Behind the Scenes

It can't be just ANY bedtime story.

This is behind the scenes.

Sandwiches

Community on the Rise. 

Church of the Reconciler.

One Roof. 

Americorps Volunteers. 

John Brown. 

The Homeless.

There are STILL community members who don't know the symptoms of the Corona Virus and are still hungry.

I gloved up, then double gloved, and made sandwiches and delivered around town today, joining with the above mentioned organizations. I felt guilty and liberated - at the same time.

I did not wear a mask, and felt guilty and liberated.

I met new people, hugged no one and sorted rotten apples. I felt guilty and liberated.

I thought, if we are all going to get this virus, I want to go down with a fever...not with fear.

First Wednesday, Corona Virus, The Picnic

Successful picnic.

Henry strums the acoustic.

Svea and her book.

Corinne roller blades.

I watch the clouds move slowly. 

Breathe in and breathe out.

Mama J Through the Window

Dear Mama J, 

You can't have any visitors right now at Fair Haven. Thank heavens you are out of rehab and can have a phone in your room. I want to call you every day.

I hate this pandemic so much. 

I wonder if you could die faster from this virus, or from this isolation? The phone and people and relationships and laughter are your entire life. Now you have a TV and a phone. A few visits from a nurse. What if you fall? What if you sit in your diaper too long?

You are almost 95yo - all these years, did you live so fully only to die alone? You rely on all things social. Now you are by yourself.

So we made signs. And stood out side your third storey window. I called you and asked you to walk to the window so we could wave and I could see your face. I thought it was such a good idea...

...but I didn't think about the fact that the path from your chair to the window might not be clear. That your phone might not reach that far. That you would remember to use your walker and remember that your life-line button was around your neck. I didn't think about all that in my frantic need to see you.

And as I write this, everything is fine and all is well. You are laughing that when I called, you forgot your lunch was on your lap and you stood up to come to the window and your butterbeans went all over the floor. You said you didn't like those butterbeans anyway. And you laughed your old familiar laugh - it didn't sound dry or make you cough.

(that's your hand waving)

But there was a scary moment when you wanted to get back to your chair and couldn't figure out how to balance yourself. You couldn't think through putting the phone down so you could use both hands. I was watching through the window and was horrified that maybe I had walked you straight into your next fall...and possibly the situation that would end your life. 

The staff in the parking lot promised they would send someone to check on you and we waited 5 breathless minutes and called you again. You were back in your chair, watching TV, and Gloria had already come to check on you. You were laughing at all the butterbeans on your floor.

I am so grateful you are alive. I am so sorry it has to be so far away from others.

(your face)

I love you, Mama J, 

Mollie Lane

First Tuesday, Corona Virus

3.17.2020

I did not hug anyone all day.

I cleaned and washed and organized.

I asked my newly 16yo child to drive me to a gym where we could arrange food donations into piles.

We wore gloves and did not get near people.

We left before food distribution to families experiencing food insecurity.

This feels so horrible.

Easter 2019

Dear Children,

This week has been a lot of church.

And this weekend is the most important part of the story.

Your dad and I have chosen this story, at our own paces, and believe in it so much that we plan our seasons, our family time, and our relationship with the world around it. It is that powerful, that important.

To tell the story, to write it, to read it - it is quite ridiculous sounding. 

But to believe it...will change every inch of your life.

You know what else is ridiculous?

All the bunnies, the baskets and butterflies.

Is the cocoon the empty tomb that could no longer hold the butterfly?

Are the plastic eggs cracked open - to give you treats - also a reminder of the empty tomb?

And the fuzzy bunnies...my mind was too fuzzy when you were babies that I never made you an Easter Basket (admitted).

We would go to church and old ladies would ask y'all, "What did the Easter Bunny bring you?" and you would stare like they were asking a creepy question. 

Did I ruin you? I'm sorry...and you are welcome.

I went to Target yesterday and there was a sign that read:

THE TOMB IS EMPTY...LET'S FILL IT WITH TINY LITTLE THINGS! HECHO IN CHINA!

Not really. But I would have loved that sign.

I claim that I am not a Fun Parent - does claiming it make it okay? Either way, I'm sorry...and you are welcome.

