And Sew On: The luxury, the importance, and the impact of more time.

I do not have a set schedule or time limit for the visits I have during the day. The amount of time I spend with each individual depends on the needs they present. I have the luxury of determining how I spend the six hours that my office is open for business, and though I am held closely accountable by my co-workers (and those still waiting outside of my door), I see the value in taking extra time from time to time to do some unique activities. Like sewing.

Miss Nettie came in because she needed new boots, because the fabric on hers had ripped up the side. We have very few winter boots available to give out, so I decided it was time to take out the sewing kit. Yes, of course I keep a sewing kit in my office.

Miss Nettie and I each took a needle, some thread, and a boot, and got to work. She had not sewn in years. We talked about all of those non-sewing years, all of the threadless thoughts that occupied her mind. We talked about those boots, their strengths and weaknesses, how they traveled with her through the highs and lows of her days. We brough the seams together with only minor injuries (nothing two band-aids couldn't fix), and Miss Nettie walked away with some pride in those boots, and some more energy in her step.

Not everyone is lucky enough to have 10 minutes to take with Miss Nettie, but I stand by those 10 minutes, and I'll defend them to my co-workers, and those still waiting outside my door.

2 Vitamins, 2 Cough Drops, 2 Starlite Peppermints

When Jerry walks in, we lay them all in two lines:

2 Vitamins, for preventative health
2 Cough Drops, for sinus health
2 Starlite Peppermints, for breath

Capsule Capsule, Paper Wrapper Paper Wrapper, Cellophane Cellophane

If there's anyone who needs vitamins, it's Jerry. He eats ketchup and tarter sauce. He eats really really thick hot chocolate. He eats nothing. He eats french fries mixed with really really thick hot chocolate. He eats nothing. He needs some minerals. Though he doesn't seem to get sick nearly as much as I do.

If there's anyone who needs vitamins, it's me. I get what Jerry calls the Rhino Virus at least once a month, making me the second most prominent destroyer of Kleenex-producing trees in the Northern Hemisphere. I can't be bothered with vitamins. But Jerry called me a hypocrite, so we decided to keep each other accountable. We take our vitamins in unison, keeping eye contact to make sure neither of us cheats.

It's so much easier to take vitamins with Jerry. There's this strange, other-dimensional connection made when we swallow One-A-Days in unison, like the feeling you get when you're pushing a car out of a snowbank with someone that you don't even know that well--when you are both working really hard toward something great.

We've found common ground in our lack of motivation, and now, in our mineral-rich bloodstreams.

Sometimes, Jerry stays to talk while we administer our cough drops and suffer through our breath medication, but today, Jerry takes them for the road. He's got business today, but knew he'd be worthless without his vitamins.

Mad World

I have always been uncomfortable with anger. It's not an emotion that I often feel (except, historically and mysteriously, with both of my brothers). When things don't go the way I wanted, or when something dangerous is closely evaded, or when someone tricks me, or when I am denied something I desire, I feel disappointed, relieved, embarrassed, or frustrated. My reaction to these feelings is usually a strangely mis-fitting pleasant attitude, an even-keel calm, some distracting humor... but rarely anger.

So, door slamming, raised voices, shaking fists and red faces were always frightful and foreign to me because I didn't understand them, and didn't know how to interpret them, accept them, or respond to them. This difficulty was amplified in my employment, where I had to sort through the meaning and motivation of being swore at, stormed out upon, and glared into the ground. I didn't take it personally, and wasn't hurt by it; if anything, I was baffled and amused. But my amusement was not constructive or helpful, so for the past 3 years, I have been observing and interpreting anger in order to react to it well, and respond to it helpfully. Today's observation brought a particularly helpful amount of understanding.

