He reminds me of many young men I have met...

 
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Dear Anonymous,

He reminds me of many young men I have met. Handsome. Young. So young. Stories of lives detoured by drugs. Colleges left. Classes abandoned. Families distanced. The siren of heroin. The mistress who will not be refused easily. It may not be his exact story but some of the refrains are so familiar. The despondency cloaked as survival skill.

He shows me he still has the mask he requested from me last week. Tucked away safely in his pocket. To use on the bus. He shows me.

So many young men. And women. Derailed. I am fortunate, blessed really, to know many that have flourished in recovery. And their about-faces hold me in these moments. Not that I insist it should be any different than it is, but that it CAN be.
Maybe there really is a season, and a time for every purpose, under heaven.

Struggling. Stresses mount up. Smaller stresses connect to larger stresses. To traumas...

 
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Dear Anonymous,
Struggling. Stresses mount up. Smaller stresses connect to larger stresses. To traumas. Become unmanageable. Highly charged. And then it's desperate. Simply what it looks like from here. Behind my mask.
Racing ahead in established patterns and trying to push pause in newer ones. The drama on the street. The drama in a heart. How we escalate and stand convicted to our efforts and then add escalation in defense. Simply what it looks like from here. Behind my mask. I recognize this thing we humans do. Heartache on the corner.

He comes by this morning to say hello. Has his own place now. Livin' the dream...

 
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Dear Anonymous,
He comes by this morning to say hello. Has his own place now. Livin' the dream. I mentioned he looks so much better than he did deep into last winter.
He says,
'Yeah. You mean when I was hating life?'
Then, the way he lit a cigarette for the man with a bloodied face who stumbles by. The cigarette had already fallen out once, barely noticed but then picked up again. Fumbling, swollen, stiff fingers, clenching soiled bags. A back pack falling off his shoulders.
So he cups his hands tenderly around the end of the cigarette dangling from the man's lips. Like a benediction. And shelters that little flame as it casts a brief glow beneath that drawn up hood. He takes a grateful drag.

That's what love looks like sometimes.

Another excerpt from TRANSIENCE by Kenneth W Beek:

 
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Another excerpt from TRANSIENCE by Kenneth W Beek.

'The meeting with my new caseworker might have lasted an hour, which left three hours to kill before dinner. I sat and read. I was reading Nietzsche’s ​Beyond Good and Evil​ at the time. That’s a heavy book, especially when you’re reading it in a crowd of crazy people.

That may seem like an insensitive thing to say, but it would be far more insensitive to pretend it isn’t so. There were hordes of people yelling, arguing, fighting. This is the perpetual Preble Street scene. About every five minutes someone is robbed and every half hour or so you see somebody assaulted. I’ve seen people hit with bricks, boards, canes, bottles, bags; I’ve seen shootings and stabbings, seizures, suicides, OD’s, heart attacks, bad trips, people lit on fire, people pissing and shitting and fucking right on and around the galvanized benches in the resource center’s courtyard.'

Truth teller. Writer. Witness. Thank you Kenneth W Beek.
Here's a link to his book:

https://mainernews.com/transcience/
A friend of Kenny's. 

This is Kenneth W Beek. And this is a photograph of him from several years ago.

 
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This is Kenneth W Beek. And this is a photograph of him from several years ago.
He is a gifted writer, in my humble opinion. Truth teller. Please consider reading his book, or even just a chapter of his book TRANSIENCE. A powerful account that neither glamorizes or patronizes; a witnessing of homelessness in Portland, Maine from the inside. Well written. And well written... on an ancient cell phone with cracked screen and no internet.
Maine. https://mainernews.com/transcience

Keen insights. An expansive heart.

