Pin Tales: Haight Ashbury

Posted on June 6, 2017 by Joey@IdeaJones

 

The one that almost killed the rest.

This was the site that almost killed the project, but I learned something important — don’t let the negative blind you to the positive.

I thought that if any place on Earth would be receptive to this project, it would be the Haight Ashbury district of San Francisco. It’s famous for its role in the Summer of Love and hippie culture. Admittedly, 50 years have passed since the Summer of Love, and much of the imagery of that time and the hippie movement have become marketing tools. Still, I thought that the residents, and tourists who flock to see the famous places, would be open to receiving a Safe Harbor Pin.

Within minutes it was clear how wrong I was. Mark said it best (which often happens): “This has the feel of a busy city street in New York.” People were in a hurry, many with ear buds in their ears, walking quickly, not making eye contact. Presented with a smiling stranger holding something out, they averted their gazes and quickened their paces. Some muttered, “I don’t have any change” as they passed, and I realized they had very quickly sized me up, determined I was a panhandler, and couldn’t get away from me quickly enough. Most of them never even had a chance to accept a pin or reject it — they rejected me on first sight and that was that.

It’s the first time I’ve gotten that reaction. Not that everyone wants a pin, which is fine, that’s their choice. And sometimes a person is too busy to stop, or having a bad day. But this is the first time a large number of people have quickly assigned me an identity and rejected me. It was quite an experience and I have a new appreciation for street hawkers and panhandlers and how hard a job it is.

I’m an introvert, and shy, so it’s hard for me to approach strangers anyway. Buffeted by a wave of rejection in a short time, I was ready to curl up in an introvert ball like an armadillo. Even so, I made myself continue to approach people, and a few gave me a hearing. Of those, two agreed with the premise but didn’t want a pin (one said she never wears jewelry and another didn’t explain, which is fine). Those I thanked and said goodbye to.

Others accepted a pin, including:

A group of women, maybe 18-30, accompanied by two young  girls and a baby in a stroller. They listened politely to my brief explanation, showed enthusiasm for the idea, asked questions about the pins, and thoughtfully chose the ones they wanted, urging the girls to get pins as well. The two girls asked me to repeat what the color patterns mean, and chose pins based on that, as did the adults. One adult asked for a second set for another family member as she planned to give her own second pin to her mother. They smiled broadly at the explanation of the meaning of the pins, and at the information that each card had two pins so they could give pins to other people. They thanked me and we wished each other a good day.

A young woman with dreadlocks listened to my explanation, smiled and said, “That is such a good idea. We need to make other people feel wanted. May I hug you?” I agreed. We hugged, she selected a pin, wished me a good day and left.

A woman about 40, jogging past with headphones heard me tell someone that I wasn’t going to bother her. She stopped, pulled out one ear bud, said, “It’s okay, I’m on hold, what’s up?” I quickly explained and offered her a pin. She laughed, said, “I love this!,” selected a pin, thanked me, and strode off.

A young couple debated whether it was “fair” to take a set of pins each to share with others, asking if they should just share a set with each other. One mentioned the person he would give his second pin to. I told them it was fine to take a set each to share, which they did.

We left the Haight Ashbury area earlier than planned because we couldn’t even gauge the rate of acceptance — most people never even had a chance to say yes or no. I was feeling dejected — it’s hard to stand on a corner being sized up and dismissed by herds of people before you say a word. We moved on to Mission Dolores Park, which was a very different experience.

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Pin Tales: The Church Ladies

Posted on June 6, 2017 by Joey@IdeaJones

This project is about human interaction — how we choose to treat other people.

With thanks to Janice Jow, who suggested writing down and sharing the stories from The Love Bead Safe Harbor Pin Project.

This is about the day I met the Church Ladies.

