Category Archives: My True Life

Jan23

Last Days in Quartzsite

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The Rubber Tramp Rendezvous has come and gone.

All of my friends have left Quartzsite, save for the new one, the one with whom I am planning on embarking on an epic adventure road trip. Or at least a several hundred mile ride in the van.

Imagine my delight to meet another traveler of my ilk, someone who knows and holds dear dumpster diving, gas jugging, and sign flying. Imagine my delight in meeting another seeker, a fellow believer in magic and signs and the machinations of the Universe.

So we’re still in Quarzsite, but not for long. As soon as the i’s are dotted and the t’s are crossed, we’re blowing this popscicle stand. Leaving right now would be fine with me, although I’m resigned to the fact that we won’t be out of here that soon.

The traffic’s gotten bad. The library parking lot was packed this morning when I arrived at 11am. There was nowhere to leave the van anywhere near the scratch and dent grocery store. The internet connection is slow and frustrating. (Thank goodness I had two weeks of blog posts scheduled. I’d be a wreck if I’d been dealing with the frustrating internet all this time.)

I hope to sit somewhere in the next couple of days and schedule the posts I’ve been writing down in my notenbook.

In hope all my readers will stay tuned.

Jan22

Happy Birthday, Mr. Carolina, Wherever You Are

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Today is Mr. Carolina’s birthday. I think he’s 26 now.

I haven’t spoken to Mr. Carolina since 2013. I was in Texas and he was in North Carolina when he called to tell me he was going back out on the road. We talked a few minutes, then hung up our phones. That was it.

I didn’t realize we wouldn’t talk again, but the next time I called him, I got the recording saying the phone was no longer in service. Did he lose the phone? Did the family member who’d been paying the bill decide not to pay it anymore? Why did he never call me again? Did some glitch in the system cause him to lose my number? I have no idea.

I got reports about him for about a year. When I talked to The Viking or Sweet L, I always asked about Mr. Carolina. The reports were few and far between, but at least I got some information. He’d gotten a dog. He was on some religious trip. He ranted about seeing the demons in people. That’s the last I heard. It’s been a long time.

I sure loved that guy. I suppose I still do. He is a good person, generous and funny. We traveled together for not quite too months, but we were together every day during that time. We were together every day, and he never got on my nerves, never annoyed me, never pissed me off. He listened to all my stories, cheered me up when I was sad, appreciated every thing I did to make our travels possible.

I appreciated him too. Anything he had, whether food, money, beer, or weed, he was willing to share it with me or whoever needed it. I trusted him to drive my van, and I learned so much about driving just by paying attention to how he did it. I never had to pump gas when he was around. In so many ways, he was a real friend to me.

I hope the last few years have been good to him. I hope he’s happy and safe and loved. If you see him, tell him I said hello and give him my phone number. I’d really love to hear from him.

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Jan21

The First Time I Quit Drinking

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I recently sorted through my old writing that somehow survived countless moves and a couple of great purges of my belongings. I realized quite a bit of the writing I’d been hauling around wasn’t worth keeping. I threw a bunch of old academic papers and cringe-worthy poetry into the recycling bin. Some of the writing, though, seemed worth saving.

I wrote the piece I’m sharing today early in the 21st century. I wrote it without a clear audience. I don’t remember it being intended for a particular publication, and I don’t remember ever sharing it with anyone. The pieced didn’t even have a title

My emotions were a bit overwrought, and the language I used leaned toward the revolutionary, but that’s the person I was at the turn of the millennium.

Without further ado, writing from my past…

I’m not writing this to tell you what you should do. Do whatever you want. I’m writing this to make sense of what I did, what I do, what I want to do. This piece is self-centered and certainly introspective. It might be a little whiny. Read it if you like, but don’t say I didn’t warn you.

“I often feel like I have to celebrate my self-destruction,” she said, and I knew exactly what she meant.

It hadn’t been enough to hate myself. I had to pretend that I was happy about it, that I was having a good time, by downing beer or hard cider or the occasional shot of tequila. I was partying, hanging out in bars, spending time with people I thought of as friends, looking for people who wanted to have sex with me, using my body as a commodity, giving my money to bar owners and beer companies. When I remember those days, I remember having so much free time, probably because all I had going on in my life was working for $$$ and hanging out, drinking, partying, having fun.

But it wasn’t fun. Not really. Where’d I get that idea? I never even liked the taste of beer. But oh, I liked the way it made me feel, silly and sexy and free. Just a little out of control. Like my head might float away from my body and leave me without a thought or a care in the world. I could dance and not worry that anyone thought I looked like a dork. I could kiss boys and not take responsibility or blame…I could always use the oh, I was drunk excuse. I got away with a lot.