All of these things, do they tell the story that shapes our calendar, our clothes, our culture?

I don't know. But if I am ruining your childhood, I'm sorry...and you are welcome.

Back to the story - it sounds ridiculous...so maybe we have permission to act ridiculous. Bounce like bunnies! Hunt for eggs! Carry around baskets! Take silly pictures!

Today is the happiest day in the Christian calendar - it's the REASON we are Christians. If I don't show it the way Target does, I'm sorry...and you're welcome.

Welcome to the World, SW.

Dear S,

Welcome to the world!

I made you this measly blanket.

I wanted to finish it before you were born, but it took longer than I planned. Which is a good lesson for us to share: some things take longer and it’s best to let them grow at their own pace. Also, attachment to completion dates and deadlines can crush your soul.

This blanket is crocheted with two skeins of yarn that were dyed different colors. Which means I did not plan when the colors would change, they just did. Sometimes that happens in life: colors change and we keep going.

When you “keep going” in crochet, that means you keep loop-ty looping over and over in whatever pattern until we are all loopy and land on a soft blanket for a big family hug.

There was no telling which color would be the end of the skein.

I worried I wouldn’t have enough and the final row wouldn’t be smooth…but wouldn’t you know it? (No you wouldn’t because you are an infant) but you will learn that sometimes rows and loops and numbers just work out and you find out that from the very beginning YOU ALWAYS HAD ENOUGH.

No matter how much you worry in the meantime, you always had enough.

That’s my wish for you: end in a family hug, trust that you are enough, feel welcomed in this world.

I can’t believe how much I already love you,

Mollie

Plastic Project 4 of 5: Oh, Brothers...

This is Elijah's 4th entry. The first is here, the second here, and the third here.

Scrapyard Adventure’s (Brother’s recycling)

Saturday morning, I woke up and got ready to spend time with my mentor, Mr. Cliff. Little did I know he and I were going to the scrapyard, in search of a new motor with a gearbox already attached.
When Mr. Cliff told me to look for a motor with a shaft that was ⅞ inch diameter, I thought... I was just overwhelmed.  

But at the same time I was happy just to experience something like this. After we found the right motor we walked back into the front office to ask David (the eldest brother) how much we owed him. That's when he said, “Take it”. I said, “Thanks” and shook his hand.

David let us drive into the scrapyard. We passed heaps of everything, car parts, trashed appliances, a lot of S.U.P. and a scrapyard dog.   

Above: Large pile of Single Use Plastics (S.U.P.)

After visiting this scrap yard, I was overwhelmed by the heaps of waste. I’m more open minded when it come to the way we consume single use plastics.

(From iMollie: This is 4 of 5 entries)

Plastic Project 3 of 5: S.U.P.?

This is Elijah's third installment for his English project. You can read the first one here and the second one here.

Meeting Mollie: What S.U.P?

When I met Mrs. Mollie the first thing she did was gave me a hug & A cup of hot chocolate in a styrofoam cup.

She showed me her binder full of ideas & images of a

larger scale model of what she wanted to accomplish.

(Image is Mrs. Mollie’s Drawing her concept)

What is S.U.P?

Mollie explained that S.U.P stands for Single Use Plastic. Single-use plastics, or disposable plastics, are used only once before they are thrown away or recycled. Examples include things such as milk cartons, water bottles, spoons, straws, egg cartons, this is just a short list but the list goes on.

               

When Mollie asked me what i was going to do with the styrofoam cup that held the hot chocolate & I said i was going to throw it away. Then she told me that styrofoam was usually a type 6 plastic.  

What I learned from Mollie is that i don’t normally think about this type of thing and i made a connection  with the breakfast bowls in the lunchroom. And how we just throw them away.

Why do we just throw them away ?

How does that make you feel ?

(From iMollie: This is 3 of 5...)

Plastic Project 2 of 5: Involving Reconciler

Here is the second essay Elijah wrote about us working together to get plastic off the street and turn it into something usable!

Consideration of Reconciliation (Week 2)

Greetings readers! I’m Elijah and for my English class this year, I’m creating an 20% project based on an idea from Google Corporation's practice of offering their employees 20% of their work time to work on a project which started in 2012. Every Friday, I get to work on a project of my choice.

