Join me in the silence

I remember when my family used to visit my grandfather's cattle ranch in the high desert east of Prineville, Oregon. For a city kid, the silence of the open country was profound. At the time, I wasn't sure I liked it. Jets were tiny white dots in the sky, speeding toward Portland International Airport. They left contrails but made no sound. 

Living in silence in an age of constant noise can be disturbing. At times I feel very alone and disconnected if I don't have music or talk radio playing in the background. Other times, I sink into the silence like sliding into a warm bath. Mm. Bath. Haven't had one of those in a while. I digress.

Camping in the high desert of Flagstaff, Arizona, gives me a similar feeling. On a Sunday morning, nobody is up. I'm the only one walking along the gravel road, heading to who knows where, someplace I've never been. A few cars pass, kicking up great clouds of dust (implanting seeds of my future resentments). Before long, more cars, more people, and wonder of wonders, the sound of gunshots. Yep. There's a shooting range not far away.

Nothing shatters silence like gunshots. 

This is mining country. The mining companies moved on and left craters, half craters, slag heaps of gravel. The half craters make really good shooting ranges. I made the mistake of driving in that direction, seeking a better cell signal. I found the cell signal next to the shooting range. Two men were there, one supervising, and one sitting at a folding table aiming a long gun at a target some yards away. Blam! Then a few minutes later, blam! This morning was quiet, but around 9:00 a.m. the gunshots began again.

So there's that. 

On the bright side, I met a guy who addressed me as "neighbor," and we talked for a bit. His name is John. I hope I remember that. He lives in a trailer, drives a red car, rides a bike, goes shirtless, wears a Christian cross on a necklace, and has a mother who worries about his well being. Fellow neighbor, fellow nomad.

It's beautiful in the forest. Last night I dreamed it was on fire.

Walking in the early morning sunshine in a timber forest in the high desert puts me in the here and now. It's the safest place to be when one is homeless. Living today for a better past is futile. Living in the wreckage of the future is crazy making. The only safe place is the present. My demented mother was a Zen master. I learned a lot from witnessing her decline. 

I don't know if I'll live long enough to see my own decline into dementia, and even if I do, there's a good chance there will be no facility to take care of me until I die. My retirement plan is fentanyl. I can only hope my brain holds out long enough to score some and my courage holds out long enough for me to take it.

On that sober note, welcome to a new confounding fresh hell. There's room in the hand basket for you, in case you want some company on your own hellish descent.

High-class homelessness

After weeks of hiding out in Portland, living in parking lots of public parks during the day and trolling Portland streets for safe places to park at night, I finally hit my limit and left town. The weather sucked, as it often does in early summer. The beach was great, but eventually the nice casino security people would have told me to move on, can't stay there all summer, sorry. Portland was not welcoming me. I'd been to all the medical appointments, picked up all the meds, retrieved the junk mail from my brother . . . There was no reason to hang around a city where I was not welcome.

So I hit the road. From Portland I drove through Bend, then east toward Salt Lake City, then south Utah to Cedar City. I stayed at rest areas of questionable quality and a very nice Walmart parking lot, until finally I found a nice forest road just north of Flagstaff, and that is where I am right now as I'm typing this blog post. 

On my road trip, I was reminded of the dubious power of being the "pilot car"on a two-lane highway with few passing lanes. The so-called pilot car is the car that is going slower than the rest of the pack. I can count on one hand the number of times I actually passed a vehicle going slower than me. One was a truck going up a steep hill. One was a truck towing a camper. He passed me later.  I'm slow on the climb, but I'm speedy on the descent. Gravity is still working, even if other things in life aren't.

Like any society, homeless people have a hierarchy. You could say we have a class system. The lowest class homeless person is the person (usually a man) who curls up under a tree on a public sidewalk and throws a blanket over his head. He could be dead, he could be drunk. Odds are he would prefer not to be sleeping on a sidewalk. 

At the other end of the homeless continuum are the people who live in shiny new Sprinter vans, tow enormous fifth-wheel trailers with new Dodge Ram pickups, or drive new Class C camper vans, the ones with the bed over the cab. I would add the folks who drive giant Prevosts but if they can afford a luxury motor coach, they most likely own several houses, so I would not classify them as homeless. They may have been bitten by the wandering bug but they always have a home base to return to when they get tired of driving their entire house along a narrow two-lane highway. 