I thought I was having deep and meaningful conversations with people. Maybe I was. I can’t remember most of it. chunks of my life are fuzzy. What’s the point of sharing the deepest parts of myself if I’m not even sure I did it? Maybe I just think I told people what was going on in my head. Maybe I just hoped people were sharing themselves wit me. When I think about the person I loved most during those days, I’m not sure if he really told me the stories I remember as his, or if if I just made them up. Most of our relationship was a lie. I’m not sure if even now we know who the other truly is. Unhealthy patterns started between us back then; even today I don’t know how to break them. I could only really talk to him when I was  drunk, but I’m still not sure what I said.

I guess I had revelations when I was drunk, but I didn’t remember them once I sobered up. E[mma] told me recently that sure, she had lots of revelations when she was drunk, some she even wrote in her journal, but what good did it do when she couldn’t read her own handwriting the next day? I think I’m not going to make enough progress if I can’t remember my own epiphanies.

I had no regard for my life, no regard for my self. It wasn’t easy to live while hating myself and feeling so much despair. I thought drinking was supposed to numb the pain, but it never worked that way for me.  Alcohol somehow made the pain sharper and more intense. Wasn’t being drunk supposed to make me forget? It only made me remember in Technicolor detail what was hurting me. Yep, I was often the crying girl at the party. How fun was that? Not much fun for me. I don’t know whether or not other people were enjoying it.

Now, I’m just not drinking at all. After I left [a notorious party city], I slowed down. People in [the new place where I lived] often thought I wasn’t a drinker until they aw a beer in my hand. Sometimes they were shocked. You just don’t even know, I would think, after explaining that no, I wasn’t a teetotaler or straight edge or a recovering alcoholic. Then I moved to [the Midwest] and slowed down even more. Oh sure, I still complain that this town is uncivilized because bars close at 2am and grocery stores don’t sell beer on Sunday, but I’m getting tired of my comments. What do I think defines civilization anyway?

It’s been five months since I’ve had any alcohol. I think that’s the longest I’ve gone without a drink in the last 10 years. Damn, I’m surprised it’s only been five months. It seems longer. It seems like it’s been years and years.

I worry that if I get started I won’t be able to stop. I worry that if I have a swallow beer I’ll end up getting shit-faced. I worry that getting drunk once will make getting drunk next time easier. I worry that getting drunk will lead me to turn to alcohol instead of working to solve my problems.

Sometimes it’s my body that wants the alcohol. Sometimes my body remembers what it’s like physically to be drunk. The other night, my mouth tasted like beer.

Mostly I want it in social situations. If I’m completely stressed out by another person, I really want to go to a bar and have a drink (or two or three) and try to numb my feelings. If I’m at a party and I feel self conscious, I want to drink enough not to care what anybody thinks. When four of the other five people at the table have big-ass beers to go with their garden burgers, I feel strange about having a glass of water. (Who’s that girl without the beer? I think, and then realize it’s me.)

Too shy to even talk to the boy I want to kiss, I know how easily it would be to get a little drunk and totally giddy and haul off and kiss him nonconsensually. Another crush boy’s girlfriend will probably be out of town on New Year’s Eve and I fantasize about him and me sharing a bottle of wine. Knowing my background and his, then we would kiss, and then we could fall into bed together and fuck. Although it would feel good at the time, we’d feel super guilty the next morning, but we could blame it on the booze, chalk it up to being drunk. We wouldn’t have to acknowledge any feelings between us or how our actions affect the whole community or what sort of brave new relationship we could forge as equals and comrades if we were able to keep the bottle out of the equation. But when I think about this scenario, something in me cries NO! and I am determined not to mess up like I’ve done so many times in the past.

I just want to be real and whole and true. I want to know who I really am and to let others know too. And maybe some people can live that way with a beer in their hand, but it’s never quite worked out for me. And the wildest part of this whole situation is that I bet no one I know would ever have thought I had a problem. I never lost a job because of alcohol, never got into trouble with the cops because of it, never got in a barroom fight. I didn’t even drink every night. But I think it arrested my development and kept me from being the person I want to be. I feel sad when I think maybe I wasted big parts of my life. Maybe I could have been smashing the state or writing my stories or building revolutionary relationships instead of getting drunk and walking home down the dark and scary sidewalks of [the big city] hoping someone with a gun would blow a hole in my head so I would be spared the trouble of having to figure out how to dispose of myself. Maybe I wouldn’t have been so depressed if I hadn’t been using a depressant in an attempt to numb my sadness.

