Learning how to "make do."
Learning a bit about parenting.
Giving and receiving.
Saying many hellos and goodbyes.
Being surrounded by Tejano lovers (Tejano can be described as Spanish music to a polka beat).
Knowing how certain people like their soup dished out (more substance or more broth).
Holding hands in a circle before supper with volunteers and families. Jumping together as Lorraine's "grace" before supper one evening.
Learning different standards and lifestyles.
Learning not to judge.
Cooking for lots of people... often.
Making exceptions.
Begging.
Talking... Listening...
Encouraging.
Connecting sometimes. Failing, too.
Sweating.
Indulging in swimming and eating ice cream to cool off in the summer.
Yet huddling in blankets and sleeping bags in our living room of our non-insulated house in the surprisingly cold winter.
Learning balance of personal and group time in community living.
Saying "No." Saying "Yes."
Trying to figure out who "they" is when Dorothy says, "They're taking my check," or "They can't make me do that."
Driving home very slowly after picking up our donated soup because I forgot the lids to the soup buckets.
Witnessing children's amazing resilience and creativity and being fed by their energy and laughter!
Being on call 24 hours.
Claiming our inconsistency.
Plotting the demise of cockroaches and rats.
Learning flexibility, responsibility, and patience.
Feeling like we're in the unfair position of deciding people's future, especially when we have to ask a family to leave.
Watching the parents become children in our Easter Egg hunt and Halloween piñata party.
Sleeping (or not) through the trains, dogs, and Tejano.
Cleaning. Running errands. Writing referrals.
Answering the phone and the door.
Escaping to the pantry for a moment's quiet during soupline.
Learning to decipher drunken mumbling.
Being blessed by soupline guests... "It was a good meal. Thank you. God bless you!"
Working more with hands and heart than with the head.
Reevaluating priorities.
Chopping vegetables!
Using lots of garlic and chili powder.
Taking turns holding the babies.
Struggling with consensus decision-making.
Finding one's limits.
Becoming indignant at how inhumanely some people are treated.
Pretending to do minor house repairs or seriously fixing things depending on skill level.
Having to turn people away because we can't offer everything.
Yet otherwise accepting without discrimination.
Working with group cooperation instead of hierarchy.
Understanding our sometimes tight finances so that we wait anxiously for the mail–not for personal letters, but in hopes of getting checks and no bills.
Watching movies. Playing with children.
Serving soup to the man who broke into our house.
Watching TV together after our long string of Thursday meetings.
Trying not to live by society's set divisions of differences.
Learning to know the forgotten and to love them.
Discovering humility.
Dishing out an extra plateful for Eat ‘em Up, one of our soupline guests with a large appetite and an amazing rapport with children.
Being thankful for what I have.
Receiving marriage proposals.
Being asked if I am a nun.
Sorting through donations.
Being turned on to Catholic Worker philosophy and movement.
Loving simple pleasures.
Asking questions of investment and involvement in each other's lives.
Living as Caucasians in a predominantly African-American neighborhood in a predominantly Hispanic city.
Watching (and accompanying) as families juggle work, housing, daycare, school, ex-spouses, etc. While living together in a single room and sharing upstairs space with three families they haven't chosen to live with... and watching them make it.
Essentially living at Catholic Worker House is learning how to live and to care how others live.