Generosity and Selflessness:

Growing up on the west side of Albuquerque, New Mexico in the 1980s afforded me an interesting upbringing. My grandparents moved into a relatively low-income neighborhood to live and serve the community with their gifts and also took on the task of raising their newborn granddaughter - me. I was gifted the opportunity to see generosity in action on a daily basis. Our door was always open to our neighbors, my friends, the community, and to those in need. There are so many different forms that generosity takes and I have found that those that are typically the most generous - in time, energy, possessions, or even financially - are those that are experiencing or have experienced being without. Far too often, people's gifts, talents, and time are dismissed in our current societal structure.

My grandparents invested their time and their love in me and the community in which we lived. My Grandy(grandfather) was the neighbor that everyone could come to for help and my Nanny(grandmother) was a life-long educator who offered tutoring and art lessons to local kids at the price of $5.00 an hour so that anyone in the community could afford them. They also taught me the value of service and investing in people - of being selfless and purposeful with the time that you spend with and for others. This is just a little history on what helped to shape the human I've become and heavily influenced how I choose to invest my time in this season of my life.

Over the years, thanks to my Nanny and Grandy's influence, my love of learning, and the fact that I am definitely a multipotentialite, I have acquired an interesting set of skills. Not degrees, but actual working skills. Education and application do not have to be confined to stuffy classrooms or lecture halls. Many small acts of generosity of time and knowledge have blessed me far more than I could possibly repay in one lifetime. Due to all of these collective gifts, I now edit for a street newspaper that focuses on helping the homeless in our city. We accept, and pay for, content from anyone and provide a product that people can use in place of flying a sign. I was connected with them by my ex-mother-in-law - the mother of the man I was married to for 15 years. She and I had not been in contact for at least 6 years and she had been homeless and a traveling artist for the better part of 13 years.

The homeless, they are her people, her family. She was married for 25 years and walked away from it all to learn, understand, and love those that society considers unloveable. She gave up "normal" selflessly. When we reconnected, God/The Universe/Higher Power (whatever you may believe) was definitely a part of it all. When Covid-19 hit, she had nowhere to go and couldn't continue the lifestyle in which she was living. She had been writing a book throughout her whole experience and had been seeking someone to help edit and publish her work for several years. I offered the livingroom of my one-bed apartment and made a promise to help bring her book to life. I Don't Make Round Tortillas is now a tangible and real printed book. She and I have worked together diligently to also bring the voices of the homeless to the street paper and to help get their stories in front of city hall. Stories like Jenny.

Jenny fights her disability and her pain with heroin, partially due to the lack of access to medical care. She is more functioning than people I have met who take prescription pain medications. She is witty, kind, and has more gumption in her pinky finger than 80% of the population. She is a permanent 7 - as in that is how she stands. Her back, so broken and disfigured, she can no longer stand upright. She is homeless and she is one of the most generous individuals I have met. She gives of her time, her energy, and whatever she brings in flying a sign with those around her. If there is anything I've learned from working with unhoused individuals - respect, built trust, and the community they have built is more precious than our societal structure acknowledges. They are human - each and every one of them, but as "the haves" of our population make decisions, they are not even given a seat at the table.

With the stories I have had the privilege to hear, I could probably fill a small library with all of their shared experiences, not so different from those of us that are housed. I suppose my point in all of this would be to encourage anyone (or everyone) who has taken the time to read through my musings to sit with themselves and reflect on their life experiences: big, small, good, bad. Think about how people have been selfless with you or been generous in your journey. Have you thanked them? What did it mean to you? I also encourage everyone to pay it forward. What actions can you take to make a difference in someone else's life, big or small?

Remember, generosity is not always financial - think outside of the box society has put in place. Selflessness requires awareness and the willingness to see outside of your comfort zone sometimes. We are one giant tribe after all and have the ability to choose to do better, to be better. I challenge us all to choose wisely.