Shit. This isn’t a happy story. And I don’t know how to end it because there’s not an ending. People at the…show tonight are going to have alcohol. I’m going to think about getting a beer, or just taking the bottle from someone’s hand and having a long, slow swig. But I know that if I have one swallow, I’ll have another and another and another. And I know that if I don’t take the swallow, I’ll have one more night to work on feeling real and whole and true.

 

 

Jan14

What’s in a Name?

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A man in his late 70s recently asked me the name of my sibling. I thought it was a random sort of question, but I gave him the answer. He looked confused, and said, How’d you get a name like Blaize?

I suppose he thought if my sibling had a weird name, it would make sense for me to have a weird name too. When he learned my sibling’s name is not so unusual, he must have wondered how I got saddled with something so strange.

I told him, Well, it’s not the name my mother gave me, but it is a family name.

He said he’d never heard of the name before. I told him there are a few of us out there. Of course, the only one I could think of was Blaze Starr, but seeing how she was best known as a stripper, I felt weird mentioning her to a virtual stranger old enough to be my father.

This exchange about my name seemed to satisfy the man, and he went about his business.

However, I got to thinking about Blaze Starr, so I Googled her. Here’s what Wikipedia has to say:

Blaze Starr (born Fannie Belle Fleming; April 10, 1932 – June 15, 2015) was an American stripper and burlesque comedian. Her vivacious presence and inventive use of stage props earned her the nickname “The Hottest Blaze in Burlesque”. She was also known for her affair with Louisiana Governor Earl Kemp Long. The 1989 film Blaze is based on her memoir.

On Ms. Starr’s page, Wikipedia tipped me off about an astronomical object sometimes called the Blaze Star.

T Coronae Borealis (T CrB), informally nicknamed the Blaze Star,[3] is a recurring nova in the constellationCorona Borealis. It normally has a magnitude of about 10, which is near the limit of typical binoculars. It has been seen to outburst twice, reaching magnitude 2.0 on May 12, 1866 and magnitude 3.0 on February 9, 1946.[4]

I had no idea! Thanks, Wikipedia!

But I wondered, are there other famous Blaizes/Blaises/Blazes in the world? Oh yes, there are!

The Famous Birthdays website lists Blaise Matuidi (a French soccer player), Blaise Pascal (a French physicist, inventor, writer, math theorist, and Christian philosopher), Blaise Nkufo (a soccer player born in Kinshasa, Zaire, who emigrated to Switzerland when he was 7 years old), and Blaise Diagne (the first black African to hold a senior position in French government).

Then I decided to look for people named Blaze. The Famous Birthdays page for that spelling of the name lists Blaze Brooks (a young Brooklyn-based artist and graphic designer), the aforementioned Blaze Starr (described here as a comedian), and Blaze Koneski (a Macedonian poet, author, scholar, translator, and Herder Prize recipient who is best known for works such as Mostot, Zapisi, and Vezilka).

I had fallen down the rabbit hole by this point.

The She Knows (who is She and what exactly does she know?) website told me Blaize is a name for a baby boy. The website went on to tell me that Blaize is a French name meaning “lisp, stutter.” Uh, what? The website also says Blaize is a Latin name meaning, “one who stutters.” For real?

The Think Baby Names website, confirms this stutter thing and says the name is from Latin Blasius, derived from “blaesus.” It also says the name Blaze is a homonym meaning “fire.”

The She Knows website has this to say about people who have the name Blaize:

Expression Number: 1

People with this name tend to initiate events, to be leaders rather than followers, with powerful personalities. They tend to be focused on specific goals, experience a wealth of creative new ideas, and have the ability to implement these ideas with efficiency and determination. They tend to be courageous and sometimes aggressive. As unique, creative individuals, they tend to resent authority, and are sometimes stubborn, proud, and impatient.

Does this sound like me? I think it does, to a spooky degree!

The best thing I found all day was the user comments for the name Blaze on the Behind the Name website. Folks called it “a corny, tacky name,” mentioned “blazing” as a synonym for smoking weed, and said it’s a name that “will not look very professional.”

One more thing. Some of my new neighbors can’t remember my name and have taken to calling me Flame. I guess now my pseudonym has a nickname.

Jan10

Medical Folklore

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Recently, while sorting writing from my past, and I found papers I wrote for a variety of collage classes in the 90s. I have no idea how these papers survived a multitude of moves during my 20s and 30s or my last several years on the road, but there they were.

Most weren’t very interesting. Most were written in that overly academic style required in the university arena. Most were deposited in the recycling bin.

