I am reminded of what I want as I woke up and drove the thirty-four minutes down the hill from Evergreen to Broadway. A dirty little street with shops, bars, and restaurants that always strikes me as an interesting place filled with a lively night life. The disparity is striking. Homelessness is a problem. Everywhere I have lived for the past nine years, this has been a problem and it was only exacerbated by the pandemic.
This problem is the same no matter what city you are in. Houses in a picturesque neighborhood. Quiet little neighborhood to raise a family, walk your dog, go for an evening stroll, and on the other side of the bock, a busy street littered with trash and construction a disparity that we overlook on a daily basis. We avert our eyes when passing someone sleeping on the street. Maybe we thank whatever higher power we believe in, or wrestle with the discipline instilled by our mothers and fathers, or our grandparents, or the institution that provided guidance as we were growing up, that we have the discipline and privilege to be where we are in life. I definitely do.
But I am reminded that I don’t necessarily want the same thing that most of my friends and family want. A safe place to call home. I left one that I own to live in a truck for two years. The averting eyes would be curious as I sat on the back of the tailgate eating summer sausage tacos with kim chi and hot sauce, only to quickly wipe off my knife and pack up my rations and get back on the road. It is comforting to know that living in my truck was a choice, and that I wasn’t forced to be destitute and homeless.
I don’t know what to do about the homelessness except random acts of kindness. And while I want to tell stories of their hardships, I am reluctant, or rather fearful of the exploitation of these people. It is possible to become the same person with the same conditions if I don’t tend my mental health properly.
As I walked Broadway, the reminders everywhere. Meditation—mindfulness, is the act of removing thought and being present, but the recent phone calls and their messages creep in. Every foot fall I am haunted by their calling. “Come to Arizona” they say. It is my past surfacing in the face of the future I want to become.
One of my old colonels called on Sunday. After a few minutes of exchanging our stories from the past thirteen years, where we have been and what we are doing now, he pitched me a job. Help start up a logistics and operations company to help unease the government spending burden at the Arizona border. I worked for him years ago and he is looking for people with the tenacity to build report with people and establish a network to help transport people from Arizona, to their intended final destinations in seek of refuge and a better life.
But what's the job about? To me it’s the money. A mutual friend in the Arizona government brokered the deal, for both the colonel and myself. I know that I have the skills to reach people and make meaningful connection. But the past scares me.
As I walk down Broadway I am reminded of this. I don’t want to live in the past, even if that experience provides a lucrative future. Even with all of this sadness and misery, I see the beauty of all of it. Symbolism is everywhere. Bars, music venues, sex shops, graffiti and mural art dance together on the slowed vibrations that become the buildings, laced by chain link fences. Door stoops become the homes of the homeless. And yet on the other side of the block are the homes and churches of the fortunate.
What is to become of the people south of the border? Not all are fortunate enough to succeed. The company that I am offered to help stand up seems to have a disconnect. What are these people to do when they get where they are going? Will they be received by the communities where they go with open arms, or are they to become the people living in cardboard boxes and stolen blankets?
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