So, last time I posted a rather long list of woes about me and my home I’ve been trying to spruce up for the holidays. Since then, Painter has finished the job, and he hasn’t been back since Monday, which is awesome – lovely as he was – but we’re all ever so happy to have one less body in the house, certainly while we’re trying to unfurl from our life under shrink wrap.
At least we’ve all managed to stay fresh. (Heh.)
On Tuesday, my husband got the faucet piece we’ve been waiting for, so we have water in our kitchen again, and all has been restored.
Wednesday I stood at my usual spot behind the couch in the kitchen, and flicked on the tv, searching for something to watch while I embarked on folding the MOUNTAIN of clean clothes.
I stopped on an HBO documentary (you know HBO – all of their films are fantastic!) and though I’d missed the first ten minutes or so, I stopped surfing. It was called, “Homeless: The Motel Kids of Orange County.”
So I folded clothes just as I was being introduced to a family of six all living in a no-bedroom motel room in what appeared to be Scuzzville, just an off-ramp away from Nowhereland, California.
Just two days prior, I was likening our reno-hell situation as to staying in a crappy hotel with no amenities or service. I was joking. (No, not really.) But then sometimes the Universe has a way of making you give your head a shake. Holy crap.
There was a young girl of about 12 years of age folding clothes in the middle of the space, just before she collected the plastic bowls, now empty of their Spaghetti-o’s or whatever from her young brothers (aged about 7 and 8) and proceeded to wash them in the fist-sized sink in the “kitchenette” just outside their washroom.
Her baby brother sipped from a juice-box next to her dad, sprawled out on the bed (because there’s no where else to sit) who is out of work. Mum was just leaving for her nightshift at the hospital where she earns something like $14/hour. They pay a weekly rate at the hotel. They’ve managed to cram a bunk bed in there along with the double-sized mattress. The boys sleep on the bottom, their sister is above, and the parents share the other bed with their not-yet-toddler.
For the rest of the hour, the filmmaker (Alexandra Pelosi) talks with several families (though mostly the kids) about how things are going, inquires about how they live, and follows them through a typical day, ask what plans they have for the future…
The saddest thing ever was hearing the answer to the question: “Do you look forward to anything?” Child after child said the same thing, in their own words… “No. Nothing at all.”
They play in the parking lots of the motels. They lie down in the grass near the sidewalks and watch the fireworks display coming from Disneyland. They go dumpster-diving every week when another family gets evicted, and the left-over contents of their room get chucked into the trash cans outside the motel.
They wish for homes. The want their parents to find work. They wish to do their lives over again. They wish not to have lice and bedbugs.
Two days prior to this, I was wishing that the part for my Italian faucet would FINALLY be at the dealer so I could have my LIFE back to normal and how it should be – clean, tidy, beautiful.
We’re not rich people by any stretch of the imagination… but all things are relative. I felt burning shame as I stood there folding our clean clothes and things. My eyes brimmed with tears the entire time I watched. The rut of poverty is so very, very deep – it can affect EVERYTHING to come in a life. There but for the grace of God go I… I’ve never been homeless. It sounds like a stretch, but a lost job, or a bad investment, or bad planning, or just plain bad luck… it could happen to anyone. Le sigh.
Yes, I hear you, Universe… thanks for the reminder.
Wow. Tracey. Wow. I totally feel that burning shame sometimes when I am shocked into the reality outside of my safe and warm life. That is why we are doing this at UrbanMoms for the Holidays: http://www.urbanmoms.ca/moms_the_word/2010/12/all-i-want-for-christmas.html
It’s a little thing. But it’s something.
Charles, I know!! Not all people living on the street are drug addicts or loafers… some people end up living in their cars because of an appendectomy that just couldn’t be paid for. I’ve never paid a hospital bill in my life (directly) unless you count the cable tv I ordered up in my private room after each of my c-sections. It’s amazing how different life can be once you cross a boarder.
We have lots of hungry, homeless people here too, of course. This film presented itself in front of me at a time when I’ve been moaning about my relatively small problems. My dinner issues are that I CAN’T BE BOTHERED TO MAKE IT – not that there’s nothing to eat. How lucky I am. How lucky so many of us are.
When I was living in Santa Barbara I had a neighbor living in a storage locker, trying to get her 15 year old son through high school.
There was also a young woman who’d come down the cliffs where we surfed with her sleeping bag every day near sunset. There was an overhang to keep out the rain.
My friend Georges, originally from Toronto, who was happily married and raising two kids, told me how cold it was to sleep outside in Southern California the year when he was homeless.
America has no European or Canadian style social safety net. People become homeless because of medical bills, mental illness, or bad luck (not just drugs or indolence). Disgusting hyper wealthy people lobby the government to prevent a proper health care system, since the current system generates enormous profits for a very few billionaires and some multimillionaires. I sat up all night with a waitress and single mother in Chicago who had broken her ankle running away from crazy homeless guy. She was trying to decide if the ankle was bad enough to go into debt by going to the E/R. After a night of pain I drove her and her kids to the hospital.
Thanks, Alice. Oftentimes, we really are lucky to have the problems we own… it’s not an easy life for anyone – at least not all of the time – but someone’s always worse off somewhere. *sighs heavily*
so true, it’s easy to stop seeing past the daily stressors and realize that they are such lucky problems to have.
thanks for reminding me, too, because I’ve been hitting my limit on stress lately, and sometimes it takes those reminders to make you remember where you really are!
Oh Mel, I probably should have worded that better – I don’t feel ashamed for not being destitute (quite the contrary!) but I feel like a bit of an a-hole for lamenting about my so-very-sad-and-tragic state of affairs lately… I just had my house painted, and I’ve got all kind of new furniture in boxes we’re ready to put together… poor, poor me. It’s too easy to get side-tracked about what’s truly important, that’s all. I’m happy to have my life – I just have to remember to find the joy in all things, right?
While I do agree with most everything you said, I don’t think you should feel shame for NOT being destitute. Compassion? Absolutely. But never shame.
You’re right, Nancy. I do try to live as well as I can, and to be thankful – it’s easy to have a myopic view sometimes, when our “limits” are being tested, or so it seems. We live just outside the downtown core – poverty lives on every corner, and I’m not at all blind to it – but it’s ever so soul-crushing to see sad children with no hopes or dreams.
Live with an open heart. Share. Count your blessings. I try. We all try. Staying inspired is the key, I think. You’re right, dear. *snicker*
so true, tracey- and I often feel that the universe is working to show me what I need to see more clearly.
But also- if you could look to your new atmosphere as though it is Christmas every day – you will be further inspired to be your best and that will make glorious change in that same Universe.