One was interesting, however.  Written in 1993 for an anthropology class, it was called “Testimonies in Medical Folklore.” I didn’t really do anything to make it interesting. I just transcribed the stories told to me by my mother, my father, and my friend’s mother. Like a good anthropologist, I collected and reported. I didn’t comment upon anything I was told. I suppose the assignment didn’t require commentary.

What strikes me now is the ages of my “informants” who were my parents and my friend’s mother. They were 44-49, in the age group my friend and I belong to now. We were so young, in our early 20s, and our parents seemed ancient. Now i realize our parents weren’t as elderly as we thought they were, and my friend and I were just babies.

Today I’ll share these stories of medical folklore, as they were told to me.

I described “Informant #1” (my mother) as “a forty-four year old Caucasian woman.” (I’m not sure why I didn’t describe her as “Cajun” as I did my father. My mother was just as Cajun as he was. Perhaps I was trying to hide the fact that I hadn’t gone very far from home to gather information.)

[This event] happened to my…daughter when she was six months old. I went to visit her grandmother…and the aunt of my mother-in-law was there and when she saw [the baby], she insisted that thunder or some other loud noise had separated the bones in [the baby’s] head, that the soft spot was opening. So, she said that she would pray over [the baby]. In other words, treat her. I didn’t see anything wrong with it because she wasn’t going to be giving any medicine or they weren’t going to do anything strange to her besides the old woman was going to put her hand on [the baby’s] head and say prayers. So, I agreed to let the lady do this. She prayed and put her hands on [the baby’s] head and then when she was done she [said] that [the baby’s] head would heal. I didn’t notice any change. It satisfied the old lady, and I didn’t figure it would hurt [the baby]…

After this happened and I was sharing this experience with my mother, she told me that when she was growing up her grandmother would sew caps for babies…She would make a white cap and a black cap, and they believed that the baby should wear the white cap during the daytime. At night they would put the black cap on the baby and also in thunderstorms to protect the baby’s head from separating…

This was something that was not new to my mother, she had heard this before, so maybe something had happened to [the baby], but I was taking her to the doctor for her checkups, and the doctor never said that her bones were separating in her head…

Something else…In 1970, I was pregnant for my first child. My husband worked with this man, his wife was also pregnant…These people…were black…When the woman had the baby, she had a son, and so once she came home from the hospital, they invited us to go over and see their baby. When we got to their home her grandmother was at the house outside and the old woman was very shocked to see us get there. I thought it might have been because we were white, that it surprised her that we were going to visit to see the black baby. I went in and went to the crib and looked at the baby and held its hand and talked to the mother and the visit probably lasted about ten or fifteen minutes and we left.

Later that afternoon, I got a call at home that they needed a piece of the dress that I was wearing. This was a surprise to me, but my husband and the father of the little boy came over to the house and cut the hem out of the dress that I was wearing to take back to the house where the baby was. The old grandmother took the piece of fabric and cut strips and tied a strip of the fabric on each of the baby’s wrists. Supposedly, what we were told was that when I went to the crib, the baby, sensing that I was pregnant, had started to strain as if he was in the birth canal again and continued straining and holding its breath until this cloth was tied around its wrist. I don’t know how true this is, if it was the old woman’s imagination…After this happened…I mentioned it to my mother-in-law, my mother, and other elderly people…and it was not a surprise to them, they all said that they had heard of stories before…

I described “Informant #2 (my father) as “a forty-seven year old Cajun, Caucasian male.”

When we were young kids and we got warts–that was before you’d go to the doctor and have them removed either by burning or surgically removing them…My mother’s uncle who lived across the street…would treat you for them. In French it’s called “traiteur.” And he would take you and get you off by yourself…and he would meditate and prayer [secret prayers passed down from generation to generation] and while he was praying he would just continue making a circle around and around the wart very slowly…with his finger and it would take about between ten and fifteen minutes and he did that three days in a row. And the wart would, after those three treatments, the wart would gradually start to reduce in size and shrink and shrink and shrink until it would just disappear…

When I was a young boy I used to get what’s called a sunstroke. I’d get out in the sun without a hat and you would run fevers, have cold chills, at least I would, tremendous headaches, just feel like your head was going to explode. And you could also be treated for that. A gentleman that used to live next door to my grandmother would treat you and he would treat you with water, he would use water, sprinkle water on your forehead and also put his hand on your head and pray and that would get rid of the headache. It didn’t really work that well for me the way he did it, but it did help.

