Tonight I got off the metro after a long ride home, feeling a little bit nauseated from watching a movie on my iPod on the train and walked briskly through the cold to my car, which was parked at the top of the metro station garage. Hungry and chilled, I was busy imagining what I was going to make for dinner and which things I needed to run to the grocery store and pick up on the way home, feeling slightly sorry for myself since I worked late on a friday night.
As I hurried accross the top of the lot, I realized my car was actually one floor down and headed for the stairwell at the back of the lot, mildly irritated with myself. I opened the door to the stairwell and stopped short, seeing what looked like garbage strewn about beyond the door, spread out over the stairs and the landing. Then I saw a big blue sleeping bag, looming large with the unmoving form tucked inside in the corner of the stairwell landing. I looked closer and realized that the items strewn about were not garbage, but belongings, placed about as if the stairwell was a home.
I quietly stepped backward and shut the door to the stairwell. My startlement had turned to a feeling of shame and embarassment, as though I had walked into a stranger's bedroom without knocking. Turning around, I walked slowly down the ramp to my car instead, unable to stop thinking of the stranger whose home I had just invaded. The air seemed colder, knowing the sleeping stranger curled up on the concrete wasn't going to sleep in a warm house tonight. I wondered if they had eaten any dinner, or any food at all today, or yesterday.
I turned back to look as I reached my car and saw a figure limping slowly from the direction of the stairwell through the darkness. I hadn't even considered that the sleeping figure might be ill... but of course they were ill, I thought to myself-- how could you maintain your health living outside through the winter, eating only whatever you find? I shut the door to my car and didn't care that it was too cold for the heat to work.
As I rattled out of the parking garage in my old sedan, driving slowly so the engine would have time to warm up, I headed to Roots Market, a local grocery store that sells all organic produce, ecologically friendly products and specialty health items. I am forever urging people in my life to be conscious of where they shop, and I buy everything I can from this grocery store, even though my 19-year-old car is missing a hubcap and could use a little work and I live almost entirely on student loans.
I always tell people: you don't have to be an eloquent speaker or a writer or an activist to have influence. Every time you take out your wallet you endorse someone-- who are you endorsing? Is it factory farming, or local farmers? Is it animal cruelty or humane practices? Do you know who made your clothes, or what's in your food? Every penny you spend goes to someone, and you choose who it goes to-- no one else can take that away from you.
I carefully watch where my money goes and who I endorse. I know which businesses I want to support and which I do not, and I know what matters to me about the practices of those I give my money to. When I pay for groceries at Roots, I have selected them from a shelf that contains products I've read the ingredients of-- products that are biodegradable, organic, locally grown or made, and free of chemicals.
But I forget that not everyone has the means to have even this small influence. Some people do not get to take a stand on factory farming or sustainability. Some people do not have a spare dollar for a McDonald's sandwich to fill their stomachs, and they'd gladly accept that dollar from anyone who'd be willing to give it and eat food from whoever was willing to sell them a meal.
If you have a warm house tonight, count your blessings. If you have a hot meal tonight that is even remotely healthy, count your blessings. And if you have the means to make choices about where you spend your money and what you want to promote, do it for those who can't. The more money you spend supporting local and natural food, the cheaper local and natural food gets. The more money you spend on fairly traded goods, the more laborers are paid. The poorest of the poor deserve good health and fair wages.
To all the strangers in sleeping bags tonight, I hope things begin to look up for you soon.
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