The Crowd of the Door

I had another thought about volunteering at the warming room last night.

We were early, my son and I, so we sat in the car for a bit and chatted. Then, figuring we could go in a few minutes early and get set up to serve dinner, we got out of the car and walked around the corner to the church’s front doors.

There was already a crowd of people amassed waiting to get into the warming room. There were people wearing many layers, others with thin jackets, some pulling suitcases or small wire grocery carts. There was murmuring, not much talking, while everyone stared at the doors waiting for them to open at the magic hour.

Right away, I thought we should retreat back to the car and wait for the doors to open. But that seemed to me to be making a statement I didn’t like. I’m too good to wait with you in the cold. So we stood there, about two or three people back from the door, and I asked a couple of people, “How you doin?” like it was every day I waited with a crowd of homeless people to get in someplace. But they all knew better. Still, they answered. I’m good. You?

Then I thought, this is foolish. “We’re with the kitchen crew,” I said, and then people cleared a path for us, as if it would be a bad idea to interfere with the kitchen crew. And one woman with a rolling suitcase pounded on the door. The staff person opened the door just a crack. “This here is the kitchen crew,” the suitcase lady said and then the door awkwardly opened, and we became insiders. Everyone else had to keep waiting outside until the appointed admission time. There were no complaints. People were patient. They knew the drill.

I tell this story because years ago, the anticipation of a scene like this would be enough to deter me from volunteering in the first place. What do I say to people? What will they say to me? Will they ask me questions I can’t answer? Will they resent my being there?

And then I got over myself. I think about my mother telling me 10,000 times, “Let a smile be your umbrella.” And I smile at people. And that makes it hard for them to be stern or irked or suspicious or resentful although no one has really ever been any of those things. It’s just me worrying in advance.

I am just here with the kitchen crew being my smiling self and so, when I think that, I relax and remember my purpose is to sling hash and chit chat with folks who’ve spent the entire day trying to stay warm someplace that won’t treat them like trash and kick them out. I treat people like they’re in the buffet line at a wedding and I’m the caterer. I kvell over the carrots and rave about the dirty rice and make sure they have a fork and a heart-shaped chocolate. And I keep smiling and they smile back. It’s magic.

I just wanted to mention all this in case anyone was hanging back from volunteering because they were worried about a crowd at the door.