I returned home from a book group meeting at a local restaurant.
We’ve been meeting there for several years now, deep meaningful conversation on life-transforming topics and literature.
I stepped outside into the extremely cold air, stiffened and hurried to the car. Under the well-lit overpass just next to the restaurant, I walked my a man huddled in blankets, readying himself for the night. I kept walking, my leftovers in hand. I turned on the car and started to drive away, then slowed down.
I think our economy and the entire structure of our country forces people into places mentally, emotionally, spiritually, that shuts you down, as a human. You have to constantly encounter then make choices about all the ways our society lets its citizens down. You have to decide if this is your problem or someone else’s. You have to ask if you’re safe to help. You have to ask about your time, about why they’re there, if you really can do anything at all.
It makes you, it makes me, neurotic. I realized that tonight, and it fit right in with one of the subthemes of our book Middle Passage by Charles Johnson. The slaver owner is corrupted and ruined just as the slave it. The wealth disparity in this country is sickening all of us. We are doing mental gymnastics to continue to walk among the living dead, daily. Our Western psyche allows us all the excuses we need as to why you don’t need to be inconvenienced by it all. I’ve bought many of them.
Tonight, I pulled my car over and stepped out. I didn’t feel any danger, and I wanted to help. I was clumsy. I asked him if he planned to sleep outside. I asked if he had anywhere to go. I asked if he needed anything.
He wasn’t strung out. He looked tired. He said the shelters were all full, and he was doing his best to transition from being homeless. He wasn’t there yet.
Do you need anything, right now? I asked.
Well, he said, pausing for quite some time. As he paused, I considered what I could offer, the entire spectrum from just handing him my leftovers and a few dollars now, to letting him sleep in our guest bedroom.
I could use another blanket, he said honestly. And a few dollars for some hot coffee.
I can manage that, I replied. I said I’d head home and get a blanket and some coffee, then be back. I reached down and asked him his name, stuck out my hand. Alan he said, and I said, I’m Piper.
I went home gathered the blanket, bought some coffee and food at McDonald’s and in that twenty minutes or so, realized that for tonight, that’s all I can do. He isn’t asking me to save his life. I can’t save his life. I’m up against a massive system. I don’t know how to enter into this well. I do know I can do more than nothing and that’s something. That’s something and sort of everything.
*****
We had a rough, rough week. We snapped at each other as pieces of our move into the new space are taking over us. We both got really triggered by it all. This weekend we sat down and processed it.
One comment Jay made was we have an enchilada the size of our house that we’re trying to take one bite at a time to process. We don’t want to try and eat it all at once. So we took another bite this weekend, and it was good.
