week 28 // you are my wild

 Sunday evening.  So rainy all weekend, and I couldn't take another second in the house.

Terry suggested that we go to the King Center downtown.  We would probably have it all to ourselves, because who is foolish enough to go at 7pm in the rain?

And he was right.  We fools had it all to ourselves.

Minutes before pulling into the MLK center parking lot, we were enjoying some warm doughnuts at a nearby shop.  A homeless man walked up to us and asked us for money.  We had nothing but warm doughnuts to offer him, as we rarely carry cash or even change with us these days.  He became mad and called us racists.

This is not the first time a homeless person has called us names for not giving him/her money.  I'm pretty accustomed to this sort of exchange actually.  But it's not the norm for my kids, so the moment had a new and deeper sting.

Neve: "Why did he say that?  Everyone knows the color of your skin doesn't matter.  It makes me mad that he called us that.  I wish you would have told him that we're not."

Fiona: "He's just mad that it's raining and he's homeless.  Mom, I'm sad for him.  Do you really not have money?"

Me: "I really don't have money.  Don't be mad, Neve.  No one is right or wrong."

It felt odd to follow this conversation up with a visit to Martin Luther & Coretta Scott King's place of burial.  Like we had planned this whole thing as a clumsy lesson.  But we went.  And we imagined Auburn Avenue the way it was in it's heyday.  When the Royal Peacock was swinging and Louis Armstrong (among so many other incredible musicians) played for crowds of people who weren't allowed into other nightclubs.  We imagined the storefronts with fresher non-peeling paint.  We imagined women in their pretty dresses and men in their hats, walking to Ebenezer Church.

In some ways, so much has changed.  And in other ways, not enough has.