Loading ...I’m beginning to think so. When I had a real home I was sweating my expenses monthly. Now, crammed in a dingy hotel room in crack-town, I’m sweating them daily. How is this better? Its exhausting, and I can only combat the exhaustion by remaining zen, staying in the moment. Right here, right now, I have a roof over my head. But sometimes zen fails. Like last night, lying awake fearful and panicky.
If I were homeless, I’d be lying awake cold and uncomfortable, getting leaves in my hair and maybe rained on, but at least I’d know it wasn’t getting any worse. I have a little spot picked out in an abandoned kaolin mine train that few people know is even there. (see, gotta say ‘kaolin’ at least once in a conversation around here). Some curtains, a vase of flowers, maybe a nice throw-rug, I’m sure the place could be quite homey. Plumbing is a bit of an issue but if a bear can shit in the woods, so can I. Bear also might be a bit of an issue, though I think rats and squirrels might be a bigger problem.
I know I would have to deal with the grief of losing the cats. Thats the worst thing. And I’m not quite sure I can handle it. Especially Bea, with all she’s been through. She deserves good things. A good home, lots of love. I want them both to have that, but I just dont have it to give right now. I do have lots of love for them, but they can’t eat love. They, like me, are living in a cheap motel, cramped and a little pissed off.
This motel eats up everything I make as soon as I make it. As crazy as it sounds, being homeless (and I am homeless, just homeless with a roof right now) would enable me to save some money and maybe one day afford a real home. I could still read tarot, I would just smell bad doing it.
I doubt I’d have very frequent internet access. The library is one possibility, I might also find a wireless connection, though as mojo points out, this town is terrified of any sort of progress. I do hear homeless bloggers are quite popular - being homeless might increase my traffic some.
I don’t know, these are the thoughts I have after a night like last night. The cold sweat, the panic, the worry, the utter loss of my zen. The questions, “Will I and the babies have a roof tomorrow?”
I have other thoughts too, maybe a little more dire than thoughts of cold nights in an abandoned mine train. I try not to entertain those too much. I’ve always been a bit of a scrapper, but there comes a time you get too old to scrap. I could have handled this 20 years ago (Hell, I did… or at least similar circumstances from time to time). I’ve always been a free spirit, now I’d like to maybe be a secure spirit. But I know that ain’t happenin’. Mercury is always going to rule my life, so do I accept that, and walk out into the elements? Or do I keep fighting it?
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This entry was posted on Tuesday, October 24th, 2006 at 9:56 am and is filed under animal, criminal. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.
Keep fighting it.
You could just embrace it, betray the kitties, and walk out into nothingness, and become feral. People have done it. People always do it. And being homeless doesn’t necessarily mean having no “stuff” to keep track of either.
Every day when I walk to work in Manhattan, I pass a homeless guy. He is often reading a newspaper he’s gotten from the trash, and he has like 15 shopping carts (which are a rare commodity in Manhattan — I have no idea where he gets them) and they are overflowing with stuff. I don’t know where he gets his stuff any more than I know where he gets his shopping carts. Most of it is in bags, so I can’t even see what it is. And the amazing thing is, every few days, he and all of his stuff disappears! I don’t know where it goes, or where he takes it, but it just goes, vanishes. A couple of days later, he’s back, in those same clothes he always wears, duct tape on the end of his shoes wound into little points like he was a Renaissance homeless man, even more shopping carts and all of his stuff is with him.
You could do that. If you had enough shopping carts, I guess the kitties could have something.
But you aren’t optionless. You have family, even if they are not the best in the world. You could always go work at Quincy’s. There’s that cheating ex-husband of yours. You have people who care about you.
But all that may not matter when you are in a hotel in crack town, with pseudo cat husbands and wondering if you’ll have enough cash to stay for the next day.
Was my post too harsh? Is your silence a condemnation of my posting?
I take it it’s just a slight difference between knowing your options and making choises…
No Richard, your post wasn’t too harsh, but calling extreme poverty a ‘betrayal’ of the kitties is is kind of wrong, as is your assumption that I can turn to my family when I’m in need. I can’t. They are not there for me in this situation and if you think they’ll not leave me on the streets, well they’ve done it before. Also, Quincy’s no longer exists, and I have arthritis in my feet and knees, which makes it awfully hard to wait tables. I’m in a double bind because if I get a regular job, I won’t be paid for at least two, maybe three weeks, and I’ll be sans roof by that time, and I’ll also have no time for the tarot readings, which at least has the potential to endow me with immediate cash. So those options you mention aren’t options at all.
Betray was a harsh word. I didn’t mean it as it sounded. We’re going to figure out a way to get this situation sorted. There was just a report on the news about how temporary homelessness joblessness is on the rise in the US despite governmnet claims of a great economy.
We’ll figure this out.