8:00 am

I just walked around the space on the roof and tried to imagine myself there for however long it will take. For the first time, it struck me I’ll be living in view of the world in a “glass house”. I felt my chest pounding. I’ll be <gulp> vulnerable. Certainly a luxurious vulnerability considering the status of most of the world. My stomach will be full. My head will be protected from the elements. Fresh, clean, safe drinking water delivered. How can I possibly feel vulnerable? And yet there it is. The leering face of fear.

Quick. Get back to the work. Place of safety. Place of routine. Place where it’s too easy to bury oneself in doing rather than being.

11:00am

The energy in the shop is swirling with warmth both literal and figurative. Our shop is more of a meeting and sharing and learning place than a place to buy. I notice shoppers linger. People become engaged in what’s happening here. They learn about fair trade. They learn how products are made and about the producers who create them. They pause to read stories of the young women who are no longer begging. They become a part of what’s happening. Inevitably they buy something because they are moved. Or they volunteer.

3:00pm

A woman entered the shop with a newborn baby asleep on her shoulder. A floppy hat framed the baby’s angelic face. The weight of the baby was clearly a strain. I offered the woman a chair in Selma Dublin’s Discussion Salon where people sit to chat. She sank gratefully into the chair, the baby nestled at her neck. She closed her eyes in peaceful harmony with the baby and stayed for a long while.

That’s what our philosophy is: Connection. Harmony. Peace. I remind myself of that as I’m pulled in a thousand directions….when I’m fretful about all the tasking that fills my days.  There’s a greater purpose going on. It’s when I keep that greater vision in my head that I’m energized.

That’s part of the reason for the roof. To slow down enough to celebrate.  To take time to honor the positive things happening around me.  I’m weary of negative energy that stings like poison arrows.

9:00pm

My day is over. I achieved very little administrative work. What I did was more significant ~ connected with passionate volunteers who run our shop; met visitors who came in to meet “the woman going up on the roof tomorrow”. (I can see the question in their eyes as they shake my hand, “Does your elevator go all the way to the top, my dear?”

I was to sleep in the tent tonight because King 5 TV is coming at 5:00am to film.
Instead I’m going home to have a final restful sleep in my own bed. Tomorrow’s the beginning of a new beginning.

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