And then i was told by someone else about a Mr. H who treated for that. He had a grocery store…about a mile from the house, and when I’d get a sunstroke I’d get on my bicycle and ride over to the grocery store and the man would take me into the stockroom, turn out all the lights, and place both of his hands on my head, pray in the dark for me, and believe it or not, when I’d leave there [and] go back outside from the grocery store, my headache was completely gone, the fever and chills were gone. He only treated me about three or maybe four times at the most, and I’ve never had a sunstroke since…

I described “Informant #3 (my friend’s mother) as “a forty-nine year old Caucasian woman.” I went on to explain, “The events she relayed to me over the phone…were told to her by her husband and his relatives who grew up in Croatia.”

When my husband was a child living in a poor, rural area of Croatia, they wouldn’t go to the doctor and have their tonsils taken out if they had tonsillitis. If their tonsils swole up, they would take some wool–there was always wool in the house because they raised sheep–and they would wrap the wool around their neck to help the tonsils get better…

My sister-in-law’s mother came from Croatia to visit last year. While she was here, my sister-in-law told me that every day her mother would take plain yogurt and chop garlic and parsley really, really fine and mix it all together and eat it. When my sister-in-law asked her what she was doing, her mother said she was eating the mixture to treat her high blood pressure…

My same sister-in-law went to Croatia a few years ago to visit with her young son. While they were there, the son got a fever and my sister-in-law didn’t have any medicine…An old lady in the village told her to get potatoes and slice them and put the slices on the balls of her son’s feet and this would pull the fever out. She was warned not to put the potatoes on his head because that would pull the fever up and possibly give him meningitis. The potatoes had to be put on his feet so the fever would be pulled down and out of his body. I’ve never tried it, but she said it worked, that the potatoes shriveled up as if they had been cooked and my nephew’s fever went away…

I got an A- on the assignment.

Jan9

Feeding People in Las Vegas

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My friends are part of the Las Vegas Catholic Worker community, although neither of them identify as Catholic. I think it’s unusual to be a non-Catholic Catholic Worker, but I can’t say I’ve surveyed any other Catholic Workers about their beliefs or religious affiliations.

One of the Catholic Worker activities my friends participate in is serving food to hungry people. (My friends  also do peace work focused on the elimination of nuclear weapons development, production, and testing. In addition, they also cook and serve with Food Not Bombs once or twice a month.)

When I mention I’m heading to Las Vegas to visit friends, the person I’m speaking with tends to get a knowing look, all wink wink nudge nudge. People say things to me like Have fun! or Be careful. Although I do have fun with my friends, I try to explain to people that my trips to Vegas are not what they’re thinking. My first visits to Vegas, the three nights I spent there with Sweet L and Mr. Carolina, eating and drinking out of trash can and wondering at the sights of the Strip, those night were maybe a little closer to what people think Las Vegas is about. (Read about those nights in the first part of this post: http://www.rubbertrampartist.com/2015/11/20/the-other-las-vegas/.) But since I’ve been visiting The Poet and The Activist, my visits to Las Vegas have not involved one foot touching the Strip or casino property.

The Activist participates in the Catholic Worker food service several times a week. The Poet serves food and helps with washing dishes once a week. Whenever I’m visiting, I volunteer with one or both of them.

Las Vegas Catholic Work house surrounded by a circle of people holding hands.

This photo shows the Las Vegas Catholic Worker house. Image from http://lvcw.org/

The serving of food starts at 6:30 in the morning. I’m not usually out and about so early, but other people are accustomed to it. When we arrive at the Catholic Worker House to meet up with the other volunteers, the food is cooked and people are bustling around, loading everything on the trailer to transport it to the empty lot where the food is served. People have been in the kitchen since 4am, preparing the meal.

The kitchen is warm when we walk in, always a contrast with coolness of the desert morning,but especially pronounced in early December. The people inside are warm too, although they must be wondering who I am and if I’ll be back. I’m sure they see many volunteers who help once to fulfill some sort of obligation and never return. In any case, people say hello to me, tell me their names, shake my hand. If The Poet or The Activist is standing next to me, I’m introduced as a friend.

When we arrive, people are typically sitting around a table in the next room, finishing their prayer meeting. I usually hear some portion of the Lord’s Prayer drift from the room. While the prayer meeting is wrapping up, other people are carrying industrial-size metal pots outside to load them on the trailer which an SUV will pull to the site of the serving.