I was “churched” growing up, which is to say we were members of a congregation and attended services every Sunday. Eventually, my family moved, and we stopped going to church, mostly for reasons having to do with my Dad and how he was. I remained a Christian in my heart, if a confused one (it took a lot of time to process Dad, his demons, and his effect on our family and on me). I did attend a church for a while during high school as a friend was becoming a lay minister and leaving to attend a seminary, and he asked me to go to give moral support. Then I graduated and moved away, and while I attended the occasional service, I was no longer churched and belonged to no one sect or congregation.

Even though I was brought up in a fairly conservative Christian church, it never made sense to me that only one group of people had all the answers. I took classes in comparative theology, and have always respected other faiths and their adherents, and the right of any person to believe what he believes, whatever it is. Some people don’t believe in any god at all, and while I disagree with them, I recognize that they disagree with me as well, and we both have the right to think as we do. I no longer have much contact with churches or organized religion any more, though, except for a few friends who are members of (very) different religions.

Some of my family members were very conservative, very evangelical, very good at lecturing and not listening, and frankly quite unpleasant human beings. The word “evil” would not be out of place when describing them. And I’ve certainly met additional people who might not be evil, but certainly use their beliefs to judge, condemn and make themselves feel superior to others. These people belong to different religions, or none, but they share an unappetizing determination to Tell You The One True Way. It’s made me wary of anyone who is quick to discuss matters of faith.

So when I saw a group of ladies, dressed nicely, carrying a church banner at a rally… honestly, I was going to edge past them in the crowd. Which is judgemental of me. And an especially odd choice for a Christian woman to avoid a group publicly claiming their own faith. It was instinctive, pain avoidance, based on years of unpleasant experiences. It was so immediate I didn’t even make the choice consciously. It was more like the automatic reaction that sees a shadow, thinks “snake!” and recoils.

One of the women watched with curiosity as I explained Safe Harbor to a young man with spiky, bright green hair and many piercings. He jangled as he sorted through the pins, and it made me smile. I looked up and there she was, watching us, a woman a few years older than I am, dressed in a tasteful skirt and blouse, standing under a banner proclaiming her membership in, let’s say, “Good Shepherd of the Rock Church.” She tilted her head slightly, peering at us.

I was ready to be defensive on behalf of the young man sorting through the pins, on his behalf, certain she disapproved of him, maybe of me. Then she smiled, trying to see into the bag, clearly wondering what we were doing. It was the universal human expression that says, “Hm, that looks interesting and that person is having a good time. I wonder what’s going on?”

As he chose his pin and left, she made eye contact. Okay, I sighed to myself, let’s get this over with. I trudged over (on my crutches), forced a smile, and said, “Would you like a free Safe Harbor pin?” I held out the bag of pins.

She glanced into the bag, still smiling. “What is that?”

I explained Safe Harbor, expecting her to politely refuse. Instead, she turned to the other ladies in her group. “Come here! You have to hear this!”

The other ladies gathered around us. I explained Safe Harbor, showed them the pins, made the offer again to the group. They took pins, just reached in and grabbed a pin without the usual sifting through them. I explained that some of the pins they were taking symbolized support for LGBTQI rights, or civil rights, or…  They glanced at the pins in their hands and just nodded. It was information, okay, good to know. Nobody asked to exchange or return her pin.

“Would you mind explaining how you made these,” one of them asked. “We’ve been looking for something like this,” said another. “There are people where our church is, they don’t belong to our church, but we talk from time to time, and they feel unwanted, rejected,” explained the first woman. “They feel unsafe,” added another. “We’ve been looking for a project we could do to show solidarity with our neighbors,” she added.

I explained how to make the pins, answered a few questions.  “We have to let people know that if they feel unsafe, or rejected, they can come to us,” one of the ladies said. “They don’t have to join the church. They can just come in if they want to.”

“We want them to be safe,” said another.

Judge not, lest ye be judged, indeed.  We said goodbye, and went our separate ways.

Save

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Field Guide To Love Bead Safe Harbor Pins: The Health Care Pin

Posted on June 5, 2017 by Joey@IdeaJones

If you’re new to the Love Bead Safe Harbor Pin and you see one “in the wild,” on someone on the street, in a restaurant, at school, at work, or any of the places you might find cool people, you might wonder if there’s any significance to the color, or the charm hanging from the pin. The answer? Sometimes yes, sometimes no.

