Making sandwiches

This reflection was commissioned by my friend and artist Jen Bloomer, who has a beautiful series called We Gather. This month she releases her We Serve image (below) and you can get your own at her online store if it moves you. You can also subscribe to her Substack here. Thanks for the invitation, Jen. I hope you like it.

There are a lot of Hollywood-worthy images of what activism looks like right now— fierce lady boomers screaming in the faces of ICE agents in 20 degrees below zero winter weather, kids walking out on their high school classes for way more than a vape and a make-out session, even sit-ins at that bastion of the most basic of suburban life: Target stores. Ordinary people are showing up and showing out, and I am very energized by it.

I also want to remind us all—myself included—that the engaged moral life is not defined only by the cinematic moments. It is also largely made-up of the mundane and the unseen. Who are you when the local news crews aren’t there? When there is nothing to put on your college applications? When things feel downright dull? Who are you when the runny-nosed kids need care and someone doesn’t smell great and needs some hot soup?

I’ve been making sandwiches at my local family homeless shelter for a few months now, and it’s just such a setting. About six or seven people from my church come down at 10am on a Tuesday morning after a reminder email from our ringleader—wear a hat, don’t be late. I’m always the last one, even though I swear I am on time. I’m also about 20 years younger than anyone else it seems.

We line up our plastic trays and our ringleader opens big bags of bread, turkey, and cheddar cheese (pre-sliced), and we get to work. Mayo on both sides of the bread; we don’t want the sandwiches to be dry. Two turkey slices, one cheese. Watch out for the drippy turkey bags. Our ringerleader is always very anxious about how drippy the turkey bags are. One guy brings his own spatula for the mayonnaise.

Last week a 90s R&B playlist was booming from the TV in the corner (the rest of the decor can be summed up at religious aunt’s living room, haphazardly placed). I sang along, feeling truly blessed, while the rest of the crew argued about how much worse the Ziplock bags were than the paper bags they used to put the sandwiches in. Ringleader explained that the Ziplock bags were donated and the paper bags are not. She wants to be democratic about it, though. What do the rest of us think? I let the guy with the spatula speak up, feeling like I haven’t been around long enough to really weigh in on this matter of seemingly utmost importance. I just sing Boys II Men and keep spreading mayo.

Two turkey, one cheese. Two turkey, one cheese. Two turkey, one cheese.

It goes on like this for awhile, and then the rations of cheese get low and we have to really work together to make sure that we don’t start a sandwich if the proper ingredients aren’t available. I feel downright naughty and throw two slices of cheese in one of the sandwiches, thinking whoever get this special one is going to have their luck turn around. I don’t know if it’s true. I know the people who come get these sandwiches need way more than luck, but it still delights me.

Then we serve. Each person gets a honey bun and some fruit, and then the choice of chicken soup or pork lo mein, peanut butter or turkey sandwich. If they are still hungry after they eat lunch, they can get another sandwich for the road. There is ice water on the tables and a coffee station. People say thank you over and over again, and every time they say it I feel like an imposter. Thank you for this one measly turkey sandwich? Jesus man, I live up the hill from here in a house with three different kinds of milk and a cheese drawer so packed you can hardly close it. America is a fucking joke.

I don’t say that, of course. I just try to do my job and look people in the eye. Sometimes we make small talk. One guy—tall and lanky, reminds me of RZA—and has a floppy red crocheted hat on, like something you’d see on a baby doll. I ask him about it and he says it was made by his aunt, who just died, so we decide to name the soup after her - The Denise Special. I say that the soup will warm him up and he says, “I couldn’t get warmer. My heart is as hot as the sun,” and it does seem like that. His vibe is illuminated.

Another man in a soccer jersey who looks to be in his 20s asks me what color my eyes are and I leaned toward him and say, “Green, I think.”

“I always wanted green eyes,” he says. His eyes are brown—a deep chocolate brown. “I think your eyes are beautiful,” I say. “My youngest daughter has eyes that color and they’re very special to me.”

He smiles and nods quietly. I think maybe he is thinking of his own mom, but can’t be sure.

Eventually the line slows down. The sandwiches all disappear. The guy with the red hat and the one with the sad, brown eyes wander away into the streets where they live. And I get in my car and drive back to the house with the varieties of dairy and all the warm beds and the giant TV.

Why do I do it? I do it because it expands the circle of care in my life. I spend a lot of time making mac and cheese for my two kids and making doctor’s appointments for my mom and making cremation plans for my dad these days. It’s nice to put my body to work beyond the horizon line of my own family.

I do it because it reminds me that I am no different than anyone else and also that I have been given way more than is fair. You might call it perspective. The key here is that I don’t let it turn me towards pity, but humility and a little rage. It always makes me wonder why I am on one side of the buffet.

I do it because I like the rhythm of the sandwich making and the offering of the sandwiches and the small talk with the other volunteers and those who come to the shelter for a free meal. That part reminds me of other jobs I’ve had that I really enjoyed; I was a diner waitress for a summer in college, for example, and the busy, tactile nature of it really suited me. I liked flirting and serving and then leaving the work behind.

I do it because for those four hours or so I never look at my phone or think about that petty argument with my husband or wonder if I’m a bad mom. Everyone is fine. I’m fine. The people I serve, in their own ways, are often fine, too. They deserve a break, some lo mein, some need meds they clearly aren’t getting, or dental work, or grace, but they are resourceful and funny and sometimes very sweet.

In my world, as I’m guessing might be the case in yours, there is a lot of intellectualization and strategy and calendaring and therapy and sometimes I like to put it all down and do something very fundamental for people I am not related to. It gets me no closer to sainthood, and in fact might get me further away from it because the kind of people that “serve” at shelters are often very confused about their own motives.

As I age, I’m trying to get clearer and clearer about mine. I serve because it returns me to my own humanity in an edifying way, feels fun and basic and tender. It helps me connect with people I wouldn’t otherwise know in my own community. It gives me a chance to sing “The End of the Road” while coming up with my own little system for making sure my sandwiches aren’t dry. It’s not solving wealth inequality, but I’ve learned that’s a stupid reason for not doing something. Solving hunger is the craving of a deluded person with a full belly. Making a sandwich is something a grown ass woman can do on a Tuesday that feels small and right.

Keep hitting those streets and unfurling those banners and making those calls to your senator, please. Keep organizing those civic potlucks. Also find your own little place and time to “make sandwiches”—volunteer to read to kids at a school, or help people find services at your local library, or pick up trash at the park. It’ll edify you and make you smile and hopefully give someone else a little sustenance and a gentle interaction in the midst of a world that is feeling very harsh these days. It doesn’t solve, but it soothes, and the older I get, the more I see why that, too, matters.