After all the food and tea and paper bowls and plastic utensils and folding tables and condiments and cups are loaded and the prayer group has dispersed, all the volunteers circle around the wooden counter in the middle of the kitchen to join hands and pray together. I hold the hands of the people on either side of me and bow my head respectfully, but I don’t pray. Other folks recite aloud a prayer, often the following one by Samuel F. Pugh:

O God, when I have food,
help me to remember the hungry;
When I have work,
help me to remember the jobless;
When I have a home,
help me to remember those who have no home at all;
When I am without pain,
help me to remember those who suffer,
And remembering,
help me to destroy my complacency;
bestir my compassion,
and be concerned enough to help;
By word and deed,
those who cry out for what we take for granted.
Amen.

The food is served in a vacant lot at G & McWilliams Streets , far enough away from the Catholic Worker house so it makes sense to go in a car. I ride with The Activist (and The Poet too, if it’s Saturday). We always arrive a few minutes before the SUV and trailer.

When we arrive, the hungry people are lined up and waiting. Most people would probably say those people standing in line are homeless. I’m sure some of them are homeless. Maybe even a majority of them live on the streets, but I’m not willing to lump the whole bunch into one category. I know every single one of those people has a unique life, an individual story that’s brought each of them to a vacant lot in Las Vegas, NV on any particular morning.

The vast majority waiting to eat are men. Out of a couple hundred people there to eat, I’d be surprised to see more than five women. Where are all the poor, hungry, and/or homeless women? I feel confident they are somewhere in Las Vegas. I hope they are getting their needs met by some other organization(s).

When the trailer arrives, volunteers scurry to set up. Two tables are unfolded, condiments and utensils set out on them. Plastic milk crates are placed at the head of each line, and giant pots of steaming food are set on top of them. Another table is set up with the day’s side dish and is staffed by two volunteers. Someone else prepares to distribute jalapeño peppers from a large plastic tub to folks who want to spice up their food.

Christ of the Breadlines by Fritz Eichenberg – mural outside the Catholic Worker Houses – painted by Q, photo by Tami Yaron. Image from http://lvcw.org/

The Catholic Worker group also provides warm, damp towels to the folks they serve. I’ve never seen another group provide this service. I think it’s a great idea. A volunteer distributes the warm towels from a 5-gallon bucket. Folks use the towels to wash their face and/or hands, then deposit the used ones in a second bucket. The dirty towels are taken back tot he Catholic Worker house where they are laundered for reuse.

When I volunteer, I usually help hand out bread. (One time I helped hand out the hot main dish.) After putting on gloves, The Activist or The Poet and I take bread out of a 5-gallon bucket and set a variety of choices on the inside of one of the lids, which we use as a tray. The available bread can vary, but I’ve seen it include bagels, sliced wheat bread, hamburger buns, raisin bread, and chunks of baguettes.

I try to be really friendly to people who come up for bread. Good morning! I’ll say with a big smile. Can I get you some bread?

Some people know exactly what they want and how many slices. Others seem confused by the choices. Some seem grateful for whatever they’re handed. I do my best to give folks the kind of bread they want, then sincerely say, Have a nice day! before they leave. I like to think a friendly face and voice and word are as important as the food, but maybe I’m just trying to make myself feel good.

I wonder what the other people in that vacant lot see when they look at me. Do they assume I have a house to return to? Do they think I’m financially secure? Do I seem comfortable and complacent? Do they realize I’m closer economically to the the people there to eat than to the other people serving? Does anyone look at me and imagine I once lived on the streets, that I’m only one step out of my van away from homeless again? But for the grace of the Universe (or God or the Higher Power or Goddess or whatever one chooses to call it), I’d be lined up to receive food instead of serving it.

Jan7

In Praise of a Cup

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It’s better to not even go into Wal-Mart because I start thinking I need things.

First I decided I needed a tablecloth, but the super flimsy plastic one for $2 was torn by the wind almost immediately. The next time I was in Wal-Mart, I looked for a stronger one. Once I found a design I liked, I decided I needed the clamps made to hold a tablecloth on a picnic table. There you go, three purchases I really didn’t need to make. (I did use the second cloth for at least four months, making its cost about a quarter a week. The clamps were too small for the thick Forest Service table, and I ended up returning them. My point is, browsing often leads to buying, often of things I don’t even need.)

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Cup with handles unfolded for use.

I thought long and hard before I bought the cup. I looked at it in the camping aisle during several shopping trips and asked myself if I really needed it. Well, no, I didn’t really need it. I was currently boiling water in my glass sauce pan, and I could continue to boil water that way. But it was a (minor) hassle to haul out the glass saucepan any time I needed to heat a cup or two of water for tea or cocoa or instant mashed potatoes. Being able to boil small amounts of water in a cup that fit in the tote with my bowl, plates, utensils, and cast iron skillet would make my life easier, right?

