MLK to 5K: A SingleServe Love Story

Whenever I tell someone about SingleServe, one of the questions I inevitably get asked is whether or not the volunteering has led to matchmaking. Although it wasn't really my vision for SingleServe to be a do-gooder's Match.com, the query always comes up, and I always just smile and say no. But the truth is, maybe I should start saying yes.

See, about four years ago, when SingleServe started, I met Nikki Smith. She came to one of the first meetings when we were trying to figure out exactly what we were doing. Lucky for me, even though we didn't quite figure anything out, she kept showing up - to our first project at the MLK Day of Service and then to Bike Athens and the Classic City Roller Girls and ushering at the Morton Theater.

Photo by Buck Sharp

Before long, we were hanging out in between SingleServe events. Becoming part of each other's lives over dinners and happy hours and fro-yo. So much so that Nikki Smith came to my family's Thanksgiving this year. And she was my date to the company Christmas party. This picture is from my 32nd birthday party this summer. Now, the two of us are training for a 5K because exercise is really only tolerable with the best of friends by your side.

When I think about it, what I really hoped for when I started SingleServe - aside for doing great things for the community - was friendship. Finding people who were around my age, facing similar situations in life, who were just generally great people. Meeting while volunteering and becoming more than people who stood side by side pulling privet. I can honestly say, as I look toward our fourth MLK Day of Service on Monday, that whether or not SingleServe ever leads to a date for our volunteers, it's already led to true love.

Here's to friends who didn't know what each other looked like without work gloves and with makeup for almost a year. Here's to SingleServing.

Join us on Monday by registering here. You just might find a friend for life while you're planting a tree.

Stairway to Haven

Since my return from Vegas, I wouldn't exactly say the hand I've been dealt has been a pleasant one.  As happens many a time when you belly up to the table of life, the cards aren't the ones you hoped for and there's no ace in the sleeve.  Instead, you have to toss your hand, nod to the dealer and cut your losses.

But losing my chips has left me a bit blue-deviled.  I'm not an inherent risk-taker, but when I decide to take one, the consequences of failure tend to hit me like blunt-force trauma.  I don't recover well.

A funny thing happened, though, this last losing hand.  Even as I bemoaned my losses at one table, I was racking up winnings elsewhere.  Other hands played suddenly came through like windfalls aplenty...and though my pockets in one moment seemed empty, the next they were filled with other treasures.  Proffered Kleenex.  Hugs.  YouTube hilarity and brownie breaks.

Centerpiece at The National

On Thursday, I found myself lunching at The National with friends. The air inside was cooled by the cinderblock exterior; the colors were soothing, muted, peaceful.  The food was exceptional; the company even more so.

I was feeling well and refreshed that evening as I sat across the desk from E and chatted about this and that.  Realizing the lateness of the hour, we both agreed to pack it in for the night.  Outside, the wind picked up and the rain, which had been falling steadily, began an earnest, violent downpour.  We lamented our umbrellalessness as we pushed out the office door into the second-story stairwell landing.

Through the windows, we could see a tableau: the Athens skyline against an eerie greenish-white sky split above by a malevolent looking black cloud, its edges curling and twisting like it might give birth to a tornado at any moment.  And just as we took in the scene, the power died; emergency lights cast bleak white light on the stairs, various sirens and alarms sounded through the building, and we headed for cover.

That's how E and me found ourselves huddled together under the concrete stairs while the wind howled and tore at the trees.  The rain pummeled the building.  And as we both looked up the radar on our iPhones and messaged homebases for advice on what to do, we concluded from the bright red doppler cells and the wisdom of our phone-a-friends to stay put.

Wall Stairs by Aaron Tang

It was dark under the stairs.  A bit musty and dirty.  From time to time, the voices of other inhabitants in the building would echo through the stairwell.  But E and me stayed put, our little legs stuck out in front of us so that the only thing visible to passersby were four well-shod feet.  But our voices - and more importantly our laughter - made it clear that we were there weathering the storm.

In 20 minutes - maybe 30 - the wind seemed to be more of a raspy rant and the rain dripped rather than dumped and E and me emerged from our stronghold as people under the stairs.  Outside, the eerie lighting remained, but the worst seemed to be over.  As we stood at the bottom of the stairs and conferred over whether it seemed safe for us to make a break for it, E said, "I'm glad you were still here."

"Me, too," I said.  "And from now on, we'll just think of this as our 'Stairway to Haven.'"  We laughed again, filling the empty stairwell with our cackling.

As I pulled away from the parking lot - E behind me, safely in her car - I thought of how lucky we were to have averted disaster.  And I realized, that, even though it doesn't always feel like it, I do have an ace up my sleeve...and that when the chips are down...when it seems like the only choice is to fold as a loser...that I've actually always got a trump card: that those dear ones who surround me will be there during the storm.  And though we may not come out winners, we'll at least hide under the stairs together until the worst of it passes.

Kudzu: A Profile

It's almost been nine years since Mom and I found three little fuzzballs in the garage being nursed by our resident feral cat. By then, experience had taught us that kittens untamed grow up to be wild untouchable things. So we became the surrogates to three little kittens, whom I named Nigel, Mischief and Isabella.

From the beginning, runty Isabella favored me. On stumbly legs, gamboling towards me with a tiny mew and bright blue eyes. Those eyes soon turned a clear, cool green. And when I decided to keep one of the kittens to take to grad school with me, it wasn't as though I had any choosing to do. The choosing had already been done.

Much to my chagrin, I soon found out that Isabella wasn't so much an Isabella. I lamented that I wouldn't have a sweet little girl cat. But a few tears shed, and I realized that I couldn't go on calling him Isabella. Mom, me and my boyfriend at the time tossed around names as we drove home from the vet's office. Looking out the window, he said, "What about Kudzu?" It stuck.

I wasn't even 22 yet. And green. Lord help me, I was green. I remember sitting in my very first apartment at Abbot's Run in Wilmington, NC, with nothing but my belongings and this little scrap of fur and ears and a long, long tail. It was with him and Peter Jennings that I weathered September 11 so far away from home in a strange new city where I knew no one. And my first disastrous creative writing workshop. And the rest of the roller coaster that was grad school - making a place for myself and making friends, through boyfriends, breakups, soul-crushing defeat and loneliness, my first real job and too much growing up to even cover.

In my second apartment, a giant Italiante revival style house built in 1818, he would sit on the wide windowsill in the kitchen facing the street below and wait for me to get home from work. I would sometimes overhear the ghost tours that went by my house during the summer and fall, the tour guide sharing some tale that featured a cat in the window, and I wondered if Kudzu ever scared the breath out of some unsuspecting soul.

Kudzu rode back and forth from North Carolina to Georgia when I'd go - 385 miles one way. He'd sit in the slanted back window when I drove the Corolla and rode shotgun when I bought the Rav. Perched on the gray upholstered seat, lifting his face up to the air conditioning when it was hot.

And when I decided after almost six years on the Carolina coast that it felt like the right time to go back home to Georgia, he was the one thing that seemed to hold steady in a revolving world. He sat in my lap as we crossed the 17th Street bridge, and I wailed like my heart was breaking. He seemed to know that it was all going to work out just fine.

Because Kudzu has always had that look of infinite wisdom about him. In my ordinary, non-superhero life, he's my Alfred, always calm and cool and reliable. His almost royal bearing, front paws pressed together, head held aloft. But lest you think he's got some sort of pedigree, check out the snaggly tooth hanging out on the left side.

Besides Isabella, he's gone by many (many) other monikers, including 'Zu, 'Zu-bug, 'Zubilee 'Zu, Buddy B and Bebo, although I have no idea where the "b's" originated.

And suddenly, my time with this constant companion, whatever his name may have been, is coming to an end. After three month's worth of doctor's visits - an ultrasound, two bone marrow aspirates, an infectious disease panel, antibody assessment, countless CBCs and two blood transfusions later - there is no answer for the chronic anemia.

It's hard to be at peace when losing something so dear. But I have prayed for peace and for acceptance. Over the weekend, I had a dream that Kudzu was sitting in a little woven basket, all his fur regrown, looking quite robust and healthy. And a voice kept saying, "He's ready to go."

There's no way to predict how long he has. We thought he was a goner last week. Every day is a blessing that I try not to take for granted as I wait for the story to come full circle, for the unexpected little fuzzball from the garage to make an exit as unpredictable as his entrance.

The hours are waning between me and my beloved Kudzu. And while the sorrow is palpable, the peace is, too. The peace that the Heavenly Father has a place for him, where he'll wait for me - maybe on the sill of a giant sunny window.