Shame on me, Shame on you: Where is the Love?

As the first piece to my recently launched blog, I’d like to talk about an issue that touched me two days ago. An issue that I think many of us ignore or are not always aware of. Two days ago I was doing some field interviews for my job on the Westside of Chicago and decided to stop in Humboldt Park at the Knockbox cafe for a cup of Green Dragon Tea and a pastry. After ordering my cup of tea and grabbing the tube of honey to sweeten it, I sat down at a slightly rickety wooden table and decided to relax a bit and observe the scene. While there, an older man in a wheelchair rolled in, pushed by a woman dressed in a long blue t-shirt hanging down to her thighs, which gave the impression that she had nothing on under it or was wearing just a pair of underwear that— from my vantage point—couldn’t be clearly detected. I watched them enter the cafe as they glanced around for an empty table or space for them to sit. She then pushed him towards me after noticing that my table was quite empty and spacious enough to wheel him up for him to sit without intruding on my personal space. Initially I was thinking, “why here??” I kind of wanted my space to myself despite it being enough room. But then I looked around and realized that my table was the only table that could accommodate him. In my attempt to not show my reluctance to have him there, I stood up and moved one of the chairs out of the way so that she could wheel him directly up to the table. They seemed to appreciate that small gesture.