Rain Day
By Niall Twohig
The rain is falling, not too hard yet. Not like last week’s hard rain. It came in what’s called an “atmospheric river.” A river in the sky. You could see it moving across the Pacific, a cloud like a great tidal wave. That wave unleashed the most rainfall California has seen in a hundred years.
I’m lucky. Sheltered in a cozy little apartment, coffee at hand, cat asleep at my feet, Lianne in the next room teaching in her sing-song voice, Aislynn down the street in a warm classroom with good teachers who are doing her good.
My copy of Steinbeck is also close at hand. It makes me think of the Okies who came to California – no, who were pushed to California, who were pulled to California, by forces beyond them. Unnatural forces that created an unnatural disaster called the Dust Bowl. Those poor folk were forced off their lands, forced to set out for a promised land. What they reached was anything but that. In California, they found themselves homeless and hated, policed and pitted against each other. The same system that forced them off their land, now forced them to become wage slaves to the big growers. The same system that forced them to migrate, now tore them apart from one another and pushed them into a state of affliction where only their wrath ripened. It's no wonder Steinbeck calls that system a monster.
Rain beads roll down my window. I think of the new Okies. After dropping Aislynn off at school, I walked to Newport where I saw Butterfly and Rebecca, the mother and daughter who live on the streets. I didn’t see them per se; I recognized their tarp and the shape of them underneath in a tight embrace. This is the position they sleep in every night, the position they maintain on cold or rainy days like this.
I am sheltered here as they huddle there. I hear the rain outside. They feel it through their tarp. I turn on the heater. The only warmth they have is each other. How long can that last?
I used to talk to Butterfly and Rebecca more regularly, but a wedge formed between us. I thought it formed the day they were confronted by cops. I tried intervening, but this made the situation more awkwardly public than Butterfly wanted. But it wasn’t just that moment. It was my whole demeanor towards them – pity. I have something. I pity them for having nothing. Such pity put me above them. Not only that. It erased their agency. They became objects of my pity. What I felt as pity they likely felt as an affront on their humanity. No wonder the wedge.
There’s a chapter in The Grapes of Wrath where the protagonists, the Joads, find a momentary utopia in a government camp. In the camp, there are no bosses or police. There is no government. Everyone pitches in to keep folks fed, to keep things clean, to keep agitators out, to keep music playing. In this chapter, Steinbeck makes an important distinction between charity and solidarity. There is no charity in the camp. There is only solidarity. A hungry family gets five dollars from the collective pot because that food in their bellies makes the camp healthier and more joyous.
As Steinbeck writes, earlier in his book, “I have a little food” and you have no food, therefore “we have a little food.”
What makes solidarity different than charity? Charity is an act of giving that occurs within a power relationship where the giver is superior to the receiver. Charity turns the receiver into the object of the giver’s care and, in doing so, robs them of their dignity. Through solidarity, I give to you aware that you and I are not separate. If you’re well, I’m well. If you’re unwell, I’m unwell. Through solidarity, the distinction between giver and receiver fade. In giving, the giver receives. In receiving, the receiver gives. The agency and dignity of both are maintained through the fact of their interdependency.
When I pitied Butterfly and Rebecca, I could only give them charity.
To give, in solidarity, there can be no pity.
These days I give Rebecca books. She’s a voracious reader. She loves fantasy, especially stories about little critters with big destinies. Watership Down was a hit. My favorite, The Hobbit, got a lukewarm review (that’s okay). I’m currently giving her books from The Redwall series; more little critters with big destinies. She seems to love it. These books aren’t charity. They’re given from one book lover to another. Equals. I give them knowing that this world I move through, that my daughter moves through, is better when young people are fed good stories. The warmth these books give Rebecca comes back to me, comes back to my daughter.
This is the real gifting. A type of gifting where, as Thich Nhat Hanh says, “There is no distinction between the one who gives, the one who receives, and the gift itself.”