In between these two extremes are the rest of us, everything from tents and tarps pitched along the freeway verges to broken down motorhomes to minivans and sedans. There are a lot of unhoused people out there. If you know what to look for, they are easy to spot. The problem with stealth camping in a city, as I've previously discussed, is that homeowners (in the nicer areas) know how to spot a car that is not part of the neighborhood. In the bad parts of town, nobody cares, which is why any car can be a target for gas thieves. I digress.

At the Walmart parking lot, a woman pulling a little trailer with a relatively new SUV parked near me. She had a dog with her. She went shopping and came back with a load of stuff. The wind had kicked up, and a man came over to help her with the loading. He told her he was living in his truck and pointed to a nice pickup parked nearby. He asked where she was headed. She said nowhere, she lived in Cedar City. He said he did, too. 

Where do I fall along the unhoused continuum? Glad you asked. Compared to the street sleepers and tent dwellers, I'm definitely high-class homeless. I have a relatively new, mostly presentable soccer mom minivan. I have everything I need with me. I know how to keep myself clean, fix food, fetch water, and take out the trash. I practice leave no trace, I don't wave my arms and yell like a crazy person, I'm nice to dogs and their walkers . . . In short, I try to be a good member of the community.

And still, I'm not welcome. Homelessness is a crime in many places. It's not illegal to park your car overnight on Portland city streets but you'd better not be sleeping in it. Kind of like, you can buy a condo but you'd better not paint it bright pink. There are rules made by cities to keep residents safe. Many of these rules make sense. You don't want someone setting the neighborhood on fire just because they felt like making a decent cup of coffee instead of buying the swill at McDonald's. Homeless people are not considered residents. They are eyesores, pedophiles, whores, beggars, and thieves. They clearly made bad choices somewhere along the way, or else they would not be homeless. 

Humans are social creatures. Whether I want to admit it or not, I feel better when I'm parked near (but not too near) other people who are living the nomadic lifestyle. Some choose it, some are forced into it, but whatever the reason, just like other members of a class, we find comfort in community. Most of us. There are always the ones who find the most remote campsites up the steepest, most rutted road and then drag a big log across the road and hang a sign that says "Space occupied, Keep the Eff Out!" Now that is an introvert.

I may have made some bad choices along the way, but one element working in my favor I had no control over: I got old enough to draw social security. If I did not have my paltry monthly allowance, I would be one of those tent dwellers, pushing my belongings in a stolen shopping cart, sleeping with one eye open, and waiting for the authorities to tell me to move on. I'm a lucky one. I can move on by choice.

My psychic friend says my situation will be changing soon, but she wasn't sure if it would get better or worse. Not sure how to react to that, so I will carry on and wait to see what fate brings me. Maybe housing is in my future. Maybe not. I think I mentioned I've started collecting stickers to put on my windows. No more hiding. I figured out I can buy adhesive sticker paper and waterproof markers to make my own stickers. If you have any design ideas, please feel free to email or text. Or leave a comment. I'm not sure the comment section on Google Blogger actually works, but you could try it.  

Meanwhile, the road trip continues. 

Relentless persistence

Sometimes when I'm walking around the reservoir at Mt. Tabor Park (my old neighborhood), I see an athlete. You wouldn't know she was an athlete just by looking at her. She's at least as old as I am, with saggy cheeks and crepe-skin knees. But after seeing her workout routine, I can only watch in awe.

Reservoir No. 6 is .56 miles around the perimeter. You can call it a half mile. The woman starts out with lunges. Not super deep, but lunges all the same, slowly and persistently, with bicep curls, all the way around the reservoir. How she keeps her balance, I have no idea. She makes a full circuit. 

She doesn't stop there. After a swig of water, she starts around again, this time with high knees. All the way around. She's not fast. I pass her multiple times as I stumble around, head down against the wind. I go counterclockwise. She goes clockwise. Each time I pass her, I feel like a colossal loser. 

After she finishes half a mile of high knees, she turns around and walks backwards, doing butt kickers. She checks behind her from time to time, so she doesn't run into anyone, but her backward glances are kind of pro forma. She can't go far off course. The reservoir is surrounded by a tall iron fence. Still, I wouldn't be surprised if she has eyes in the back of her head. I suspect she has god-like powers.

I walk around four times, just a regular head-down, try-to-stay-upright kind of walk.  Everytime we pass each other, I look at her, but she doesn't look at me. I can't read her expression. It's clear she is focused on the motion. 

