Day 136 - Do the Shuffle with the Consul General of Macedonia

Date: May 22nd, 2010

So let's talk about P.W.A.P. for a second.  That stands for Party With A Purpose and it is the name of the group my good friends and neighbors, the Nicholases, started as a new way of raising money for charity.  Because they aren't directly affiliated with a specific charity, they have the freedom, each time they plan a party, to send their money somewhere new.  I think its just a fantastic idea.  I've also been trying to get myself to one of their parties for almost a year, but without luck.  Seems to be every time I'd hear about a P.W.A.P. in the near future it would be at a time when I was out of town (the last one was in February, I believe, when I was in DC) or when I'd already made plans I promised to keep.

Having gotten deeply frustrated with myself for never being able to attend, I sat down with Josephine and Jihan and devised a plan.  Wait for it.  I'm going to give you all a moment to marvel at the brilliance you're about to read before I actually lay it on you.  Here goes.  Maybe, my exquisitely intricate brain reasoned, if I committed to doing something to help them plan their party, I won't be busy when it happens.  Sort of a "clear the calendar, here I come" idea.  I know, it seems simple.  It may even resemble an idea one of you has had, but I assure you, it was genius.

Ok, not quite as genius as I thought, it turns out, but it still got me to the party.  A couple months back, I spoke to Josephine about doing a charity auction to help them raise money for their cause.  Ahh, see, now all those random "look what I did for an auction" entries make sense, don't they?  I started gathering donations a couple weeks back from friends and compiling the list of what all we had for it so I could be ready.  Then I almost agreed to go camping that weekend.  That's right.  I put weeks of effort into a project and knew the date I needed to be in town and available for it to succeed, then I almost booked over it anyway.  This is why my phone has my calendar on it people.  This is why.

But enough about the lead up.  Let's talk about the party itself.  There are many worthy charities in the world, but the Nicholases have chosen a particularly wonderful cause, in my opinion.  For the past two parties they have worked with Auxilia International.  The charity provides money, resources and support to orphans, widows, the elderly and the infirm in Lebanon.  Being Lebanese themselves, this has become a particularly personal issue for my neighbors.  Its hard to explain what empathy looks like in words.  But seeing the effort they put in to helping people in a place that has seen such beauty and such pain at the same time, well, that explains it pretty well.

I was incredibly excited that they allowed me the honor of helping them with one of their parties.  Once all the donations for the auction were gathered and the display set up, it was time to just hope and wait.  Unfortunately, it wasn't as successful as I'd hoped.  Not objectively, anyway.  Working on this auction, planning on making it my thing of the day, I did learn a lot and I surprised myself.  I know the process of putting together an auction now, so I learned the thing I was supposed to learn, which is always nice.

I also learned a lot in failure.  Not selling very many things (ok, most of the things), well, it stung.  I've failed a lot this past 140 days.  Each time I've fought my instinct to say "yes, I failed at this" and instead tried to be pithy and light about the experience.  It strikes me that my previous tactic would be inappropriate here.  Failing at dancing or arts and crafts is one thing.  The reason it stung is that the cause here was noble.

All that being said, I had a moment that was pretty darn profound for me once the evening came to a close.  See, I'm competitive.  I love winning and when I fail at something, usually being sports or a game, I struggle with feelings of jealousy and or curmudgeonliness when someone else does amazingly well at it.  The other side of the coin about P.W.A.P. this past weekend was that the party did amazingly, incredibly well overall.  And because the cause was noble (the same thing that made my own failure more palpable), their success was a shared success, instead of a source of jealousy.

They raised a lot of money, over $1100, by the end of the night.  The food was amazing, the people who came were all lovely to talk to, and they finally managed to get me dancing.  Having not been to one of these parties before, I marveled at how laid back the atmosphere was.  Hey kids!  Let's do a thought experiment!  Close your eyes and picture a "charity party".

No, really guys, its totes laid back.

Did something like that picture pop into your head?  Yeah, mine too.  That's not what it was like at all, though.  It was just... a party.  There was an amazing dance performance by PURe Dance Emsemble and an equally amazing dance performance by five of the six Nicholas siblings.  So, it was a really impressive party.  The point is that the party's success came from it being about the charity and not about the party.  The whole night was dedicated to that wonderful cause and instead of spending thousands of dollars on a ballroom, they opened their home to people for a night for something they believed in.

Also, fun fact, did you know that Macedonia has a Consulate in Detroit?  Gosh, I sure didn't.  So when I was being introduced to the tall, nicely dressed gentleman by the beverage table, I was not entirely prepared for "Kristen, this is the Consul General of Macedonia".  You see, not more than six hours before that, I had been playing with my puppies.  Why in holy heaven would I mention that?  Because in my haste to get the auction set up, I didn't change between playing with them and the party.  The resulting dog hair, all over my clothes, would not have particular bothered me, if, you know, I hadn't been meeting a foreign dignitary.

After the initial shock of meeting a diplomat for the first time wore off and I'd snuck over to my parents' house (next door) in hopes of finding a lint roller for my shirt, it sunk in a little how incredibly awesome that was.  For about an hour, I had the "wait, did that just happen" refrain running through my head.  I know that will seem somewhat provincial to some people, but whatever.  Shut up.  It was a seriously huge deal for me.  I assumed, naively, that there is a certain standoffishness that dignitaries are required to cultivate.  Not when there's a shuffle to be dancin'.  

I generally resist dancing, but it being about the fourth party (first charity party) of theirs that I'd gone to, it just didn't seem right to refuse again.  When the shuffle and the slide came on, I decided it was time to dance a number with the crowd.  You know the shuffle.  It is one of those songs that essentially has built in instructions.  I was doing decent, for me, when I looked over my shoulder and saw, you guessed it, the Consul General of Macedonia, dancing a few people away.  Wait.  Did that just happen?

Indeed it did.  It was a night of surprises, some disappointment and a lot of success.  It was also a night of realizing how wonderful it feels to be a part of something larger than myself.  Be it knowing that the money is going to a good cause or the absurdity of dancing the shuffle with a diplomat - it was nice to be a thread in a tapestry for a night.  Even if it was a thread covered in dog hair.