Pamela was the first person in front of my office this morning at 8 AM, with 3 tired children and an apathetic boyfriend. She immediately stated her demands (none of which I could meet (at least right away)), and towed her crew into my office with a slammed door, a raised voice, a shaking fist, and a red face. I watched with a strangely mis-fitting pleasant attitude and even-keel calm (trying to suppress my humor reflex), as she yelled at me the injustice of my inadequacies. I could see pretty clearly that it was not the lack of a 30-day Bus Pass that was boiling inside of her, but the disappointment, the embarrassment, and the frustration of a mother who felt unable to take care of her kids; a woman who was being mentally abandoned by the man who was her greatest sense of comfort and support; the child of a mother who belittled her for her dependency, even if it was temporary.

I began to understand that anger appears stronger than embarrassment or defeat. Anger is powerful, not vulnerable.

Pamela is angry because her and her 3 kids are staying in an emergency shelter, and are shooed out during the day into the elements with no transportation. She's angry because she doesn't have anywhere to go. She's angry because her boyfriend is going to leave and go back to his mama's house in Benton Harbor. She's angry because she just wants to play with her kids, to take care of them, to be able to get what she needs, to be secure, to know what will happen tomorrow, and next week, and next month, and to be able to put down her bags in a place where they won't get stolen, and feel like her kids are safe even when she is not holding all of their hands, and cook the way she loves to, and relax her muscles, and slow her mind, but she can't. So when her boyfriend leads the kids back to the waiting room and closes the door behind him...
... she lays her head on the desk and weeps.

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.

Joann Gets a Life

On the sign-in sheet outside of my office, people can sign up for assistance with whatever they want. There is a previous post on this blog about particularly creative and bizarre requests, but today I got a new one worth noting:

Joann --- Needs a Life

She was the last one on the list, and I only had 5 minutes before we close. I wanted to make it good, and against her expectations, take it seriously.

"Sit down, Joann."

I got out a piece of paper--she stared at me in amused disbelief, but her face was still overwhelmed with sad, hopeless boredom.

"Number One: You need a hobby. What are your hobbies?"

"I don't have a hobby! I'm homeless! I don't have any money!"

"Hobbies don't have to cost money. Do you like to write?"

"Yes, but my bag was stolen, and it had my paper in it."

"Well, if this is going to be your hobby, you need a notebook, and you need a really nice pen." (I'm passionate about journaling with nice pens.) I found a notebook, a rockin pen, and put them both in a bag, on the desk between us.

"Number Two: You need some people. Who are your people?"

"Got no people."

"Family in the area?"

"Well.... I have three children."

"Are you on speaking terms?"

"Yes..."

"Speak to them more often." (I noted this on the piece of paper next to '#2')
"Number Three: Do you have a library card?"

"Yes..."

"Learn something new. Think about a new thing each day. Journal about it."
I wrote this next to '#3', and handed Joann the bag.
"There it is, Joann. That's a really good start."

"But... I need that paper. My list."

"Right!" I wrote JOANN'S LIFE at the top of it, and put it in her hand. She looked at me again, with a few layers of her hopeless boredom melting away, revealing just a little bit more of that amused disbelief. Then she walked out of my office.

Our office just closed: Joann walks out with a life.

When the Door Closes

When she's in the open, when there's people swirling all around and so many sounds and conversations, then everything is as it always is, and nothing has to be different. There are enough distractions--enough reasons not to cry, or acknowlege the truth, or was it just a rumor she heard? When she's walking the streets, she thinks about how cold it is, about her fingers and toes, her watering eyes. Numb and numb.

But when she comes into a private office, and when the door closes, then her sister is really dead. She's really gone. Her favorite one, the one who liked Law and Order, the one she fought with the most, and respected the most. She thinks about it now, feels it now, and is now allowed to show her tears (in a place where they won't be talked about, and they won't freeze to her face).

Now, she knows that she had been looking for a room to enter, and a door to close--one that didn't contain a toilet. They're hard to come by in this neighborhood, but they're necessary, because everywhere else, the noise never stops, and her sister is somewhere, somewhere.