“There is no such thing as 'away'. When we throw anything away it must go somewhere.” - Annie Leonard

For my project this semester, my mentor and I will be helping a pastor's wife (Mrs. Mollie) at Church of Reconciler in downtown Birmingham. Mrs. Mollie started a homemade recycle system that shreds and melts plastic, so we will be able to mold and shape different thing to sell or give. A lot of homeless women mostly live by the church. And the reason behind this project is to better this community, and to give those homeless women another chance by giving them a job.

In the picture in the last blog post I was cutting a pipe with a hand grinder to attach it to the motor

to be able to run the shredder shown here..

(From iMollie: This is 2 of 5 installments...)

Plastic Project 1 of 5: Elijah's Four Hour Vegan Week

I can't get over how much I love to recycle.

I can't even have a conversation with someone without referencing it.

As busy as I make myself recycling things, I haven't known how to tell the story or teach others what I'm doing. I was blocked.

Then I met Elijah! Elijah is a 15yo high school student procrastinator, and friend of Cliff, who is a scattered brilliant engineer with a lot of fancy tools and knowledge of dangerous things. Cliff is still 15yo on the inside, though his body hovers in the 30yo decade.

With Elijah and Cliff's help, we have successfully powered up the Shredder and Compressor using Precious Plastics designs and ideas (hooray for community-based business models!!)

Elijah wrote this for his first assignment:

The Four-Hour Vegan (Week 1), by Elijah

I had good intentions. I tried. It all started when I was told I would have 15 weeks to work on any project of my choice. My friend wanted me to become a vegan with her. I never wanted to do it. I realized that I’m a young man, I need meat!

veg·an

/ˈvēɡən/

noun

1. a person who does not eat or use animal products.

Shortly after deciding not to go vegan, my mentor (Mr. Cliff) said he needed help designing and making machines for a homemade recycling system.

I decided that this was the project I wanted to work on. I didn’t quite understand the concept of this project, but

jumped right into it literally, with a saw.

                    

(This is a picture of me cutting a piece of pipe to attach to the machine)

“To improve is to change; to be perfect is to change often”

• Winston Churchill

From iMollie:

(This is post 1 of 5)...

EJI: I Didn't Know

Dear Alison, 

I didn't know.

I didn't know that your office at Equal Justice Initiative (EJI) is in the same building in which slaves were once held. Like where you type and read and learn and advocate for clients in prison every day.

When we emailed you to see if we could come by, I didn't know that you would meet with us personally, look us each in the eye, and tell us stories about your work. You treated my children like they mattered too. You showed us the labelled jar where your hands had dug up dirt at a site where a lynching had occurred.

I thought "lynching" was hanging someone. That seemed awful enough. I didn't know that lynching is terrorism. It changed where people could call home, where you could work, live, have a family.
Lynching is about unlawfully punishing a group of people, or one representative of a group, without due process or a shred of human dignity. And it was celebrated for so many decades. I didn't know it could be so horrible...and covered up, not taught and eventually forgotten. Thank you for helping us Not Forget.

I didn't know that The Legacy Museum was within walking distance of the offices at EJI, and that I would need 719 more hours to explore and learn. The museum appeals to all of the senses, to all learning types, to all ages and races. I didn't know how much I would need to sit when faced with the facts of our history. My own body weight was too much, so thank you for all of the benches and chairs.

When we drove to the Memorial of Peace and Justice, I didn't know it would be so hot...even if it is Montgomery, AL. We started our journey into the Memorial in the scorching afternoon sun, then found our path circled into the shade of hanging tombs, labelled by state, county, person, year.

Even the fence was symbolic: from an angle the wooden planks look like a simple fence, saving you from falling off the shaded path...or maybe protecting your yard from your neighbor's. When facing the wooden planks, they are lined up like bars on a prison cell - you can see through them, but not move past them.

As the path continued, the floor descended so the tombs hung over our head. I didn't know how powerful it would be to walk forward as the tombs rose. I watched my fourteen year old son walk ahead of me, noticing the length of his body matched the size of the tombs. 

