Please pardon the infrequent postings these days, it seems as though the spaces in my life have been slowly filled with things like taking a more active interest in my spirituality and falling in Love.

Much runs through my head in a week that occurs to me as good fodder for the blog. Every day is full of little lessons and anecdotes, beautiful moments that if properly articulated could bring home the Pulitzer, though at the end of the day when i'm laying on my unmade bed staring up at the ceiling, listening to the sound of car stereos and emergency vehicle sirens i find myself at a loss to collect these moments into one coherent statement. So without further ado, here i will surrender any such ambitions and simply present some seedling thoughts which has flittered across the screen of my mind as of late.

There are certain things which i can count on with regularity in an average workday. For example, when i walk through the door into the playroom where the 2-year-olds for whom i am partially responsible are playing, i can be sure that little Laney will say something to the effect of, "Leave me alone, Derek," or "Get out of here," or "Don't look at me!" These are the terrible twos at their finest.
I can also always look forward to nap time with Fiona wherein we have a special deal that i will sing a little 'bonus' song to precede the standard, 'Hush Little Baby' (which is used to get them all the way into sleep). When we finish her story book and it comes time to decide which the bonus song will be, she invariably says, "Ummmmmmm.....ummm......uuuuuuummm..." until she feels sufficient suspense has been built around the issue so that she can say, "Old MacDonald Had a Farm".
I always know that the same guy from the halfway house is going to ask me for change while i'm walking between houses and another guy from the same place will ask me for a cigarette, (neither of which i am ever able to provide but this does not seem to deter them).

I have been noticing, even since our arrival, an increasing number of white people in this predominantly black neighborhood - mostly artistically inclined young people who appear to be moving in for the cheap rent and easy access to Berkeley, San Francisco, etc. Interestingly enough, today i found myself feeling some resent about this fact. Not that i have anything against white people. Some of my best friends are white people. In fact, my own body is a white person. However i view my position in the neighborhood as very different from the average arthouse freeloader. Myself and the organization i am with is here to help raise the people and community around us rise up out of the systems of oppression and injustice that hold them down in these conditions and hopefully raise the living standards of their own neighborhood. What happens when the white kids start to show up is that the door is held open for more well-to-do folks (often white) from other parts to come in and start buying up all the good (and relatively cheap) property and remodeling and refurbishing and redeveloping to fit their tastes. The white kids are able to do this because they are obviously not rich, and while they will be harassed they do not appear to pose such an imminent threat as their upper-class counterparts. This breaks up the social bedrock and allows those with the gold to descend. This then forces the residents who struggle to make it at current rent prices out of the area and again into another run-down location where they are left again at square-one because they are unable to build a solid social or economic foundation with all the hustling around such as this that goes on, compounded with the fact that they come from generations of strife and instability.
What i have just given is a long-winded, West-Oakland definition of gentrification. In case you couldn't glean from the subtle clues, i don't like it.

Aside from that, life is just very different out here. Today on the playground as school was letting out i saw a kindergarten teacher standing there with a can of whipped cream calling out, "Anybody want some whipped cream?" Children would come up with hands out and she would squirt little dollops into them. The kids loved it! I guess aside from licking their hands its not all that unsanitary but you would be hard-pressed to find such a scene in the finer public schools in the hills. One thing that strikes me again and again however is the sense of community that flourishes amongst the children here. Children whose parents can't afford to give them much have to resort to things like, God forbid, playing together. Its not the individualistic, each-kid gets-a-pile-of-toys-or-a-video-game-system-and-goes-off-into-his-own-little-egocentric-world-to-learn-the-modern-American-way type of scene. Its kids, running the streets, (yes, this is unsafe and can lead to all kinds of trouble but indulge my romantic waxing for the time) altogether in a world of their own, playing with sticks and stones and other tools of the imagination. If ever you spot a bag of chips in the group, the chips are property of the group and are passed from hand to hand equally. If we go to the playground with a basketball we are inevitably approached by a roving pair-or-more of boys (or girls) who offer to play or ask to borrow it. While i'm sure this way has its ups and downs, its a refreshing taste of change in a world where it seems half of us don't know our next-door-neighbor's first name.

I know it must seem like something of a sacrifice to leave the comforts of middle-class, middle America to come to the rough streets of West Oakland to do this kind of work but i must say that i truly feel that it has been by far more of a blessing than a sacrifice of any kind. Here in these dilapidated streets where the police and ambulances wont answer to calls and many of the parents are still children i find a certain simplicity and directness that has gone missing in the more well-to-do world. More than anything however, i am most struck by the vitality of the environment. Those who struggle, live, and live to the core of their beings. Walking down the streets on Sunday mornings i can hear the resounding bellows of 'Hallelujah!!!' cascading out of church doors as hearts long weary from the burdens of an unforgiving life find their expression in songs of praise and thanksgiving. I look in and see a little man hammering away at the drumset, a preacher with his arms outstretched and tears streaming down his cheeks and a congregation of my human family swaying together in the swell of deep and joyful voices. It is then that i get a glimpse of that indomitable human spirit, what Barack Obama in his book refers to as the 'Audacity of Hope' which lets me know that through all this darkness, through all this war and poverty and greed and corruption, we will not be defeated in our quest for life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness.