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Loud and Silent
Four weeks ago at KK, a first-time guest waited till the restaurant was closed and then offered to play a song on his flute. "In the same spirit of love that you run Karma Kitchen, I do gift-economy yoga in the parks. I also make my own flutes, and I wanted to share this song for all your hard work today," Vlad Moskovski said. With his meditative fluting, all of us almost forgot that we were tired. :)
Three weeks ago, a regular volunteer unexpectedly came in for setup. She helped us frame the theme for the day: Freedom. Most of didn't realize that Susan Schaller was internationally renowned for her work with the deaf. Before she left, though, she taught us how to communicate "Freedom" in sign language. At the end of the day, all the volunteers did a little tribute to her with a photograph that show the begining of the "freedom" expression:
Two weeks ago, some hip-hop artists were so rocked by the KK vibe that they spontaneously got up and started rapping and beat-boxing some lyrics about Karma Kitchen. It had the whole restaurant jamming together. (Although one of the guests had recorded it, we have yet to receive that video! But some bootleg audio is below.) At the end of their performance, a young woman on the other side of the restaurant yells out loud: "I just started a new job, and we get 30% and I'd like to just like pay-forward that discount to you guys. You guys rock!"
Bootleg Audio-Clip:
Last Sunday, a big table of 10 had their meals, participated in our activities, checked out the kindness table, talked with the server, paid the check forward, and just when we thought they were about to leave, they huddled together to do a cheer: "Who do we appreciate? Who do we app-reee-shee-ate? Karma-Kitchen. Karmaaaaaaaaaaa-Kitchen." (It was much longer, but that's all we remember :)) Almost instantaneously, everyone felt elated.
Through all the loud and silent expressions of joy, Karma Kitchen continues to touch hearts.
--Dipa on Mar 21, 2011
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