I didn't know that this is my story too...and now his.

I didn't know the air would be so cool in the deepest corner of the path, and that there would be a wall covered with a waterfall. The sound of the waterfall hid the sounds of weeping, the water itself represented cleansing, the continual flow reminded us of grace. 

I didn't know my seven year old daughter would understand so deeply. At the entrance, she had many questions about the sculpture of life-sized humans, slaves with chains around necks and ankles - all connected so if one fell, all moved.
The sculpture toward the exit of heroines from the Civil Rights movement - faces she recognized from the videos and posters in the Museum we just left - and then there, right next to Rosa Parks was an iron circle with two feet impressions. My daughter put her feet into those slots and she became part of the sculpture. She was part of the story, part of the history, and now part of the healing too.
I just didn't know.

The county where I live everyday is marked on these tombs. No more hiding, no more Not Knowing.

Thank you Alison, for all of the hard work, seen and unseen, that you do. Thank you for investigating, filing, listening, writing, reading, briefing - all of the things. I didn't know...now I do. And now is different for the knowing.



Namaste,
Mollie

Sizing It Up

Dearest Señora,

I have many gifts, but looking at a person's body and translating their size and shape into numbers or small-medium-large is not one of them. It’s not the yoga way really...but that’s another letter to you...



The hardest volunteer shift for me at the Catholic Respite Center (CRC) in McAllen, TX was in the clothes closet.
Typically here is how the system went:

• Donations come in bags and boxes.
• Volunteers sort clothes and shoes into Men’s and Women’s, Children and Infants.
• After one-half to one-third of the items are sorted, volunteers leave.
• Clothes and shoes sit in piles.
• New volunteers come in, see the chaos, and begin sorting.
• New rules applied: no tank tops or spaghetti straps, no inappropriate logos, no used underwear, no holes or stains (Restoring Dignity, y’all).
• Volunteers leave.
• Traveling families arrive and stand in line for clothes before taking a shower.
• Volunteers arrive and ask, “How can we help?”
• Staff directs volunteers to clothes closet. Everything is in piles that made sense to the previous shift of volunteers.
• New volunteers have 2.5 minutes per family to determine size and fit and send them to the showers.
• Volunteers are taught the words: Pronto! Pronto! Eso o eso? Más largo? Más pequeño?

From the families we learn the word for “belt” and “hat” and “sports bra” and “boxers not briefs.”
Dignity, Señora. Where is it? It was not in the last load of donations.

It was hot and stuffy in the clothes closet. Boxes and bins were brought in and shoved out. Twice on Saturday, some amazing volunteers brought already-sorted-by-size, brand new clothes in labeled bins. These volunteers had been at the CRC the day before and recognized the wasted time in sorting dirty donations. They had raised thousands of dollars on social media and then shopped for appropriate clothing.
One (of the many) hard things was when a volunteer wanted pictures of the children’s faces as they received their new clothes so they could thank the donors. AWKWARD. That’s "torpe" in Spanish.

My first sorting-clothes shift was with Maria and Chema, a mother and son team who lived in the area. Maria spoke only Spanish and Chema, both English and Spanish. They taught us to weed out the XL and XXL since the current group of families were petite sizes. We were throwing clothes into boxes to refold and in a bag to go to the Salvation Army. I held up one shirt to Maria and asked her which category this shirt went into? She said, "UGLY."
I had a good giggle over the only English word she said. I think she understood the Restoring Dignity part the best.

Senora, do you remember how big the marching band was at the high school in the '90's? My son will be a freshman there this year, and the band is still big. He and I went to size his band shoes the day before I flew to McAllen. When he tried on those huge-looking, white patent leather lace-ups with thick white soles, my eyes got teary with excitement and pride, and my mouth grinned at how ugly they were. Out of context without the whole uniform, Maria would have put them in the Ugly Box.
Saturday night, after working at the CRC all day and preparing to do the same on Sunday, I had a dream.