The safety pin is what makes it a “safe harbor” pin. So no matter the color or decoration, it’s still a Safe Harbor Pin. The rest is about standing up for a special cause that is close to your heart. It doesn’t mean you don’t care about anything else, just that this particular cause is one you’re especially passionate about, or is especially relevant to your life, or in the lives of people you know.

The Health Care Pin:

Whether your life is saved or not shouldn’t depend on your income.

This was something suggested to me by a Pin Sponsor, one of the fantastic people who got online and asked to buy a set of pins and sponsor a set to be distributed free to someone else (maybe you?).  She wanted a pattern that signifies a commitment to seeing that people are able to find and afford the health care they need. She suggested the red and white pattern, which is also used by emergency health care providers and disaster relief organizations.

Wearing this pin shows that access to affordable health care is an issue close to your heart (a phrase which takes on added meaning in this case). You believe that you, and that person over there, and people you don’t even know exist (which, if you think about it, is almost all people, since there are billions of human beings and you probably can’t name them all) deserve access to affordable, effective health care.

Sure, there is a debate to be had about whether or not society should pay for treatment that doesn’t have a lot of scientific evidence to support its effectiveness. Or whether or not society pays for, say, somebody’s plastic surgery to change the shape of a nose that works fine, as a nose. Those are things we should debate and decide.

But should your neighbor die of heart disease because he can’t afford to see a cardiologist? Should kids be crippled or killed by disease because their families can’t afford the vaccine that would prevent it? Is there a basic level of health care that should be accessible to everyone?

Note that I don’t say “this is about universal health coverage.” It’s true, I do think that’s our best option, for a host of non-huggy-feely, practical reasons, but this isn’t about any one approach. It’s simply a starting place, “Yes, I believe there is some basic level of health care that should be available to all of us, so  now let’s figure out what that looks like and how we pay for it.”

Here’s one reason why society (meaning all of us) benefits when there is general access to decent health care: no matter how wealthy a person may be, he isn’t self-sufficient. We depend on millions of other people to make, sell, repair, clean and cook things we need or want. Those people do a better job if they’re healthy. And if they don’t have to wait to be treated until whatever it is becomes an emergency, our own health care costs go down. And they aren’t hocking up germs on whatever it is they’re working with because they couldn’t see doctors, which means we’re healthier. We need lots of people at work, earning a living (and they have more available income to spend if they don’t have to go into bankruptcy due to health care costs), making things, buying things. Healthy people do a lot more of all of that stuff.

Sometimes, when one of us is trying to make a decision and getting bogged down in details, Mark or I say, “The first question is: Do you want to do this at all? If you don’t, the details don’t matter.”  So this isn’t about what the program looks like, or the funding mechanism. It’s about that first question, “Should we do this at all?,” and the answer, “Yes!”

Yes, you should be able to get your eyes checked, the cavity in your tooth filled, your flu shot, your blood pressure checked and treated if needed. So should I. So should that person over there, and that one (What’s his name? He looks kind of familiar…), and her over there (I think she works at the supermarket…). Yes, that baby with the inherited muscle problem should be able to get it treated so she can walk. Yes, that toddler who ate a watch when nobody was looking should be able to get it removed, by a doctor, in a safe facility.

The peace sign on this pin? Peace of mind. Freedom from anxiety about how we’ll manage to see doctors, or dentists, or get whatever medical treatment we need. For you, for me, for everyone (yes, even that guy whose name we can’t remember. Him, too).

 

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Love Bead Safe Harbor Pin Weekend Is Here!

Posted on June 1, 2017 by Joey@IdeaJones

814 chances to choose radical respect!

If you’re going to be within driving distance of San Francisco this weekend (June 2-4), and you’d like a free Safe Harbor pin (to show that you support treating everyone with respect), you can celebrate the 50th anniversary of the Summer of Love and get yourself a free Love Bead Safe Harbor Pin.

