As it grew later in the evening, many of the teenagers and others who had come for open mike night dwindled away. A few remained, and continued to play the instruments. I asked the keyboard player, the guy who appeared to be the one organizing things, if he minded if I jammed on the keyboard (and warned that I wasn't very good), and he said sure, and offered to help me switch it to whatever instrument sound I wanted.

I played for a while on the electronic piano, while others played guitars and drums. We entertained ourselves sufficiently. Then I went back by the fire a while longer while others played some more.

Again, my curiosity got the better of me, and I started probing people in conversation. As we stood around the fire, I asked one man -- the pot dealer -- if he knew how long this place had been around. He said he really wasn't sure how long the ranch had existed in its present form, but made a wild guess of 4 years. Another guy I ran into was also there for the first time. Just like me. Everybody agreed that it was a wonderful spot, but nobody seemed sure about its origins, who ran it, or even who really lived there.

After the last of the musicians grew tired of playing, a few of us stood in the dark talking. Now, maybe I would find something out. Surely the keyboard player would know something, given that he seemed to be as much of a leader as anyone I had seen all evening.

He said he needed to pack up all the equipment and carry it back into the house. I and a couple others offered to help. While we did so, he revealed what he knew.

First, far from being the grand mastermind as I had guessed earlier, he is not even a resident of the house. Not even close. He just comes out for Thursday nights, and loves to play the keyboard.

He somehow found out about the place from other people at the homeless shelter. He said that he had gotten into a conversation with some of them, and they had asked him for his ideas on how to help Boulder's homeless population. He had suggested having an open mike night for the homeless. Somehow, out of that, these Thursday night events had begun.

He did not know specifics on who owned or ran the place, except to say that it was "a bunch of kids". Who or how many, he didn't know. He did suspect that "the group of girls here earlier" were involved, but that was the extent of his knowledge. Someone else suggested that, attractive as they were, they must have boyfriends, but of course, nobody really knew.

He thought that "these people" were nothing short of wonderful for letting him use all their stuff and play the keyboard, and said they also sometimes brought it to Food Not Bombs and let him play while food was shared.

Rewind for a moment. This man, for all appearances, is the coordinator for the open mike night events, at least in this instance. He is homeless. He uses equipment which he claims is owned by members of the house, but he barely knows anything about them, and only has a vague sense of who they are. He takes the amplifiers, mikes, chairs, and instruments out and sets them up himself at the beginning of the evening, and puts it all away when he is done. He doesn't know the hows and whys, but has the time of his life while it's happening, and is very grateful to the people who make it possible -- whoever they are.

It was enough to almost bring me to tears. All I could think was, This is pure genius! As readers know, during the past couple of years, I have, on a couple occassions, contemplated and dabbled with ideas on how to help out the homeless, and made a few ham-handed attempts on my own, which usually seem to end up leaving me feeling futile and powerless against an overwhelming current. But this.... This was amazing! This place was not only feeding the homeless, but letting them cook! And sing! And direct stage shows!

Whovere you are, you've got a LOT of love.

As we put things away, I noticed people sleeping in all sorts of interesting places. Some outside, some on the floor indoors. One man was snoring in a hammock that hung from the trees. While we were putting things away, a middle aged woman came out and asked us to make sure not to block the path to a barely visible door at the back, because some of the boys were sleeping behind there, and would need to walk through later.

She also suggested that if any of us were crashing for the night, we might use some of the free couches in the "community room" upstairs. It wasn't so much an invitation as a statement based on an implicit assumption that everyone present was already welcome to stay on the premises.

I contemplated staying around a little longer; part of me really wanted to. But.... I wasn't ready to go that far just yet. If I stuck around, maybe I would never want to leave. What if I exhausted the hospitality of my semi-anonymous hosts, and they got sick of me sticking around, but didn't want to be rude and tell me to leave? After all, I didn't really know them at all, or even who they were. I should go home.

Looking back, I realize that this was simple old fashioned bourgeois conditioning kicking in hard. It happens all the time, and usually, I barely even realize it consciously anymore. Don't accept too much generosity from people. When I was little, my mom used to tell me that I shouldn't stay at friends' houses too long, or visit them too often, because I might "wear out my welcome." This seemed strange, because my friends always seemed happy when I was around, and I knew I always liked it when they stayed longer at our house to play. But with this seed planted at the back of my mind, it took root as I grew older, and I learned, reinforced by example from society at large, that even if somebody offers something that I want, I should hold back and refuse, or only accept a little, and no more.

What a giant crock of bullshit. It is human nature to both give and receive gifts, and to enjoy each other's company. To say that these interactions should be shoved into a little box of polite moderation is to confine our spirits, and our hearts. I know this, but old habits die hard.

In a book that had been sitting outside, there was a sticky note on a page with a poem. I read through half of the poem, and was enthralled. At the end of the night, I sat under the porchlight, and copied the poem in its entirity into my notebook. Then I went back inside the house, laid the book down, and left a small gift behind. It wasn't much, but I suspected that it might be appreciated by some of those who inhabited this place.

I took off on my bike, and when I arrived back at the car, I was shocked to read the time. It was after 0300! Having not brought along any time keeping devices, I thought that maybe it would be around midnight, or possibly as late as 0100. But 0300? It was late. Time flies, so they say.

I drove home, but I wasn't ready to sleep. I wanted to write, and so I did.

Future Thursday nights, what to do, what to do? The quandry comes because there are now 2 regular weekly events happening simultaniously, both of which I enjoy attending. Divided loyalty. Maybe I'll alternate between them. I don't know. I guess I'll just have to play it by ear.