one of the lucky ones

Today it's hovering right around zero. With the 20mph winds it must be dipping below. Northern Delaware's roads are covered with a thick sheet of ice topped with snow. 

I'm having flashbacks to J-term on the Hill, particularly sophomore year, when I lived in Thorson and walked 15 minutes to class alone almost every day. I would try desperately to cover every inch of my skin in several layers of clothing, but still ended up with brain freeze after just a minute or two.

* * *

A day or two ago, I was leaving my local YMCA after a morning yoga class when I saw a man digging in an ashtray on the corner across from me. He picked something out of it. A cigarette butt, I guessed, long enough to light again. And then he stuck it in his mouth, digging in his pocket with his other hand. Must have been looking for a lighter.

This is the second time I have watched someone do this in the past few months. The first time was outside my local library, back in late fall when it was just starting to get cold. Before that, this action -- digging in an ashtray for a second-hand cigarette -- did not exist to me.

* * *

The Code Purple night sanctuary has already been enacted in our area several times this winter. When the overnight low dips below 20 degrees Fahrenheit, additional shelters open for those without a place to go.

* * *

Somehow I am surprised, again and again, by the poverty here. I am surprised by the fractured sense of community, the centrifugal force of the city despite grand efforts to pump life back into Wilmington's downtown.

I am repeatedly surprised by the depth of my own privilege. I do not know what it feels like to want a cigarette so badly that I will take a piece of one from an ashtray and relight it, to not even think twice about doing so. I do not know what it feels like to sleep without shelter at 21 degrees. I sometimes forget how lucky I have been to know true community; to have had parents who were present and able to teach me good habits; to have been the recipient of kindness; to have seen things get done against all odds; to have learned and traveled; to have come out of dark places and remained whole.