugs, a guy in a Fed Ex jacket with what seemed a light case of Turrets, and a few folks who clearly were existing on the fringes between homelessness and dependence and making it on their own including a long-time traveler with red hair and yellow teeth and a love of fishing, a beautiful twenty-something girl who was in some capacity with a forty-ish Mexican man. Twelve of us sat down to eat the meal together following scripture that dictated that before one served they should fill their own bellies so as not to have tow grumbling bellies - compassion borne from self-care a lesson to remember always, of course.
When the doors opened, a well-oiled machine went to work, serving the food. Jordan stayed with one of the sisters in blue jeans serving bananas and desserts at the end of the line. Sawyer and I trolled the room refilling breadbaskets and butter plated and water pitchers. One of our co-servers was a 75ish clean-shaven middle class man with an engaging personality and a red Santa hat. Every single time our paths crossed in the busy room, Sawyer’s eyes lit up and he shouted “Santa!” which tickled the guy no end. Sawyer was fairly shot at that time and needed to keep close in the busy room so he sat on my hip and provided the smiles while I ran around rediscovering my waitressing self. Santa Cruz has a fairly healthy homeless population, like Santa Fe it’s one of those centers that attract a good societal fringe. There were the teenagers and young twenty-somethings who may or may not have been on drugs, the many, many men who had more than one conversation happening in their head at once, a good number of Mexicans or Central Americans who we’d seen also waiting to be picked up for work at the Nursery on the corner. These guys (and the few women among them) were the nicest and most polite, though I only heard one or two negative comments through the day in general, and Sawyer and Jordan charmed everyone into smiles from the start.
The carefully laid out trays of bananas and desserts were an either-or proposition. The short, brown into grey-haired sister Jordan was helping had a sweet, young voice but was no push-over on the either-or rule and gave praise to those who chose a “healthier” option like a scone over a chocolate donut. If they chose a banana, they got Jordan pushing the fruit on tippytoes over the top of the glass display case and a winning smile to boot. When I asked Jordan to remind me of her name at the end of the day she wrinkled her nose, “I can’t quite remember. Something like Chlorina?” So she will always be Sister Chlorina to me and although it’s unlikely she’ll ever be the muse for a musical (“How Do You Solve a Problem Like Chlorina?” sounding more the jingle for a pool product commercial than the intro to a memorable character’s appealing flaws), she made quite an impact on Jordan, I think. I don’t know if the day did, or not, so used to a myriad of interactions with adults are our kids, but I’d like to think it opened their hearts that much more.
At the very end the twenty-ish girl who had been serving milk and her Mexican companion had to leave and so I took her place pouring 2/3 glasses of milk and Tom took over collecting dirty trays and dishes and silverware from departing guests. Sawyer had the chair in the corner between the two stations and charmed everyone again. It seemed that they had everyone in and out so quickly, but with all the prep and cleaning and so on, it was easy to see why they stayed so firm in their hours and deadlines. And knowing what I know of those Catholic sisters, it was easy to see how they kept to those deadlines so successfully. When we’d swept every crumb, Jordan holding the dustpan for a few grateful guests who’d wanted to help out with cleanup and Sawyer wiping tables, I waited in the garden with the kids for Tom to be done. Two of the sisters came out and thanked me not only for the help but also for bringing the children and complimented both me and Tom on our patience with them and how we let them help and be so involved. A few of the guests complimented us on “raising them right” or “starting them out on the right foot.” I was proud of them all day – of course – they are such amazing kids. For Jordan and Sawyer it was fun like everything is, and no one treated them like “just kids.” They had important jobs to do and sis them well, they engaged independently with volunteers and guests alike and treated them no differently either, it occurs to me, and I really hope my attitude was the same. We’re none of us so far apart, it seems – from the volunteers who were volunteering either to be of service or because of the free meal that felt more earned rather than donated, to the couples there who clearly were down on their luck and somewhat shocked to be there. We were asked by one middle aged woman, smitten with the kids and who would appear every bit in step with the shoppers we walked with on the street the day before if we also were looking for a permanent place to live. There was no offense in it, none meant or taken – just indicative that there are a lot of regular folks out there who are stunned to find themselves without what before they took for granted.
We were all tired when we left (and went straight to Starbucks armed with gift cards – an interesting reality shift), but happy. More serious looking grey clouds were moving in but the kids still wanted to go to the beach, so we drove to the famous (but seasonally shut down) boardwalk, walked the pier and played in the dunes. Everywhere we drive, from Starbucks in the posh downtown to the beach, we saw people we’d served at lunch. At the beach while we watched the kids give themselves up to the joys of dune jumping and marveled at the sheer amount of sand their clothing could trap and disperse, we witnessed a fifty-ish couple, good looking and well-groomed whom we’d seen at lunch unfurl their tents and rinse and attempt to dry them from the storms of the night before.
We made it back to the campground in the late afternoon and while Tom cooked dinner and watched the kids bruise themselves on scooters, I ran along the beach in the last half hour of the shortest day of the year, watching the grey clouds gather and billow over the horizon. I ran past RV parks and beachfront mansions and wondered at the randomness of it all, thought about the pleasure we take in cooking our meals out of doors and wandering our way down the coast, showering the kids in quarter-slot showers and paying $25 a night for a homeless home with our little camp trailer. The guy with the $2500 newer trailer called a week after Tom had left the message and three days too late, saying yes it was still available and to call anytime. I said I still was interested and have thought about why ever since – whether it’s because I just want things to work and not to have Tom have to spend more time and money on fixing them, or whether I want more space or more amenities or more safety or just, as Tom says, the human condition of wanting more. Maybe it’s to feel a bit further away from that reality of having no place to stay but in that wet tent, nowhere to eat but with the other 179 others at the shelter.
After dinner and a shower we snuggled the kids into bed and for a while after they fell asleep huddled up reading in our bed, the heavy rains starting to fall not long after we dimmed our headlights. Jordan had a restless night and I did as well, worrying after her and thinking of all the questions she’d asked during the day, wanting to hear again the story of Jesus and the cross, the story behind the song “Away in a Manger,” one of her favorites, and why no one would let them stay at their inn. I loved the Catholic traditions at Christmas, still love the music and the mass and the stories. I felt at home standing side by side with the sisters, holding hands for the grace before the meal (although my children don’t know to say “Amen” at the end as it’s not a part of ours). But I feel most at home here in the little trailer because it is where my children are laying their heads, dry and warm, safe and close.
No comments:
Post a Comment