Whenever I complain about my saggy butt and flabby thighs, I think of this athlete. I wonder about her story. Is she a marathon runner? I haven't seen her run. She's too thin to be a wrestler. Her bike shorts and T-shirt don't scream fashion risk taker. She's not taking video of herself, so she's not a YouTuber. What's her story?

My conclusion is, she's meditating. She's found a way to connect with something bigger than herself. I called her an athlete, but I could just as easily call her a Zen Master. A guru. A Yoda. I have a feeling if I could just get her to make eye contact, I would see a new way of being.

Meanwhile, I'm caught up in my own way of being, floundering through my days doing the next thing in front of me. The usual, you know: Working with my new PCP to find a medication that will settle my vestibular system. Keeping my car running. Learning how to use Amazon lockers. Waiting on waitlists for housing. Waking up at 4:00 a.m., vigilantly listening for gas thieves. Trying to stay under the radar so homeowners don't call the police to report an old lady  who has the temerity to sleep in her car outside their house. 

I'm really tired of hiding. I have started putting stickers on my car windows:  Artsy fartsy; Wild and free; Take the long way home, shortcuts miss the view; All cultures, beliefs, colors, sizes, ages, identities welcome; and my personal favorite, Jesus loves everyone you hate. I'm going to keep adding to my collection. If I get some money ahead, I will have my own designs printed. I have lots of ideas for stickers, mostly along the lines of How's my driving? Call 1-800-BiteMe.  

After I find out if my new med is going to kill me, I think I'll head east, back toward the high desert of Northern Arizona, where the nomads wait out the summer heat. I met a man at the protest yesterday, who said he loved Portland for its beauty, diversity, and energy. I nodded as if I agreed. No need to start a fight with a No Kings comrade, especially given the no-violence mandate. Besides, I don't need to explain or justify myself, although when cornered, that is my usual response. 

I don't trust my intuition. I believe Portland is not the place for me. I always knew I would leave. It still confounds me that everytime I left, I came back. When I moved to Tucson, I was ready to love the place. For four years, I tried. Eventually I realized Tucson was not the place for me either (see umpteen previous blog posts). 

The country is big. I've live in only big cities. Surely, somewhere in this country, there is a small place that feels right. Family and friends warn me that small town folks might not be like me. That's okay. All my friends are online.  

Having said all that, if my name comes up on a waitlist, I don't care where the place is. As long as it has hot water and no cockroaches, I'm saying yes.

Where is my tribe?

When I'm at the coast, I take long walks on the beach. I aim for the middle ground between soft dry and soggy wet. I walk in the early morning after coffee but before the fog burns off, before the wind kicks up. I have a lot of time to think while I walk, which has debatable value in terms of changing my housing situation. Eventually the endorphins infiltrate my brain and I get to the point where I just don't care anymore.  It's not a bad place to be, compared to living today for a better past or trying to control the wreckage of the future.

Being in the present moment has never come naturally to me, probably because I live my life in constant fear. Fear of what, you ask? Doesn't matter. Fear of everything. Now that I actually do have a lot of danger to face, I think I can say I come by my fear honestly. But nothing much has changed. The only time the fear eases up is when I enter the present moment. To get there, for me, takes about 2.5 miles. I never get to happiness, joy, or contentment, but on a good day, I can get to neutral. 

People I know do a lot to make peace with reality in the here and now. Some meditate, some go to special classes, some join groups and seek mindfulness together. I've never been much of a joiner, preferring to be on the periphery, watching, observing, not in the middle, not on center stage. I am sometimes dumfounded that I was a teacher for so long. I attribute my 10-year career as a college instructor to the revelation that as long as they were on their side of the table and I was on mine, everything would be fine.

As I have grown older, poorer, and sicker, my interest in being around others has waned. I want community, but I can't fake it anymore. 

Part of me wants to plaster my car with bumper stickers. Here are some possibilities:

• Not all who wander are lost. 
• Art is for everyone. 
• Tell your cat I said psspsspss. 
• Hearing impaired, dizzy, half-blind, ancient tired driver, please be patient. 
• If you can read this, come on in for coffee, enter through tailpipe. 
• Hey, NIMBYs, if you want to end homelessness in your neighborhood, increase the flow of fentanyl across the southern border. 
• I'm hungry, and your dog is looking pretty tasty right now. 
• Push if you think it will help; I could use the money. 
• I brake for no reason, get over it. 
• How's my driving? Call 1-800-upyours.