Many times in my life as a consumer, I’ve bought something to make my life easier, only to find, not so much. In the case of the cup, it really has helped.

Having folding handles means it fits easily in the tote with my kitchen items. (The glass saucepan is kept in a

Cup with handles folded for easy storage.

Cup with handles folded for easy storage.

special padded bag which hangs at the back of the van, making it just a bit of a pain in my neck to pull it out every time I want to heat a cup of water.) Since the cup is stored in the tote with the cooking supplies I use most, it’s convenient to get to when I want to use it.

I like the size of the cup. It has an 18 ounce capacity, meaning I can get two cups (16 ounces) of liquid in it without filling it to the rim. Unless I’m heating enough water to fill my thermos or serve tea to a group, I don’t need more than two cups of hot water at a time.

My cup is made of stainless steel, which I appreciate. I don’t trust aluminum cookware, but I feel safe boiling water in stainless steel. The cup is easy to clean if I heat something (milk, butter, olive oil,) instead of or in water in the cup.

I find the use I’ve already gotten from the cup has made for money well spent. While I wouldn’t say the cup is a must have item just because I like it, I do think a camp cup with a folding handle is a useful item to have, especially for someone traveling light who doesn’t want to haul around a saucepan. I’ve you got a few extra bucks in your kitchen budget, you might want to invest in one.

I took the photos above of the cup with folding handles I bought at Wal-Mart. Amazon.com sells similar cups in a variety of sizes at a variety of prices. The photos below is a  link to a cup available on Amazon. If you buy anything from Amazon after clicking through links on my blog, I get an advertising fee.

[amazon template=image&asin=B003LDKNZ0]

Jan3

You Got Shoes to Wear

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Sometimes I see women in my age group who look homeless or at least very poor, and I think, That could be me. Sometimes I see women in my age group pushing overflowing shopping carts or riding bikes upon which recyclables have been fastened, and I think, That could be me. Sometimes I see women in my age group walking down the street talking to themselves (or to someone I can’t see), and I think, That could be me. I sometimes see women (in my age group or otherwise) flying a sign, and I think, That could be me.

I’m poor and I live in a van now, but I’ve been 100% homeless and there have been days when I’ve had zero money to my name. I’ve never pushed a shopping cart or tied my money-making enterprise to a bike, but I’ve walked through towns with all my earthly possessions in a ridiculously large pack strapped to my back. Sometimes I do talk aloud when no one else is around, until I catch myself doing it and close my mouth before a stranger labels me crazy. I’ve flown signs, panhandled, asked strangers for what I needed to survive. I could be those women I see because I have been their sister in poverty, a sister of the streets.

During a recent visit to San Francisco, I saw a couple of women and thought, That could be me.

I was walking down the sidewalk next to Mission Street, near the 16th Street BART station. Two women about my age were walking in front of me. Between them they were hauling a huge, red plaid, thick plastic tote bag, something probably designed to transport laundry into and out of the washateria. I didn’t see what was in the bag. I really wasn’t paying much attention to the women, even though they were yelling at each other. Then I looked over and noticed the woman on the left was wearing socks but no shoes. It startled me more than if she’d been barefoot.

Walking on a dirty city sidewalk in socks with no shoes really said living on the margins to me. Had she lost her shoes? How? Had they been stolen? Did she not have the few bucks to go into one of the several thrift stores on Mission Street and get a pair of shoes? Did she own shoes but for some reason I can’t fathom chose to only wear socks?

I could have asked her; she was right in front of me, but I didn’t want to be nosy. Her footwear (or lack thereof) was none of my business after all. I didn’t want her to think I was judging her (although I guess I was). I didn’t want to offend her. And while all of those reason for not talking to her were true, I also didn’t want to admit publicly or to myself that her situation could be my situation.

I feel like I’m doing ok right now. I’ve got my van. my little comforts, my small saving to get me through to my next job, and my seven pairs of shoes (which I know is a ridiculous number for a person living in a van to own.) But I know I’m one road disaster or health crisis away from being back to having nothing. I know friends would help me if they could, but things are rough all over.

I look at these women in my age group, women living on the margins of society as I am, and I think, That could be me, not with disdain, but with a little fear. Maybe some of those women are happy, and it’s not my place to assume they’re not. If they are happy, More power to you, sisters! But when I see women who don’t seem to be doing very well holding their day-to-day living together, I remember to be grateful for the shoes on my feet (and the extras stored away), my narrow bed, the roof of my van over my head.

Thanks to Robert Hunter for the title, a line from “Here Comes Sunshine.”

