Years ago, when I was an undergrad, our campus honors fraternity raised money for our local Habitat for Humanity chapter by soliciting sponsors for us to be “homeless” for one Friday evening in the fall. We had a lot of supporters during the build-up, but when the day arrived, more than half the group retreated due to the cold and the rain – being homeless for a night was fine, so long as they didn’t have to be uncomfortable or inconvenienced. For those who stayed, it was an eye-opening event. We had to build a fire if we wanted to keep warm, but that was difficult with the wind, so a few of us had to act as a shield while another gently fed tinder into the tiny flames. Staying dry was another challenge; we begged a roll of cheap trash liners from the campus maintenance staff to make ourselves ponchos and to try to keep our cardboard box houses from disintegrating in the rain. A few of the professors had set up a soup kitchen for us – by our pledge, the only food we were allowed that day. They also brought me medicine, since I had a nasty cold and refused to leave. I didn’t want to take it for the same reason I didn’t go home: the point of the exercise was that we wanted to experience what homelessness was really like, and the truly homeless didn’t have the option of going to a warm house when it got cold or drinking cough medicines because they were sick.*
But what stood out most for me from that night wasn’t until after the supporters had gone and the temporarily homeless students went to sleep. The campus lawn where we built our box city was directly across the street and maybe seventy-five yards away from the main railroad tracks that went through town. I had a rather choice refrigerator box as my temporary home – being short, I had the option of stretching my legs out and still having the protection (minor as it was) of my cardboard walls and trash-liner roof. It was still raining intermittently, so after the fire died down it was pitch black aside from the occasional headlights of a passing car. The wind rustling through the dry, falling leaves made it feel colder, but I was reasonably snug in my hat and sleeping bag.
Until the freight train came through.
I don’t frighten easily. By that point in my life, I’d encountered everything from murderous wife-beaters showing up at my door to creepy-ass evil entities showing up in my bathroom mirror. So give it weight when I say the most terrifying experience I’ve ever had was waking up alone in a pitch-black box, face numb with cold, chest aching with the most awful coughing I’d ever experienced before or since, damp creeping in all around me, and my ears were filled with the roaring thumps and screeches of the train plowing down the tracks that my brain knew were safely across the street, but sounded like it was directly next to my head. The ground reverberated with the force of the engine and cars flying through the night, the fearsome wail of the train whistle mixing with the moans of the wind.
It was a long time before I could hear a train whistle blow at night without my heart starting to race.
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It’s no secret that Thanksgiving is my most favorite of all the holidays. Often overlooked by the hoopla of the Christmas season, Thanksgiving is special because it encourages us to gather with loved ones and take stock of our blessings – what we have, as opposed to what we don’t. It’s an important reflection. In Western society, the majority of us have tons of commonplace perks that seem so second nature to us that most of the time we don’t even consider how amazing they are. Things like clean, running water. A stable food supply. A non-cardboard dwelling to take shelter in when it rains.
But there are a lot of other, more cultural things to be thankful for as well. Living in an era that values women having an education comes to mind – it’s nice not worrying about being burned as a witch for having an interest in math and engineering. The freedom to practice whatever religion or non-religion one desires is also pretty awesome, as is the ability to connect with people around the world every day via the power of the internet. And then you start getting into really specific simple things: for example, I wrote an essay a few years back about taking engagement photos for a pair of friends, one American, one from a country in the Middle East. We wouldn’t ordinarily see this as anything remarkable, until you consider that my photos were the first time the pair ever consented to being in pictures together: in my friend’s home country, admitted homosexuality is a death sentence, so something as simple as a snapshot of him and his partner together carries heavy implications if viewed by the wrong person. By contrast, my teenage cousins average three selfies an hour and tag half the people they know without thinking twice about it – big difference.
One of my personal thankful things, as I’ve stated before, is the community around Rivalcast and the friends we’ve made over the past year. As far as creators are concerned, getting projects off the ground can be really tough, and the fact that our team supports one another and keeps each other moving forward is what makes the difference between our projects succeeding or failing.
So as the snow falls over Cleveland this week, I have a challenge for the readers (and this will play into next week’s post, so pay attention): instead of spending the next few days planning out what loot we’re going to beat each other over on Black Friday, why don’t you spend those few days thinking about those little things you enjoy – be it music, books, a podcast, etc – and share your thanks by sending the creator a tweet or message about something specific you like about what they’ve done. It makes a difference.
*****
*I did, yes, end up getting pneumonia that night. I also happened to earn the first club member of the year award to go to a non-officer.
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