I dreamt I hired a babysitter to play with my kids, then I took my minivan to an empty parking lot to sort all of the donations in the back. Someone had donated multiple bags of shoes and I needed some time and space to sort them. A friend arrived on a bicycle with her two children and they crashed into a tree, then stood up unharmed. They walked over to my bags of shoes. Together we brainstormed how to quickly organize and label them so we could pass them out to those in need. We decided to rubber band the shoes together with the soles facing out, then we would write with chalk "M" for mujeres and "H" for hombres, then the number size of the shoe. We could line them up numerically and distribute. We high-fived each other at our brilliant plan!
We leaned over to open the bags of shoes and out poured only huge-looking, white patent leather lace-ups with thick white soles. My friend and I looked at each other, looked at the white shoes, then looked at our hands which were holding only white chalk. Plans thwarted, all to the Ugly Box.



The first time a woman came in the clothes closet with an ankle bracelet strapped above her foot, I couldn't stop staring. I had heard about them, seen pictures of them, knew in my head they were real, but my heart, mi corazón, could not make sense of seeing it in person. My brain kept saying, "This is real. This is real."
If you are wearing skinny jeans, or tightly tapered jeans before getting an ankle bracelet to track you, how do you change your pants? You cut your jeans.
If the only available pants in your size are skinny jeans or tapered, how do you get them over the new ankle bracelet? I don't know. I couldn't watch.



Señora, this is real.
The fevers, the crying, the coop-ed up children, the mischievous tweens, the bored and tragic teens, the worried mamas, the vigilant dads - it's all real. And in my dreams I only have band shoes and white chalk.

I miss you, Señora.
Con amor,
Mollie


***A list of items to send to the Catholic Respite Center coming soon. They need a bigger facility and are currently accepting donations towards the building so they can serve more people in need:

http://sacredheartchurch-mcallen.org/immigrant-assistance/donate-now/

The Best Nest

Dear Señora, 

I sat in your classroom decades ago, yet I am still learning from you. 
Thank you for teaching me Spanish in high school.

My friend Rachel and I are moms...and sometimes our insides get scratchy...like a baby bird tapping to get out of its eggshell. We couldn't sit still in front of the information about the families separated at the Texas border. So through friends of friends of friends, we found the Catholic Respite Center (CRC) in McAllen, TX.

Rachel wrote to them, offering our services as "mama birds" just wanting to help. She asked if we could come help and learn, or if it would be better if we sent the price of our plane ticket as a monetary donation to their cause. They invited us to come.
We worried about draining resources, being in the way, contributing to "volun-tourism." 
They said we could come.

Rachel and I followed Hannah Adair Bonner on Facebook, who was advocating for the migrant families on the other side of Texas. She suggested that migration is a very normal pattern for humans. I began to imagine the shapes and patterns - ovals, ellipses, figure eights - what do migration patterns look like for birds?

My friend Carrie recommended a podcast by Malcolm Gladwell about migration patterns...which made me wonder: if migration is allowed to be cyclical, then can we believe that Latinos want to come to the US, not to steal jobs or rape our sisters, but to work and visit and then return home? Is it possible that migrants do not want to miss the abuela's funeral or the cousin's wedding?

Señora, I do not know.



(this is the padded tortilla holder that keeps them warm)

When I was working the lunch shift on Saturday at the CRC in McAllen, filling water cups, my eyes brimming on the regular, a young boy - maybe he was ten years old - tapped me on the shoulder, grinning. I couldn't figure out what he was pointing to until we walked to the door together. He pointed up to the corner, outside, where there was a speaker mounted, covered in a bird's nest. 
A bird family had made its home there.



Leaves and straw wrapped around the speaker, clinging. The mama bird's wings were flapping and you could see movement in the nest.



How did that little boy see the nest?
What did that nest mean to him in the corner of the scary outside hot world, and the fumbling efforts of the volunteers inside the building?

What nest had he fled?
What nest would he build?
When pushed to spread his wings, would he fly? Was he ready?



I grinned at him. He grinned at me. No words. Only depth of understanding.

I never saw him again, Señora. But I'm still learning from him.

Con cariño,
Mollie




***A list of items to send to the Catholic Respite Center coming soon. They need a bigger facility and are currently accepting donations towards the building so they can serve more people in need:

http://sacredheartchurch-mcallen.org/immigrant-assistance/donate-now/




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