 

Dec31

Good-bye and Good Riddance, 2016

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2016 has been a rough year for a lot of us.

So many cultural figures died in 2016. RIP Prince, David Bowie, Gene Wilder, Mohamed Ali, Florence Henderson, Alan Thicke, Buckwheat Zydeco, Zsa Zsa Gabor, Alan Rickman, Glen Frey, Garry Shandling, and Patty Duke, George Michael, and Carrie Fisher. (Nancy Reagan died in 2016 too, but honestly, I don’t care if she rests in peace or goes to Hell.)

On the personal front, I found a dead man in an isolated campground, and by the end of the same month, my dad was dead too.

Then the presidential election turned out the way so many of us feared, and now a hateful, crass, misogynistic bully is headed to the White House.

Of course, some nice things happened in 2016 too. Lou gave birth to a beautiful baby girl to keep her beautiful baby boy company.

Uh…that’s the only nice thing from 2016 I can come up with.

Well, I guess I should say that’s the only momentous nice thing I can come up with. Even in a bed year, smaller nice things happen all the time. I shared a campsite with a giant sequoia for over four months in 2016. I saw pileated woodpeckers (or maybe just one several times) in 2016. I visited Red  Rock Canyon in Nevada in 2016. I felt the love of friends near and far in 2016. The year wasn’t a total bust.

Starting in 1997, every ten years I have a really great year. I’m due for a great 2017, with or without Donal Trump as POTUS. Bring on the joy, 2017. Bring on the joy!

I

Things 2016 Taught Me:

My dad wasn’t invincible.

When we thought George W. Bush was the worst thing that could happen to this country, we weren’t using our imaginations.

There’s still so much hate in the United States.

I can function in a crisis.

I am capable of writing/publishing/promoting a book.

My life is full of people who love and care for me.

 

My Goals for 2017:

Turn off the damn solitaire game.

Read 75 books.

Think before I open my big mouth.

Write another book. (I currently have plans for three more.)

Treat everyone (even people who annoy me–especially people who annoy me) with kindness and compassion.

Make healthy food choices more often than not.

Move my body every day.

Please share what 2016 taught you and/or your goals for 2017 in the comments section.

 

Free clipart courtesy of http://www.webweaver.nu/clipart/new-years/2.shtml and http://www.webweaver.nu/clipart/new-years/3.shtml.
Dec30

On Homelessness

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It happened again.

I was part of a small group sitting around a kitchen table, drinking tea and conversing. One woman was being quite difficult. She was older than I am by about 20 years and tried to dominate the conversation, no matter the topic. She tried to present herself as an authority on New Orleans because as a teenager, she’d lived for some time in a town 25 miles away. Even though I lived in New Orleans for nearly a decade and her feet hadn’t touched the city’s soil in over forty years, she wanted to present herself as the expert.

The five of us in the room talked about where we’d grown up. I talked about my job as a camp host. The difficult woman asked me, Where do you live now?

I  answered in a perfectly cheerful way, I live in my van.

I saw the panic on her face and heard it in her voice when she asked, But where do you live?

I said again, I live in my van, then went on to explain I don’t have a sticks and bricks house waiting anywhere for me.

I could tell she felt pity for me, which is not what I expected from her, since I knew she lives in a 5th wheel with multiple cats.

I think the woman was worried about me because she is worried about herself.

Later in the conversation around the table, the woman admitted she’s not entirely happy about living in the 5th wheel. She doesn’t see the 5th wheel or its current location as the home she wants for the rest of her life. She want’s something bigger, something “better,” something different. I suspect she wondered how I could be happy living in a van if she’s not quite happy where she lives.

As the five of us stood up to say good-bye before parting, the difficult woman singled me out and hurriedly told me in a voice barely above a whisper how some years back she lived in her car with her dog. I could tell this part of her history was not something she remembered fondly or spoke of proudly.

I assured her many people have lived or currently live in a vehicle. I wanted her to know that living in a vehicle is not as weird as she’d convinced herself it is.

I refuse to be ashamed for living in my van, I told her.

I hope she will let go of her shame too, because if isn’t doing her any good.

I told her I don’t know if I could ever go back to living in a conventional home, as I now find the thought of paying rent for a house or an apartment offensive.

Sometimes I’m glad I can be an example of a woman living a good life while housed in her van. Sometimes I wish I didn’t feel as if I have to explain my existence to every curious or worried person who crosses my path. On the day with the difficult woman, I felt something in between. I hadn’t expected or wanted to talk with someone who was shocked by the way I live, but I did enjoy disabusing her of some of the notions she seemed to be holding about people who live in vehicles.