Why We Need Places

I visited a home yesterday, which is not something I do very often while working with a predominately homeless population.

I have known Vincent for a few years now--long enough to watch him transition from frequent nights spent in a parking garage, through the application for disability benefits, all the way to the receipt of his own apartment. I have watched one further transition as well: self-sufficiency to dependency; mobility to immobility. This was the reason I was visiting Vincent today: to deliver to him his food pantry staples.

5 pounds of oatmeal
A package of salt-free rice cakes
3 rolls of toilet paper
A loaf of bread
Gatorade
Green Tea

With all of his bland, flavorless food requests, I was not expecting to open his apartment door to such a colorful, stimulating studio.

The walls were full of drawings, gifts from other people, fliers and dried flowers, strange sculptures. Plants (and consequently, dirt) littered the floor, next to stacks of books, and palates of paint. It was truly a 'studio apartment'.

Seeing Vincent in all his glory made me consider the further purposes of having our own housing. We desire to be in all our glory, whatever that means.

Some people fill their places with art and color, like Vincent.
Some people fill their places with people.
Some people want to be surrounded by order,
Or memories
Or collections (anyone who has seen my closet knows all about this).

Some people want their places uncluttered, simple, almost bare.

But most people want to decide for themselves. To extend themselves into wherever they are the most.

Vincent now seems himself, when he's in his place, throwing his being all over the floor and the shelves and the walls.

A Thrill of Hope

Mario always reminds me that he is not an artist, he is an artisan. He is a 60-year-old cancer patient at St. Mary's who lives down the street from my office, and continually supplies it with new art for it's walls. Often, he will visit me to make long-distance calls to his family who own a flower shop on the other side of the state ("Our last name means 'Beautiful Flower' in Italian," he reminds me), and each time, he brings something shockingly original.

Currently, I have a framed tissue paper collage, his pastel self-portrait (complete with a pair of real, lens-less glasses stuck onto the paper), a brick with crayon-wax-dipped sandwich skewers mimicking a bouquet, and a metallic Christmas "wreath" made from permanent marker-colored parts of a grill. The guy is astoundingly creative.

For Christmas, I wanted to make him something. I have pretty limited artistic abilities, including some debatable photography and ability to knit without pattern with varied success. For Mario, I decided to transcribe the verse of a Christmas song, one that reminded me of him. On a small sheet of posterboard, I caligrified the following words:

"A thrill of Hope!
The weary world rejoices
For yonder breaks a new and glorious morn!"

Below it, I drew a simple sunrise. I laminated it, and waited for him to come in this week.

When Mario arrived, he insisted on giving me a gift first. True to his name, he gave me a small clutch of dried flowers (to add to my collection of dried roses and lillies I have hanging by my desk, taken from who-knows-who's garden.)

With hesitation, I gave him the gift I made him.
"I'm no artisan," I said.
He read it a few times, and through his tears said,

"This may be the only Christmas gift I receive this year, but even if it wasn't, it would still be the best. I'm putting it on my wall as soon as I get home."

The weary world rejoices.