Strange the things that move us, and how that moving gathers an energy of its own.
Here’s the story.
Jason Blake, a guy in his 40s I don’t know (I don’t know any of the people in this story, except me, and sometimes that even seems a tenuous knowledge or knowing)—well, Jason Blake is walking home from his shift at Delvino’s, a restaurant in Belfast. It’s a bit of a jaunt, and it’s night and dark and deserted (or that’s how I see it)—Belfast to Swanville—and he’s the victim of a hit and run, discovered by someone who thinks he’s a pile of clothes in the road.
Although I used the word “victim,” I don’t think that’s the right word at all. You’ll see what I mean and maybe you’ll come up with the word I can’t yet access.
This was in February, and I learned about it a few days ago, in April, a skimmed few lines of news in my inbox reporting that coworkers were putting on some things to benefit the guy who was hit and left on the road.
He had surgeries, is home now, PT, in a wheelchair. His sister is taking care of him.
I am so moved that the Delvino’s workers are actually personally “doing” stuff to raise money for him. Last Saturday morning they held a bake sale at the restaurant. I drove to Belfast, bought a piece of zucchini bread and some peanut butter cookies (trying to drop the weight I’ve put on, so way too dangerous to buy more), took no change. They were selling raffle tickets too and had started a silent auction with a smattering of offerings listed.
I have little, but what I do have are the visual ways with which I have marked this life, the passage, the exploration—paintings, photographs, mixed media pieces, and so the silent auction now holds three of them. Rarely do I just paint. Usually there’s much more or some more: feathers, pepper, seeds, wool and thread, words, papers, silks, ink and monoprints. An artist friend tells me not to give away any of my new work—she calls it luminescent. “Only give old work to an auction,” she says. I have given the luminescent.
No idea whether there will be any traction, who the lookers are, whether they even would like my quirky vision, but there we go. This is what I have. This is what I can do. This is a piece of me that might say to those extraordinary workers at the restaurant, “You have no idea how much you and your sense of humanity have moved me.”
One night this last week, half of what customers spent on their dinner went to Jason, and the workers had decided that every penny of their tips was his too.
In a day when we are so fraught with conflicts, when people are so ready to create boxes and differences, the dynamics of distance, to witness people whose lives have not been easy in the year of the pandemic offer themselves in this way, human to human, lifts me up, gives me real hope. They are a model for how to live, and I am so grateful I stumbled into their world.
Here is the link to the silent auction (open through 4/30). If anything moves you here, please bid. If you get anything of mine and want me to, I’m willing to drive it to your door if you live in Maine—well, maybe New England. Driving has seemed to save my life in these months and months of isolation, and so I’ve maintained my skills and often now hunger for the road.
And please let others who might be interested know about the auction or the raffle or the possibilities of this story.