2000 Miles

And these frozen and silent nights
Sometimes in a dream
You appear
Outside under the purple sky
Diamonds in the snow
Sparkle
(2000 Miles…The Pretenders/Coldplay also covered my favorite version)

So, it’s pushing toward mid December, we now have the first snow of the season, and once again, I sit on the sidelines of everyone doing their shopping, seeking the other meaning of Christmas. The love, the kindness, the compassion.

Yes, I will soon have to join the masses to buy things. But, it’s something I just do not enjoy. I don’t enjoy someone handing me a list and telling me to get what’s on the gift list. I love meandering around, drifting in and out of little out of the way places, and falling on something that may catch my eye, and immediately makes me smile, because it is perfect for someone in my life.

I hate the commercial Christmas. I love the love of the season, the peacefulness. Which brings me to this post, today. I know that this sounds like I have my resting Grinch face on, but I do not. Christmas is beautiful, and lovely, and brings back so many memories of the West End, my grandparents, and it brings back memories of cold days in college, racing through winter finals, to hit the roads to home. To my old room, to my friends, to my Christmas job at the local mall, the community spirit, back then.

Last night, I was playing a Christmas playlist while I was busy in the kitchen. This song popped on, and to me, it is my favorite Christmas song. It spoke to me in college, it spoke to me when I was a flight attendant, and couldn’t get out of LA to get home for the holidays. To me, it’s the most beautiful expression of the season.

I went to sleep with this song in my head, and woke at 3am. I wake at 3am, every night. I wake, I think, and I go back to sleep. Last night, I couldn’t get back to sleep, so I started to read through my Facebook newsfeed, and ran across a story from my alma mater, Eastern Kentucky University. It was a story about students who began a service. A service that is run only on donations, and the story was sent to the alum pages of Facebook. In case the alum wanted to help. They were appealing to the alum because they knew that many of us, if not all of us, would know what they were doing, and why it was so important to the students who needed this service.

The service is delivering boxes of food to students in need. Yes, there are students who are in need. Not every student has unlimited money, debit cards, credit cards, parents who can fund their every need or desire. These are the students who are in college, but after the needed expenses are paid, have no leftover funds for food. A real struggle. They are not the students who need money for Chipotle and Uber. So, a group of students have come to the alum because back in the day, we pretty much were ALL the struggling college kids. I know I was. My tuition was paid for but any extras, any food that wasn’t on the tuition food plan, any books, all on me. My mother was able to send me 50.00 every two weeks. I know it was the early 80s, blah, blah, blah…but I worked two and three jobs, each summer, to fund the coming year of what I would need. But, I was still very fortunate. I had a way to support my college self.

But, with money tight for most of us, back then, there were students who were way more in dire straits than we were. And, this is where my blog is going…

The story that I was reading, told of the kids getting their inspiration for the service from a legend from our college days. She was a little woman known as Ma Kelly. Ma Kelly opened up her big, old, rambling house, cleared out most of the furniture, crammed tables and chairs, everywhere, and took everything off the walls. She opened up a haven for the EKU college kids. She brought communal dining to a new level. She cooked, she served hot lunches, sometimes a Sunday breakfast, but always for the cheapest of money. I think for like 2.00 you got a huge meal, and a drink. She had chipped plates and glasses, and she allowed us to all sign the walls of the house, write messages, etc. You never knew who you would find at Ma Kelly’s. She served all kinds of southern yumminess, no frills kind of food. She made the best stuffed peppers, and she was only open to college students. If you couldn’t afford her charge for lunch, she let you eat for free. No student left her house hungry. She was a legend in that town.

Eventually, she passed away, and then later, her house was torn down, and the legend was over.

This new group of students are taking the essence of her years, her memory, her kindness, and doing it, dorm to dorm room, free to the students in need, operating on donations from everyone.

I started thinking about our own little market of love, and how we could make that work with people who may need a little extra help, extra love, extra kindness. What if we each thought about a neighbor, a family member, a friend, a co-worker, who may need the extra help of food. What if, when each of us order during any given week, we each order items for a family who may need the gift of food? It doesn’t need to be an elaborate gift basket, or a whole la di da issue. If you know someone who could use the help, buy some items, even the most basic, put them in a box or a bag, and either gift the people or do it on the sly, giver unknown.

Let’s all search our hearts, let’s all be the Ma Kelly of our community…

I don’t know, just a weblog from the heart, from a girl who believes that the magic of Christmas doesn’t have to come from an elaborate store. She believes in Christmas miracles, she believes in love, and she believes that kindness will always win.

Locally grown with local love…go shine your love light on someone…

XOXO,
Cosmic Pam