 
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This is Kenneth W Beek who I met on the streets years ago. He is one of the reasons I kept going back. Because he had a lot to offer. Keen insights. An expansive heart.
He told me on this day, slurring his words 'I'm not on the streets because I drink. I drink because I'm on the streets.' And, this IS his truth. He is currently housed and does not drink.
He has written a book that's available online and I am attaching a link and hoping some of you will take a look. It is extensive and articulate.This is a comment he wrote this morning in response to a post:
'It's difficult to know how you will react or behave in the most extreme situations, even when consequences can be severe. That's what I was attempting to portray, that and also how most of the people I encountered in my life on the streets maintained what can really only be described as honor and integrity, a reasonable moral code. Those were two very important pieces of the story for me.'
Please consider reading his book TRANSIENCE: Chapters from an epic memoir about homeless existence in Portland, Maine. The link to TRANSIENCE is pasted below. Free.
Congratulations, Kenneth W Beek.

Note: A quotation from Kenneth regarding the book: 'I did write the book (and a whole lot more) in a beat up and discarded cell phone with a broken screen and no internet connection.'
A whole lot of us gotta' get busy and drop the sniveling excuses. ( me )

https://mainernews.com/transcience/

Everyone distant. Everyone thick as thieves. Love arrows arcing through the air covered in masks and gloves.

 
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It was dark this morning. Sodden with half a foot of spring snow. Poor man's fertilizer. I think of Maple snow. And I think of the men at the ferry terminal. Displaced and without home are congregating as they do every morning. This morning? They actually are maintaining to 6' distances. This makes me so happy. I leave a bag of socks and coffee cards they distribute amongst themselves.
A tip of the hat, some really sweet responses through the air.
Everyone distant. Everyone thick as thieves. Love arrows arcing through the air covered in masks and gloves.

'It's not always pretty. But we sing.'

 
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Dear Anonymous,
Remembering a day when he turned around before heading back to a group of men at the ferry terminal and shouted to me,
'We sing to each other.'
He stood there. Looking at me. Vulnerable and strong simultaneously.

And I recall stopping in my tracks. Feeling this was a gift we do not all have in our lives. I was also dumbstruck that he took the time to turn around and share.
I know it's completely transferential because I consider music divine and intimate and am happy for them and I say
'That's so wonderful you have that.' and, damn, I mean it.
He responds
'It's not always pretty. But we sing.'
and walks around the corner.

I imagine this choir of brokenness, loss and joy, of defiance and stubbornness, of grime and pain, of love and darkness ...and part of me is so deeply jealous in the finest of ways.
I hope they sing now. Chorus after chorus. I hope they sing.

He doesn't like the camera much. But that day, a year or so ago, he gave permission.

 
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Dear Anonymous,

He doesn't like the camera much. But that day, a year or so ago, he gave permission. Gave himself to the image. The moment held a gravitas for me.
I had just been asked to read a letter to him from his mom. The carefully scripted handwritten letter was worn and wilted from the repeated crumpling from fist to pocket and back again.
It was full of love.
It was full of I love you son.
And I fell in love too.
All of us wanting to go home.

Oh, the heartbreaking complexity of our human hearts.

One man recently had his playlist blasting from his phone. It was before 6 AM.

 
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One man recently had his playlist blasting from his phone. It was before 6 AM. I notice he looks better than he has recently. Clear eyed and upright. Attentive this morning when commonly he cannot manage eye contact. Off in a world of use I am outside of. This morning though he is clear and his voice rings out. 'Been clean 2 and a half weeks!'
I congratulate him heartily and let him know we can see that and he says earnestly 'I'm trying.' and manages a smile. The music continues like it’s an audible shelter, like it creates a cocoon to protect his soft vulnerable body.
Man, I wish him the best in these times.

It's not easy in my home. With a bathroom and running water and a kitchen and some food and internet.Imagine without.

 
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Dear Anonymous,

Many of them are sleeping outside. During the day the ones that have temporary shelter at night often are having trouble finding a bathroom to use. Ones roaming the streets after 2 AM are even more suspicious to police. Their usual shelters for coffee are not available to congregate. Overall the mood is anxious. Short tempered.
Some of their community resources have had to close. Cut back.
Like trimming a penny that wasn't ever enough.
I see them briefly. Put on gloves and hand a card. I miss being able to put my hand on their sleeve. Or their shoulder. Or the occasional hug. All that not the way at the moment.
The socks and coffee cards remain urgent.
It's not easy in my home. With a bathroom and running water and a kitchen and some food and internet.
Imagine without.