Tonight I'm thankful for how the day was redeemed after it felt like nothing was going my way. Volunteers I had tried to recruit for the other summer lunch program site didn't show up as promised, leaving our other site coordinator scrambling. My volunteers at my site were awesome, but patience for a couple of them was a more difficult task, and as we are still ironing out the kinks with this brand-new program, timing was a little thrown off today with the food service driver coming back to collect the coolers before the end of our service time when we could actually empty them, putting him on hold for a few and making us get creative with our time to get the extra food into our monitor's car to go back to the food shelf... only to have miscommunications and miss one tub of food that needed to go with her, having her do an extra loop after the round to the food shelf and the other site... A couple of people who have made various commitments to serve the youth I'm working with in various capacities had to cancel today, and running errands for an artist to work with some of our youth has yet to prove fruitful, but it's on its way.
I never feel like I have "good days" and "bad days" - just taking things in stride, but it seriously felt like a buildup of one thing after another for a while, and I'm thankful to have had the time to breathe and step away from things for a second, recollect myself, and discern what could be dealt with tomorrow with a fresh heart. I know that the human part of me gets frustrated when others make commitments to either me or others I am working with and want the best for, and I am working on adapting. I know conceptually that they too are human and things come up, and it is up to us to flow and change course, and I must recognize what has gone well today.
Even though some of my artist's supplies errands have not yet panned out, I am thankful for how it has been unbelievably easy to work with the Sketchy Artist store to arrange the supplies that I can get through them. I'm thankful to have been invited to take the place of one of my supervisors at the WINGS dinner since he was not able to go, and in his place, I had the opportunity to thank these Women In Northfield Giving Support for supporting the brand-new Youth IDA program that I have had the privilege to work with to provide financial literacy training and support enrolled low-income youth with special bank accounts designated only for saving money for post-secondary education. It was pretty amazing to get a snapshot of all the initiatives and programs this foundation is supporting in the Northfield community and how they are investing in providing more opportunities for particularly women and children in both systemic ways and in terms basic needs. And I'm thankful for the time to just be a little silly on the phone with my Carleton freshman- and senior-year roomie while we both multi-tasked, listening to each other's stories and reflections on how we've grown with the occasional extraneous sound effects as she made dinner on her time in the West Coast and I finally unpacked more of my new room in my summer housing, with time to tease her about boys and wall space to put up more of my collection of artwork from my own hands (and camera) and from artists around the world. Ahhh, and finally to sit down.
The song on my heart tonight: Chan Chan - Buena Vista Social Club. I love exchanging especially Latin music with people who are more in tune with the Latin scene and history than I am. After I returned from Cuba, my parents discovered they had a Buena Vista Social Club cd in their collection that they then passed onto me, after I had heard live bands cover their songs! I'm thankful for a new friend who has expanded my Latin music education recently, and I look forward to more music exchanges, but for now, this song has been running through my head the last few days. Enjoy this gem from a classic Cuban band!
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