Wow, the past seven days have been absolutely insane. People never cease to amaze me. I know, I know- that last sentence sounds really stupid, but in my defense it’s been proven true so many times that I’m allowed to say it, so judge away.
This week included a trip out to Sleeping Frog Farms for a truly organic Thanksgiving. It was my first Thanksgiving eating outside in 80 degree weather, but definitely enjoyable none the less. Local farmers provided a bit of homegrown everything… from purple (yes, purple) mashed potatoes to toasted kale chips to pecan no-bake cookies that I ate about seven in a row of (Oops- sorry to anyone else reading this that was with me on Thanksgiving and may have wanted one).
As far as work goes, Cross Streets (my site placement) served over 250 people a warm Thanksgiving meal thanks to the work and cooking of over 30 volunteers this past Friday. One of the women I’ve gotten to know through the shower program approached me during the meal (I was manning the fruit punch station at that point, a very difficult job no doubt) and proceeded to inform me that her and her boyfriend had gotten jobs and were officially off the street. They had saved up enough money to buy a little trailer for themselves. Knowing that she would have a place to stay for the holidays made me happy, but seeing her smile for the first time since I’d met her made me happier.
Oddly enough though, the experience that stood out to me the most this week didn’t happen at Sleeping Frog Farms or at work. It happened only a couple blocks from my house. Enid and I had walked to the market to pick up some things for dinner and were on our way back when we saw that up ahead of us, there was a train blocking the only way home. Since our time in Tucson, neither of us could remember a train ever passing through that area. In fact, up until that point I had assumed trains no longer ran on those tracks. We approached it, noticing that it was so long neither of us could see the beginning or end of it.
“I hope it doesn’t go on for too long,” Enid said, “It’s getting dark really fast.”
Just as she said that, the train made a horrible creaking noise and began to slow down. Within a few seconds, it had stopped completely. I looked over at Enid. She was rolling her eyes, so I decided against saying “I think you just jinxed us.”
After a couple minutes of standing there waiting, it was completely dark outside. The cars around us had started to back up and find other ways home. With nothing else to do, we sat down in the middle of the road and debated our options.
And after 10 more minutes, the ice cream I had bought was leaking onto everything in the bag. (Because yes, it’s actually still hot enough for ice cream to melt at night here.) We noticed that some risk takers on their way to the market that had grown tired of waiting had started climbing in between train cars to cut across. Headlights of waiting cars shone impatiently through. A man and his girlfriend crawled underneath a rail car, hand in hand.
Within 20 minutes, the train made a groan and was up and running again. My ice cream had made a cute little cookies’n’cream puddle that made its way through the fabric grocery bag and onto the road. I observed to Enid that the puddle looked a bit like the Lorax. She said maybe, but wasn’t his mustache bigger in the movie? I, of course, was referring to the original Dr. Seuss illustration.
Puddles of dairy treat aside, the next day I realized waiting for that train resonated in my mind as a metaphor for the U.S./Mexico border, and borders all over the world for that matter. Enid and I had been so close to where we needed to go. In fact, we could even see our destination on the other side. And we had decided to wait. But others had, in essence- risked their lives to make it across. What if the train had started back up when the couple was still crawling underneath it? It had only been about half an hour, but we had been so frustrated with the concept that we couldn’t get across to where we were going. And that’s my food for thought 🙂
Some Might Say I'm Crazy 