Event Euphoria

Greetings,

This past weekend was a heart warming gathering.  The silent auction was an outpouring of gifts that generated great strides towards covering the health recovery costs and avoiding the further damage that a financial calamity could cause.  We have received good contact and support through the web site and Facebook.  These have been good tools for keeping people informed about what is happening here.

Thank you to all those involved with the planning and presentation of the gracious and bountiful affair.

There is still more to come.  The burnedman.org site will be instrumental as we move forward and for those that wish to revisit the most recent event.  We hope to have more images and info posted soon.

The special event in Pescadero at the Native Sons Hall was indeed a life affirming time.  It was a quick sweep through my personal history.  People came from the local environs, throughout the bay area and beyond.  The music groups that played were a spectrum of sounds that brought life back to the old church where the party was held.  The food was also bountiful as a sort of pre Thanksgiving fare that I trust hit the spot for those that enjoyed the lasagna and dessert varieties available.

I have been remiss for not writing to this blog more often because of all the planning for the event.
The rest of the time, not doing that, was spent in bed or trying to keep my head from spinning due to the bureaucratic mind bend of health care.  This new personal health administration is becoming both my occupation and my new pain.  I am learning a lot.  Health care reform is definitely worth pursuing.  Sometimes I think all the politicians should have to go through the system on the level of the middle or lower classes, so they can get a bit more perspective on what can or should be accomplished.

Beth and I are very fortunate in life to have a very caring community of relatives and friends.  I believe that is, in general, true for most of the country.  Somehow as a species we seem to motivated by crisis.
An odd observation is that, a good calamity brings out some very positive human characteristics like compassion and other real virtues.  The community chest and these friends are a tangible treasure.  

We are now trying to tie up the loose ends of the event.  The Monday after we worked to restore the hall.  There were items to return and leftovers to eat and store.  Thank you to all those that made food and brought different things to drink.  There was enough there for twice the number of attendees.  If not for the rain we might have had a few more people there.  However, we did manage to flow out of the building and into the street as the weather became milder to allow for that to happen.  It was the only day of rain between a week before and a week after of sunshine.  Must be a blessing of sorts.

I'll look forward to having more community gatherings.  Hopefully not always centered on such a crisis.  I do recognize that there has been a number of benefits to attend recently.  Tomorrow we are going to one in Felton to support a friend battling a cancer.  Then there is another, later, in support of the burn center where Marc and I were treated.  There is a constant pulse of compassion to be attentive to, as there is always something happening to somebody.  One thinks one is immune to such things as we blithely go through the mundane days.  Then that something happens.  It makes it quite evident why it is so necessary to craft a solid community in our lives.

Thank you all for being that great assurance.  It is the people that make the healing whole.

I should have a bit more time for blogging.  Now it is time to continue the process of building on this event and new adventure in philanthropy.  I intend to get more of the 501(c)3 in the works for the Burned Man efforts as the year winds into the holiday season.  It is with some good satisfaction that I am able to participate on a Posada project (a 2" scale nativity scene) for the local town church alter.  It is just the right kind of volunteer activity with which to keep occupied for the next month or so.

Life has been very full during these past four and a half months.  I thought it full before this injury occurred, but then, it got fuller!  I hope to get my truck back next week.  If I get it the weekend of the 20th, there will be a full moon.  That will mark 5 full moons that it has been parked waiting to deliver river gravel to the Oakland exhibit and complete the original plan for that weekend.  Slowly, we are angling to get back on a certain track.  I know there will be a few more curves before the new track is discovered. 
I wish it never happened.  That seems so long ago in some regards, but hauntingly recent as well.

I look forward to seeing all of you again soon.   It is great to have parties, to see good friends that haven't been seen in some time and meet new people that expand the world in which one lives.

Time to get my feet up!   More soon.....later.

Sincerely and with the warmth of a full heart. 

Glenn Kimmel