Burrito Paradise: The Gift of Circulation

by Kevin Williams

I was never in the running for altruist or bleeding heart of the year.

There seemed little enough time for me and the things that I wanted and needed to do. Never mind going around volunteering my time for worthy causes. Time was in short supply and the little spare was for me.

Fortunately, I learned something along the way that served me well. We don’t do those kinds of things for anyone but ourselves, and when we do, we feel good.

It’s a matter of circulation. I was born into a time rampant consumption and self-centeredness were lauded and celebrated in the TV shows and movies I watched. I was yet to learn the art and craft of circulation.

It started as a few friends in a little kitchen on the 17th floor of a newish building in the heart of Harlem—a few of us on a production line of burritos, ingredients laid out in silver bowls on the counters, filling flour wraps laid out on counters with lettuce, tomatoes, sausage, hash browns, guacamole, or whatever that week’s delicious recipe was, rolling them and wrapping them in foil, bagging them up still hot and taking them between 122nd and 128th between Lenox and Lexington. It was the most fun part of the week. We laughed and joked and there was always someone new there.

Giving out burritos was surprisingly vulnerable for me. Will they want one; will they not? It took a while to get the hang of it. I started to get a sense of who was hungry and how to enter their space to make an offer. And I learned to see the ebbs and flows. Some nights a dozen people at once came to get a warm meal and water. The burritos flew out of the bags. Other nights we battled to give them all away, walking a few extra blocks, looking for someone who might need a warm meal on a cold night.

As a lawyer, focused all day on fast moving and highly detailed work, the idea of another few hours of making and handing out food could sometimes feel like, ok can’t I just watch TV and not be around anyone please? But within 20 minutes the rhythm and flow of working with my hands, the buzz and hum and musical quality of making food, made me quickly realize, oh my god all those nights in front of the TV after a long day of work weren’t actually rest. This is rest because all of that stored up angst poured out into those burritos, into the warm Harlem night sky, into friendship.

I would walk around the streets thinking of tens of thousands of lawyers across the city, the state and the United States and the world, busy burning themselves out in front of the TV, dreading Monday, when they could be plugged into a renewable resource of circulation and service and community.

Creating the conditions for people like me to plug into that is not easy. It requires a certain magic. Dedication and hard work so that there is a crisp quality, A warm heart of love makes it feel good to be there, and gives a feeling of home.

Free Food Harlem in my experience prizes both, and that makes it a great place for us office workers of the world to tap into another world we cannot find in our high-rise office, hip co-working space, or home office with a standing desk. A world filled with the warmth of good food shared with good people.

Kevin Williams is an attorney. He was born in Johannesburg, South Africa. He loves New York pizza and true friendship.