Love, God and Philosophy, by Joachim Bajema

Joachim walked in and got right down to business. He whipped out a photo-copy of a cover of a book: Love, God and Philosophy by Joachim Bajema.
“I’m Joachim Bajema, and I wrote this book.”
I don’t know if he knew where he was or who he was talking to, but it seems like he did, and maybe it’s true, that philosophers can sense each other somewhere in their cheekbones. We talked some about Love (and so some about God by default), but mostly about philosophy, and his resume. He gave me three different addresses to put in his file: One in Switzerland, one in D.C., and one down the street, on the street. He came in every day, and we talked, and I asked about the strange, small silhouette of a dog on the cover of his book, and he dove into some crazy theory about the spirit of Love and God in Dogs (and yes, the lettering had something to do with it), and then left again.

Later that week, the FBI arrived (they come frequent enough not to scare us; infrequent enough to still clear the place out) with a large, photocopy of Joachim’s grinning mug shot.

“Have you seen this dangerous man?”

Dangerous man. I had seen him, yesterday and the day before, and we were talking about Love doggone it.
He had brutally murdered his father, his mother, his grandmother, the neighbor who tried to intervene, and the police officer who arrived later. They “WANTED” him.
I told him that he was either in Switzerland, D.C., or down the street, on the street.

Knowing I wouldn’t get to talk to him again, I tried to figure out how to get a hold of his book.

The First Snow with LaTasha Roe

... and as we stood outside her new apartment--her nearly-empty, save a sleeping bag, new apartment--the first few flakes of snow drifted down, and around us. I have never seen her smile like that: her eyes so squinted (just like mine) showing both rows of teeth, the wrinkles around her eyes delighting in the chance to bear witness to the occasion. Because this time, this winter, as the snow continued to fall and accumulate, LaTasha could go inside whenever she wanted, to a place that was hers, where no one could tell her to move along.

Knowing that this was now true, that everything had changed, we chose to stand outside just a little longer to watch the snow, pausing to look at each other with memories of the last 2 years of her struggle in both of our eyes.

There was nothing for me to say to her, in all of the holiness of that moment. But LaTasha never lacked words:

"Damn, girl! I forgot how cold this shit is!"

A Year, Here

My goal was to write this blog, at least semi-consistently, for a full year. The year has ended, and for now, I am content with leaving it here as it is: a free-standing record of the colors and sounds and troubles and joys of a year, here, on South Division. I hope that you, whomever you are, have enjoyed reading it.

And for anyone who wonders, the current score is Anna: 12, Mr. Robertson: 4.
(But that one wasn't even a math problem. It was a picture he drew.)

Free Parking

Recently, the city of Grand Rapids decided that Cherry St. needed to be straightened out. Before, it would be interrupted by our building; Cherry St. ran straight east into 144 South Division, and then continued next to it. It was a bit of a traffic mess, so construction workers re-designed the street so it curved southward before it hit Division, making it possible to continue straight ahead, next to our building. The southward curve cut out a bit of the parking available on the southwest corner of Division and Cherry, so I assumed that the space created on the other side would be used for parking. But instead, it was made into a park:
Two intersecting multi-leveled circles of benches and bricks and shrubs, crowned by a bus stop. It's beautiful! And all winter, it was left empty, because it was cold, and because there were rumors that the police installed cameras and microphones, somehow, in the bricks. But the sun and 60 degree weather pushed out the paranoia, and recently, the park has been packed.
Now, I overheard someone say,
"It makes me so mad that they are filling up that beautiful park!" And I could not help but say,
"Why? it's a park! It was made for them!"
"For homeless people?"
"For people."
Most of their day is spent being kicked out of places because they aren't theirs. Finally, here is a space in the neighborhood that isn't pre-owned. A no man's land is the closest thing some of them have to a home. So why would that make someone uncomfortable? That "they" are using this park?
Maybe because you relize that you can't claim it, own it, or make them leave. Maybe becaue you are getting a little taste of what "they" always feel--that it's not yours, and you're not exactly invited, but I suppose you can come.