We started out planning to distribute 250 sets of pins (each card has 2 pins on it, so that’s 500 pins). We just finished packing up to make the trek, and we’re coming with 407 sets! 814 pins that promote “radical respect,” the idea that we can choose to treat everyone, even people we don’t understand, or with whom we disagree, with respect. We can recognize our common humanity.

After this, we’ll try to carry a few spare sets with us (because, as other people who’ve gotten pins and worn them can tell you, it’s a conversation starter), but this is the last big pin giveaway we have planned. We’ll put a few in our Etsy shop with part of the money going to charities (like Opening Doors, helping refugees resettle, or Mustard Seed School, helping kids from homeless families), but this last distribution in San Francisco marks the end of the project.

We have a couple of “pop up” sites that won’t be announced until just before they start, and one we can announce now. Here’s the schedule — for updates, like the pop-ups, check our Facebook page, https://www.facebook.com/Ideajones/

Friday, June 2:

2-3 pm: Haight Ashbury Free Clinic, 558 Clayton Street, San Francisco, CA

558 Clayton Street, San Francisco

3-4 pm : Pop-up (location TBA, check our Facebook page) — we’ll announce it here when it’s time

Saturday, June 3:

10-11 am: Pop-up (location TBA, check our Facebook page) — we’ll announce it here when it’s time

noon – 1 pm: SCRAP, 801 Toland Street, San Francisco

A note about times — it’ll start at the listed time, and I’ll be there until I run out of pins. So far, they’ve gone quickly (I’ve given out more than 100 in 15 minutes). So if you really would like to get your hands on a set, best to be there as close to the start time as you can.

If you know anyone in the Bay Area who might like a set of pins, please share this. Hope we see you soon! #safeharbor

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Pin Tales: Giving Girl

Posted on May 30, 2017 by Joey@IdeaJones

This project is about human interaction — how we choose to treat other people.

(Thanks to Janice Jow, who suggested writing down and sharing the stories from The Love Bead Pin Project).

After a few months of handing out Love Bead Safe Harbor Pins informally, just carrying a few with me and handing them out whenever someone admired the pin I was wearing, I had worked out a system. By then I had started slipping the card into a cellophane sleeve, thinking that I wanted to make it clear that this hand-beaded pin was a little gift, that thought and effort had gone into its creation. Most were single pins, one on a card.

I decided to step it up and make 125 pins. It took quite a while. They’re not something you can just crank out. It’s actually pretty tough on the hands to make a lot of them. But I picked a local event, made 125 pins and bagged them up. A few were smaller, and more simple (a plain pin with a pendant), and I put those on cards in pairs, but the fancier ones were singles.

Mark drove me to the event because parking was hard to find and I needed him to drop me off (when you’re on crutches, as I usually am, distance is an issue). I got out with my big sling bag of pins. I didn’t know how long I would be, I reminded him. It might be hard and take time to give away 125 pins. It took 15 minutes.

A group of young women looked through the pins, holding them up and discussing which pin would look best on which person, “You always wear pastels, so this one would look good. Hold it up to your shirt…”  One young woman watched as her friends sorted through the pins and debated. She reached in and picked a package of two pins, each just a pin with a small pendant.

“No,” her friends told her, “not that! Here, this one is prettier…” The held up other choices, single pins, more elaborate.

She shook her head. “I want this one,” she said, smiling as they protested that she should get something nicer. “I like the idea of keeping one and giving one away. I can share this with someone else.”

In an instant, she had a major impact on this project.

A light went on in my head. “That’s how it should be,” I thought. “There should be one pin to keep and one to share with someone else.” It makes giving an integral part of the project. It turns the person who shares that pin into an ambassador for the ideas behind Safe Harbor. It makes each pin even more truly Love Beads.

Because of her, there will always be two pins on a card. One to keep, one to share. So she is a part of every set of pins we give away.

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