Yesterday

I hauled ass out to Long Island with two suitcases full of school supplies (and other items) to add to the piles in Michele’s house for her Kids of Katrina project. Last week, I had mentioned Michele’s project to my women’s group – when we were emailing around, making plans for our next meeting. I arrived at Maria’s house on Friday night – only to find that all of them had gone hog-wild with buying items off of Michele’s list. There were bags and bags of stuff: notebooks, diapers, kids socks, crayons – so many crayons!! – scissors, glue … My friends had all been school shopping for their own kids that week, and had just gone nuts – buying stuff for the evacuee kids. It filled my heart to see all that stuff. It was so much stuff that I honestly wondered: Uhm … how the hell will I get all of that out to Long Island? With no car???

But I did it.

One kindly drunk gentleman helped me down the stairs of the Path train with my bags. He saw me struggling to go down the stairs and not be overpowered by my own bags … and ran to the rescue. It was 7:45 in the morning, and he literally reeked of booze, mkay? Which he admitted freely. “Sorry … I’m still kind of drunk … you need some help?” I said, “Actually, I do – but I’m warning you. This one is very heavy.” He grabbed the heavy one and trotted down the stairs as though it weighed absolutely nothing. Literally. The thing had to have weighed … 200 lbs? More than that? But there he went. He was also going to take the train into the city, so he waited for me to come through the turnstiles, helped me with the heavy bag over the turnstile, and then walked me right to my train down the second flight of steps. I wondered if he would want a tip? He wasn’t a hobo or anything like that – he was a strapping guy in his 30s – but obviously a big drinker. You could see it on his face. But man, he helped me out. I said to him before I got on the train, “Thank you so much for your help.” He said, simply, “It’s September 11. It’s a good day to remember how we should help each other out.”

Believe it or not – I had been so focused on getting my ass out the door with all my stuff at 7:15 am (waking up at 6:30 am, calling a cab, getting the bags together, bringing the bags downstairs, waiting for the cab …) that I hadn’t yet thought about September 11. I was focused on the task at hand.

But there was that helpful drunk gentleman … saying that … He reminded me to just take a moment. Just take a moment. Remember the day. Remember to be helpful towards one another. Remember the day.

I was grateful to him for more reasons than one.

And I just have to say – it was so amazing – to see the piles in Michele’s house. Words can’t really capture the amount of stuff she has there. It has literally taken over her house.

Also, though: it was so cool to finally meet Michele. I have been reading her blog since right after September 11 … we have corresponded … we read each other’s stuff … and so to finally meet one another was really really cool.