Brown Birds, Money, Misc.

I remember my mother and father telling me that everywhere in the world they ever went they saw little brown birds. All the little birds looked pretty much alike, whether they were living in China, Greece, Africa, or in our backyard.

Ran a 6-miler this morning that took me from the night into the day. All along the way as I clopped along, I noticed many such little brown birds waking up with the sun. It's cold now--winter officially arrives in a few days. But the birds are still plentiful, and they hop about in the grass and soar to the tops of trees for a brief reconnoiter before they fly away on some mysterious errand.

There are other birds abroad at dawn also. Cawing crows, jeering jays. I, a stranger, barge right into this sociable avian community. As I pass through it, I'm aware how little mind I usually pay to these feathered denizens of the trees and the trails. We do have a bird feeder, but watching birds coming there to fill up day after day creates the (obviously false) impression that the feeder birds are really the only birds around. Not true, not by half. Don't know where I'm going with this--just wanted to pass along my observations.

Of course, this is where I'm going: I'm a critter, the birds are critters. All critters animated by that same magical spark called life. And this leads, albeit bumpily, into the part about the money.

Every year at Christmastime I read Jon Carroll's column on the Untied Way.

The column consists of instructions on how to become your own Christmas charity, namely, by giving money directly to people who need it. Every year I think, yeah, I should do that, but I never do. This year the impulse to do it was very strong, mostly out of guilt because over the last year I've found myself becoming very judgemental and mean spirited about the homeless-- especially in SF, where I have to walk around what feels like hordes of them every time I'm on the streets. I've repeated to myself "Judge not lest ye be judged," and (as my mother used to say), "Everyone was once somebody's baby," but as I've said these things I've also found myself thinking "Eeew. Get a grip, guy. Get out of my way. You don't have to live like this. Does your having made bad decisions somehow mean I should give you my money?" No, I'm not proud of my uncharitable feelings, just telling you they arise, right along with mounting exasperation.

Not to draw this out. Thursday I went to the ATM and got five $20 bills. I didn't go looking for the needy, but it was pretty easy to hand out the bills. The first time I did it I was on a lunchtime walk near a freeway on-ramp and I saw a woman leaning out over the sidewalk holding a hand-lettered sign. I came up behind her--couldn't read the sign--and handed her one of the bills. "Thank you," she said, as I kept walking, and then more loudly, "Thank you!" when she saw amount. And me? In a flash, from feeling pissed off at all people who don't have perfect lives, I went suddenly to experiencing a bottomless ache. I didn't care how that woman got there. It simply and instantly was obvious to me that for a living being to do what she was doing was hideous and infinitely sad. I felt the same as if she'd been a corpse. That is, here's a life not being lived. What a waste, what a waste.

Over the rest of Thursday and then Friday I managed to get rid of the other four bills. One went to a guy slumped on the cold sidewalk, his back up against a a building. His left eye was partially closed by a recent encounter with a hard object (a fist?). He was cradling a paper cup with some coins in it, but it was evident this wasn't a day for him to panhandle too aggressively.

There were three other people. One was the type of guy I usually sneer at silently, an older man (probably my age--definitely "older") who was wearing a scraggly beard, leaning on a crutch, and holding a sign that declared he was a wounded vet. Usually I'm so hip and cynical that I won't entertain for a minute the notion that every "vet" I come across is really a vet. They're scammers. Yeah! But during my quest to give away money, it came home to me that even scammers have to eat. Per Jon Carroll,"...people on the streets who ask for money need the money. It is not an occupation that people aspire to. The people on the streets are not middle managers seeking to supplement their incomes. They need money, and you have money." True. No one gets into soliciting alms as an easy way to get rich.

The third person I picked was another older person, a woman, who sat tailor style on the pavement, at the top of the BART stairs. The fourth was a pretty hale looking fellow selling Street Sheet. I found I didn't care about the bona fides of these people, I just wanted to ease the hurt that filled me when I allowed myself to empathize with the very down and very out. I was starting to feel really, really good about what I was doing. After I gave away the last $20, I thought awww, I wish I had more to give away.

Can I really spare $100 this time of year--or ever? Well, in order to continue living and enhancing my immensely privileged life, I should be saving up the bucks, not passing them out. You know what? I can't think of a single important thing I'll have to go without for having done what I did. Maybe I'll have to carry that interest on my overloaded credit card for another month. Maybe I won't buy another holiday sweater to cram into my already overstuffed closet. Maybe I'll have to buy Safeway brand ice cream instead of Dreyer's. Is your heart breaking for me yet? Mine either.

Giving needy people cash is no solution to the homeless problem. But I doubt I as an individual (powerful though I am!) can do anything other than what I did that would be any more immediately effective.

Except maybe enter a road race as a runner for charity. See, this is still a blog about running.