Shelby and the Rainbow Road, Day 5

The church is freezing.

I actually prefer sleeping in a cooler climate than a hotter one. I snuggle up in the blankets and enter what I like to call a "coma-like state." But this, this is a different chill. It gets me all the way down to the depths of my bones. It's bad enough during the day, especially when we are down in the basement, but trying to sleep through it is another thing entirely.

I have now established a nightly routine:

1. Go to bed in shorts and t-shirt and struggle to maximize coverage from the small and thin pathetic excuse for a blanket I regrettably decided to bring.
2. Fail completely at attempts to fall asleep, shiver for 30 minutes.
3. Finally nod off.
4. Wake up at some ungodly hour in the morning, such as 4am or 6am, miserable, tired, freezing, and unable to fall back asleep.
5. Begrudgingly put on sweats and a sweat shirt, silently wish I had thought to bring warm fuzzy socks.
6. Drift back to sleep until Adam's "fire alarm" wakes me up, give the general area of his slumber a dirty look.

It's art.

Open Arms! :)

For Wednesday we were scheduled to work for Open Arms, an organization that cooks and delivers free meals to people with life-threatening illnesses who are not able to shop or cook for themselves. We arrived at their headquarters, waited for our meals to be assembled, helped ourselves to some coffee, and then loaded up the cars to deliver meals to 5 different people. The meals are specifically tailored to meet the nutritional needs of individuals living with HIV/AIDS, MS, ALS, breast cancer and more than 60 other diseases, according to their website.

Because of my natural intelligence, knowledge, charisma, and convenient seat in shot gun, I took on the position as Chief Navigator for this adventure. Somehow, we had a few problems with our given directions, but nothing that an iPhone couldn't fix. We took the meals in sets of two. Because of the nature of Open Arms, we had specific instructions to be clandestine about our delivery. We were to simply say "food delivery!" and make no mention of Open Arms. It was a little awkward because I didn't feel like I could speak with the people at all. I knocked on the door, said hello, set the food on the counter, responded to small talk if they made it, and then wished them a good day and left. I felt very detached from what I was actually doing. Even though I knew all the information on Open Arms, that experience has been the least connective for me. I think it would be interesting to either do delivery for longer, or be able to be on the kitchen side of things.

The view from the endless bridge.

We had a bit of a free afternoon, so Team Rainbow decided to chase down the infamous "endless bridge" we kept hearing about. Turns out the endless bridge is not actually a bridge. It's a slight platform connected to the Guthrie that jets out a bit over the river. It provided a great view of the city. More time was spent perusing the Guthrie gift shop, exploring the University of Minnesota (which only made me appreciate how unique and beautiful our campus is), and taking a walk through Dinkytown - their equivalent of Mass St. or Aggieville.

Perfect graffiti is perfect.

I have been contemplating our unique situation: not really volunteering for one organization all week, but many. I like that we are able to get a sample of many different ways of helping out the LGBTQ community, and we are able to meet more people and hear more stories. It is allowing us to grow and expand our horizons exponentially due to the seven different circumstances we are privileged to experience. Of course, there are always ups and downs. I sometimes feel like I've only just scratched the surface before we have to move onto the next activity, and I'm left wanting more. Everything we do is in small spurts, and I feel like I am not able to do as much as I could had I been doing the same thing the whole week. However, I understand that this Alternative Break is less about changing the world and more about changing me. I want it to change how I think and how I perceive and how I dedicate myself. With this as my goal, I do feel very blessed to have so many different experiences with different organizations to draw from, all in one week.