Saturday was not the day I thought it was going to be. The unusually hot weather beckoned outdoor adventures with my kids, but I opened my phone to see a distraught message from the chef at Zuni Cafe, with an image of a huge tag spray painted over our “How We Care” mural, the one I painted last month with Paint the Void and ER doctors from SF General.
The image made my whole body slump. To make this mural happen there were emails and texts to set up zoom calls, and late nights in the studio drawing and redrawing. There were long days prepping boards so big they only fit upright outside the studio and kept blowing over on top of me as I drew with the gusty wind blowing up the hill. There was paint mixing and material prepping and a pick up truck driven up on the sidewalk in a creative effort to bolt panels against the boarded up windows of Zuni Cafe.
And then there were 30 ER doctors who arrived to paint during one long day, creating a mural that tells a story of how an act of care ripples out and touches many (more about it here).
Graffiti is a form of art. Murals painted on the street for the public are always at some risk of this possibility. I paused for a moment to consider my options. I had completed my contracted responsibilities, and was not bound to do anything more.
I thought of all the people who came together to make this mural happen, took a deep breath, and texted the chef back to say I’d be there in an hour with paint and supplies and could I borrow his ladder?
I arrived on site and stared at the task before me. It was daunting. The silver spray paint reached the entire length of the mural. I picked up a paint brush and got to work.
A couple minutes later, one of the sous chefs walked out of the restaurant, and offered to help. We painted and chatted about our similarly aged kids and the challenges of online school. Then a dishwasher finished his shift and came out and offered to join us. As the hours went on, another staff member showed up and another. A staff member who had worked there for 20 years told me about how her kids had grown up at Zuni, and were now struggling to deal with the disappointment of online college. The chef grabbed a ladder to help paint the lettering, and told me about his struggles to keep the restaurant going, the staff employed and healthy, and his efforts to keep buying from the farmers and vendors who were depending on his business, despite the drop in customers. They were cooking 400 meals a day. In the past, these would have been served to customers, but now, most are being delivered people in need.
By 3:30, the spray paint was imperceivable. The lines of the mural were not entirely the same, but pretty close.
I packed up my car, and drove home and gave my kids a huge hug as they came running up to me. I tried to put my finger on what I was feeling beneath the tiredness.
The pit in my stomach was gone. This mural, which was imagined by a couple of ER doctors at SF General wanting to do something together to create something for their community, feels like such a beautiful reminder. In the face of setback, the spirit of the mural lives on, embodying the very message we pulled out of the silver spray paint: THE WAY WE CARE SHAPES WHO WE ARE.
When people show up for one another and care in the hard moments, the moments when we most need it, the ripple effects radiate far beyond.
May care show up abundantly in your life.
