Dec. 20th We are Here Together Today

Today, the Second Day of Winter Solstice, we look back at the last year and savor the company of those around us. There are people in our daily lives who lift us in gentle ways, often without our ever knowing how much we rely upon them.

These are the people we see in the coffee shop or on the bus. We might send them off to school every morning or greet them in the office once we get there. They are people we see at church or in AA meetings or on a Zoom once a month. They are the steady presences that keeps us going.

TLVotes, activists who worked to get out the vote from 2014 to 2017. Friends and collaborators.

The “everyday” people of our lives are family and friends and acquaintances. They are the heart and soul of our communities. We’ve negotiated conflicts with them (sometimes big ones, sometimes just little things like who should go get on the bus first at a busy bus stop). We've accumulated hundreds and thousands of memories together. The little jokes, the big occasions, the shared joys and sorrows--all of these give color and life to our shared humanity.

Kay Jorgensen, Fools co-Founder, with William and Kirsten, family given and choosen.

There are extraordinary people in our lives who appear ordinary because they are not famous or demanding of attention. They are extraordinary in their steadiness, their kindness, and in their creativity. We make things with them—the bed in the morning or a cup of coffee in the afternoon or even a drawing to hang on the refrigerator. What we are really creating together is a life, filled with the daily tasks of living. Without our daily companions, we are lost. We depend on them. Our wellbeing is bound up with theirs and their wellbeing is bound up with ours.

Let us not lose sight of the people who share our daily journey from waking to sleeping and back again. They are family, given and chosen. They are friends, seen daily or once a year. They are acquaintances, encountered in stores and on the streets, where we discover our common humanity through which community, celebration, and healing occur.

Remembering Our Way Forward In 2018, Fools Silena Layne, Sam Dennison, Meg Whittaker-Green, Dorian Rhodes, and Jackie Hider invite one and all to commence an evening of song, frivolity, and community as we celebrated 20 years of Fools in the Tenderloin.