Empty Bowls

My empty bowl

In my work, I am often reminded that there are hungry people in my community.  I am grateful for this reminder because hunger is commonly portrayed as an issue in "other" places, not here in the United States.  But hunger is everywhere.

This is the concept behind Powderhorn Empty Bowls, a wonderful event that I got to attend with my friend Ben.  Community members are invited to donate what they can, share soup with neighbors, and "go home with a sense of community and an empty bowl as a reminder that there are bowls that need filling year-round" (from the PEB Facebook page).  Donations from the event go to organizations in the neighborhood that address hunger and other basic needs.  Empty Bowls events happen in communities all over the world at the beginning of November.

Like BareBones, which I blogged about a few weeks ago, PEB is a volunteer-run community event.  Ceramics students at Powderhorn Park and other volunteers from the neighborhood spend months before the event throwing bowls.  The week before, more volunteers get together to make soup and bake bread in a pretty awesome outdoor earthen oven.  Guests donate what they can and choose a bowl from a gorgeous array.  They fill their bowls with soup (Ben got split pea, I got minestrone), pick up a slice of bread (okay, maybe three), and eat at long communal tables, enjoying their new bowls, delicious food, and the company of other wonderful, soup-eating folks.  Last year 1,325 bowls were made, over 1,400 people attended, and over $22,000 were donated.

I missed Empty Bowls last year because I was out of town, so I was especially excited to go this year!  Community events always prove to me that the world is very small: I ran into several people I knew from working in Powderhorn, from LVC, from my current job, and from Grinnell.  And found out that some of those people knew each other in very random ways (the friend from Grinnell knows one of the LVC friends because Grinnell friend grew up in North Carolina with LVC friend's housemate).  That's why I love community gatherings!

Sadly, I forgot my camera that night.  So instead you just get photos of my gorgeous new bowl sitting pretty in my kitchen!

BareBones

I've never been all that interested in Halloween.  Coming up with a great costume always just seems like a lot of pressure.  But I love Día de los Muertos.  I think most cultures deal with death better than Americans do, and I love the idea of a celebration that simultaneously embraces, honors, and laughs at death.

My camera isn't good enough to take photos in the dark.  But there was fire!

So for Día de los Muertos (which was actually Tuesday and Wednesday), I'm posting about a wonderful annual event in Minneapolis called BareBones.

Puppets are big in the Twin Cities.  Not hand puppets like the ones you played with in elementary school.  Giant, whimsical, awesome, beautifully artistic puppets.

One of the big puppet events in the Cities is the BareBones Halloween Outdoor Puppet Extravaganza, and Linn and I attended last weekend.  In addition to amazing puppets, there were people on stilts, aerialists, and a live band.  The show was really more of a Day of the Dead celebration than a Halloween celebration.  There were themes of accepting and embracing death as a natural part of life and remembering our loved ones who have passed.  At the end of the show the audience was invited to sing a song about remembering and call out the names of those we miss [Izzy].  Experiencing all of this outside in the dark, huddled under blankets and perched on a hay bale with Linn was quite moving.

The other thing I love about BareBones is that it's all about community.  Basically the entire event is put on by volunteers, from building the sets and puppets, to performing, to the people helping folks find their seats and directing traffic.  After the show, the Brass Messengers, a great local band, played and an amazing organization called Sisters' Camelot served soup, bread, hot chocolate, and cider to the cast and guests!

So, in honor of Día de los Muertos (a little late), take a moment to remember and send love to those amazing people who are gone now, but touched your life forever.

Joy

Congratulations Suzy and Michael!
All photos taken by my talented father, Richard Rodriguez.

I love weddings.  Everyone is happy and the point is for people full of love to come together and celebrate and bask in all that joy.

I'm 25, so I'm just hitting the age where my peers are starting to get married in droves.  In the last year I've been to three weddings of friends (okay, that's not droves, but it's coming!) and they've all been very different and really lovely.

A few weeks ago I had the privilege of heading back East to join my friends Suzy and Michael as they celebrated their partnership.

Suzy was one of my best friends in elementary school--she came over to my house every day after school in fourth and fifth grade.  I have wonderful memories of being together, watching old episodes of I Love Lucy on early-release Wednesdays, swimming, and playing duets on the piano (Suzy is a beautiful piano player...I would pick out a few notes just to join in).  One summer we held an art camp for kids in the neighborhood in my backyard.

Although Suzy and I both had closer friends once we got to middle and high school, we still got together to make Christmas cookies every year and carpooled to school once she had her drivers license.

One of Suzy's closer friends in high school was Michael.  Yes, they've been together for nine years.  There were plenty of jokes at the wedding about how nothing was really changing, or how it's about time, but honestly, now was obviously the right time because it was such a beautiful day.  I couldn't be happier for them.

I really was honored to be included and invited to her wedding.  In fact, she invited my whole family!

Some photos of the day by my talented father:

In front of my parent's house with my brother David and Linn--looking sharp!

The wedding was at the Wheaton Botanical Gardens in Wheaton, MD.  It was a lovely location and I'm a fan of any wedding with the ceremony and reception in the same place!

My beautiful mother and David, hamming it up.

Suzy is a great dancer, so there was lots of dancing!

And an excellent playlist, including high school favorites, like Outkast's Hey ya:

And my mother even joined in the fun!

 The cake was from a favorite bakery across the street from where Suzy and I grew up:

And then there was more dancing!

The night ended with a lot of friends at a local bar, where we all got to visit and catch up.  It was truly a wonderful night.  Congratulations Suzy and Michael!