| ANOTHER NON-EDITORIAL |
| No use fighting it, Bridget--you can't write an intellectual editorial when you're PMS'ing--not even the Professor's Daughter can do that. Not when I'm getting these reminders of Boston in the mail, feeding that AWFUL aching homesickness. How can I explain to anyone how much it hurts that I had to leave Boston behind, after living there for twelve fruitful years, because the rising cost of living made it impossible for me to live there any more? Who cares about the memories I have of that life? Who cares about the agony Rick and I went through when we left the Boston homeless scene behind only to exchange it for the Portland homeless scene,which only meant more oppression and a new set of difficulties? How many more sad memories can I stand to keep piling up behind me? I can never tell you how much it hurts. All those days in Portland when we could do nothing but sit in the car and vegetate. The people who only saw that shabby beat-up Honda knew nothing of the life we'd had before; it probably didn't even occur to them that we'd ever had a life. They didn't see all the pretty things that had once filled my house and then had to be hidden away in someone's basement in Boston. They didn't see the record store Chris and I had had that didn't "make it" as a business and had to be closed. Or all the Christmas Eves at his mother's house. Or all the cats we had that came and went. Those and the million other things that had made up my life before, had been reduced to mere memories that floated randomly through my mind as Rick and I sat like vegetables in the front seat, staring out at the perpetually-grey Portland November sky and all ther other sad people. I kept trying to write about it, with the notebook on my lap on the car seat, but a lot of times it seemed useless. Who out there cared what I had to say about being homeless? What did it mean to anybody else? The "haves" didn't want to be educated about the real causes of homelessness; they didn't want to read my stunning insights about it. Then why did I keep writing that stuff? Who would read it and care and be able to DO something about it? How would it ever make a DIFFERENCE? I was often not sure, but the only thing I did know for sure was that I had to keep writing to keep my sanity; there was no other way to keep from completely drowning in the sadness. It wasn't just Boston that I left behind, though. It was an entire SYSTEM that didn't work for me any more. I know there are many others like me too, who also couldn't make that old system work any more and are feeling the same sadness because of it. Our hearts are broken that we could no longer keep our bodies and souls together thay way. It was a cruel system, but the people who had to live within it were still gentle human beings who wanted to nurture their families. We can put up a show of bravado, saying, "Good riddance to it--we are creating a better system now!" But there's no getting around it: it's a tragedy that the lives we tried to build under the old system fell apart in midstream. We had to let down the ones who were counting on us to "bring home the bacon" year after year after year. We could no longer provide a life for them with the capitalists' money; that COLD system would no longer provide any warmth; we know now that we were only keeping warm on borrowed energy all those years. We find ourselves having to start over at mid-life, at the end of a century; and we are trying, with the energy we still have, to build a whole new system, starting with the scraps we have left over from the old one as our building material. We are trying to keep up our courage, but sometimes we have to pause and let ourselves feel the grief at what is gone. The tears come unbidden, without warning, in powerful gushes. There IS a bridge connecting the old life to the new one. We're on it right now. Others haven't gotten to it yet, and don't realize they will someday soon. It might collapse any time, but when it does, we the "homeless ones" will find our way to the other side. We won't lose our grip as others may. We have been planning and anticipating this for years; we will know what to do, because we can already SEE the other side that others can't even conceive of yet. We will be the survivors because we consciously made ourselves Survivors long ago. Now, today in Eugene, this fragile shell of a camper is the only thing I have that separates me from the street, that allows me to have some privacy and life of my own. I do my best, every day, to have some semblance of a life in this miniature imitation of a home, but the bed is so cold because Rick has been gone too long; and Boston has been gone too long; and the cats have been gone too long; the grief is all I have as a constant companion. Sorry to depress you all, but I can't be stunningly intellectual when I'm PMS'ing on the Waxing Moon. Now the blood is starting to flow along with the tears. Can't fight those hormones. I may be in midlife but I'm still years away from menopause. That's why the emotions are so HEAVY at "that time of the month"--it's that gravitational pull downward, toward the earth, that can't be resisted. Oh, well--time to take some aspirin. See you next month, and I'll try not to be PMS'ing again. (click here to view next page) |
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