It's not me talking. It's the Keppra.

I always come back around to the futility of thinking and feeling. The Universe, if it responds to humans at all, doesn't give a crap about what we think and feel. Change only comes if we take action. 

Action is not hard to do. The hard part is trying to predict the consequences of the action: Will the outcome be good or will it be bad? Then I have to go through the whole thing of defining what is good and what is bad. What if my actions lead to disaster? What if my actions hurt someone? What if my failure to take action is the wrong path? What if I should have turned there instead of here? What if I do nothing? What if I do everything? 

There I go, back down the rabbit hole. The only way out, for me, is 2.5 miles on a windswept foggy beach.

If you can't help, get out of the way

You know how after you have a run-in with a stupid person who accuses you of something, you get all defensive and start trying to deny their claim or justify your actions . . . And then after your heart rate has settled back to low-grade resentment you think of all the pithy, profound, cutting things you should have said?

That woman who lives in my old neighborhood, yeah, the one in her cute little bungalow house, with her cute pesticide-free yard (she has a sign proclaiming it) and her cute little mop-haired floppy-eared mutt, the one who asked me in a supercilious tone, "Why don't you go to a shelter?" That woman? She's still on my mind and under my skin. I've been trying to figure out what I should have said, other than "Eff you, you stupid b-word, eff off and leave me alone." 

What I could have said, should have said, depends on what I wanted to elicit from her. Compassion? I think she probably is a compassionate person, from afar, that is, just far enough so she doesn't have to smell the stink of human suffering or get her hands dirty actually helping dig latrines. She probably donates to environmental causes, maybe not Green Peace but the Nature Conservancy or Save the Butterflies, if there is such an organization. She might contribute to humanitarian causes, maybe Amnesty International. No, more likely UNICEF or Doctors without Borders. When she's feeling particular magnanimous, around the holidays, she might even send a check to the Gospel Rescue Mission, in hopes that will help erase the homeless population that frightens her so much. God knows, homeless people could use more Jesus. Lack of Jesus is what got them into the mess in the first place. 

Yeah, super compassionate, but not enough to vote to change zoning laws to allow affordable and low-income housing in her neighborhood. Not enough to actually change anything to make it possible to get people out of their tents, their cars, their busted-down RVs and get them into proper, safe, affordable, dignified housing.

Just down the hill from where I park at night (near her house), there's a parking lot behind a chain link fence. Inside the fence are about a dozen sheds, barely bigger than outhouses. These sheds are the manifestation of the liberal solution to the homeless crisis. Give them a tiny box, barely big enough for a bed, not even big enough for their bike, and then admit the qualified (best) homeless people (no addicts, nobody who needs a bath or a haircut or some mental health services), give them a key to their own little hut, put all the huts behind a chain link fence, with one opening monitored by a guard, to keep them in, to keep others out, I don't know. Then you can finally feel safe, even if you aren't actually safe.

If I were a homeowner in a big city like Portland, I would be terrified. Not just for my personal safety and the safety of my belongings, my family, my pets, but also for the value of my asset, my house. It must be a gut-punch to discover all the tent cities down the street have cut the value of your property by a third. What if you want to sell and go somewhere safer (whiter, richer)? Who wants to buy into a neighborhood of tents and trash, used needles everywhere, and feces on the sidewalk? 

Certainly you wouldn't want to add an ADU to your property and charge a nominal rent so some nice senior lady could live a quiet, safe, affordable life. You might build it for your mother-in-law, but not for a stranger. In a big city, it's too hard to be an independent landlord. Tenants are nuts. They don't pay rent on time, they don't leave when you evict them, and when the sheriff finally kicks them out, they've trashed your asset and left you with massive bills. Such disrespect.

It's human nature to circle the wagons when the homestead is threatened. Survival instinct is how the human DNA has managed to make it this far. At some point, though, a civilized society comes to realize that when one person is unsafe, then no one is safe. Segregating the community into in-group and out-group ultimately destroys the very security the haves are trying to protect. 

Let them eat cake. 

Everyone dies. 

It takes a lot to awaken the sleeping giant, but people with nothing left to lose can do a lot of damage as they work toward changing the system to be more fair and inclusive. You can either get on board and lend a hand, or you can stand in the way and watch your house burn down. Metaphorically speaking, of course. I would never condone violence. 

But I wished I'd told her to eff off and mind her own business. 

Oh, well. Next time.