Dear Anonymous,
Folks are scattered this morning and one young man is arranging his pack under a staircase off the street in an alley.
This is how the hairs on his arms were. Each hair a jungle of drops beginning to collect the dew and the rain. He comes over with a smile.
'I called my parents.' he says with a voice buoyed by something. Maybe hope.
'I wanna' go home.' he continues and the tone goes down an octave.
'I hope they come get me.' he adds with what sounds like a question, a doubt. Maybe fear.
Then,' I miss my little baby girl.'
His daughter is 2 and a half years old.
I hope he can go home.
May we all find our way home.
Recalling when I was an intern at The Telling Room, a non-profit Community Writing Center in Portland, Maine. My assignment was assisting with a workshop for fourth grade students. The room was bustling with energy and the workshop facilitators were offering rapid fire writing prompts the kids were responding well to. Until this one. The prompt was simply HOME.
At my table 4 of the 5 kids seized up. All I could see was spooked horses. Eyes white and bulging, frozen for a moment before they prepared to dig stirrups into their own hide to bolt.
It was quiet but I murmured 'I wasn't always happy at home. It wasn't a cozy place. I felt more at home running by myself in the woods...'
Oh? The young girl next to me said.
And then I, 'Is there a place like that for you?'
She finally exhaled the breath she had taken in when she first heard the prompt. She described her after school drama club where she loved who she could be and she could be ANYTHING.
I said 'Oh. Home.'
The others mentioned distressed parents, awkward step parenting. Much, much was left without words.
I remember that today as City of Portland institutes a Stay At Home Ordinance to curb the spread of Covid19.
May we all find our way home.
Hunger on the streets. It's not that there are not sufficient social services providing food. Not my point here nor my expertise....
Dear Anonymous,
Hunger on the streets. It's not that there are not sufficient social services providing food. Not my point here nor my expertise.
I am talking hunger. For homemade. Made from scratch. Watched men just out of prison swoon to the flavor of real butter. Holding their wax paper cradle of cake or muffin like a sacrament.
Maybe it is a hunger for what may feel like home to some. Maybe a flavor of deinstitutionalized nourishment.
Always, always 'Is there more?'
Always. Always the eternal insatiable hunger.