“Hey, do you have a phone?” a woman asks people as they pass by in the plaza.
“They always lie” she says looking my way.
“Do you have a phone? My battery died” she asks me.
“I think my batteries dead too” I say. Which is a partial lie.
I’m sitting in the plaza eating cookies and drinking Chai with my kids. It’s a cold day, us and the woman across the plaza are the only people stationary. Everyone else is walking through, getting lunch or last-minute Thanksgiving stuff.
The woman moves to the table next to us. She has short grey hair, a little beard on her chin, her voice is raspy but almost like a teenage boy, she must be close to sixty years old.
“I’m trying to call my case worker, I need my meds, I need to contact Paul, do you have a phone?” she asks again, this time less than a foot away from me, my kids are watching our interaction. A police car pulls up and the woman gets anxious, she says they are trouble for her. I ask her if she knows the number, she does so I let her use my phone. A woman answers from the city health department in the city north of mine, the receptionist knows Sebra, she transfers her to Paul, her case worker. An answering machine comes on and Sebra leaves a message. She tells him she needs her meds and a quilt for the night. I tell Sebra I have to leave soon, It’s time for the kid’s gymnastics class.
I tell her that I need to take them to class, but that we will come back around and check on her, let her know if Paul called back, and if Paul doesn’t bring the comforter me and the kids will bring one. We go to gymnastics, but Paul doesn’t call back. We realize Fiona left her tiny (her most precious stuffy) at the Indian restaurant where we had lunch. We have to go back downtown no matter what. We pick up Tiny at the restaurant and see that Sebras still there in the plaza.
“Sebra Paul didn’t call back” I say to her.
“You took way longer than you said you would” she says.
“Did you bring the comforter?”
“No, we’ll go get it right now, we wanted to make sure you were still here” I say.
The kids and I drive over to the Salvation army and buy two comforters and two pillows. We drive back and I illegally park in the bus stop. I leave the kids in the car to talk with Sebra. I ask her too many questions and she tells me I’m asking her too many questions she doesn’t know the answer to. I realize she is in crisis. She tells me her legs are stinging because of the pee, that she needs to change her pull up, that she can’t control her bladder, that she needs her meds before the holiday starts, she starts asking me what she should do. We call Paul again and he answers the phone, but his voice disappears. The kids start yelling someone’s on the phone in the car. I had left my car running so the call transferred to blue tooth. Sebras not happy about this. I say let’s try again. We go through the questions again and this time Sebra stops me and asks me what she should do. I realize again this person is in crisis. I take a deep breath. She had told me she’s sleeping at city hall. It’s already four and Sebra doesn’t want to sit in the plaza anymore. But she doesn’t want to miss Paul if he shows up with her meds. She can’t walk all the way to City Hall with her bag of stuff and the new quilts and pillows. She’s also let me know she’s scared of the other homeless people.
I decide to give her a ride to city Hall and call Paul again from inside the car. She likes this idea but is concerned about my car seat, she asks if I have any plastic to put on the seat. I do, she gets in the car and the stench of ammonia from the pee is so strong. I open the windows but Sebra says she’s cold and asks if she can close the window. I have the heat cranked to 80 degrees and Sebra says it feels so good. I take a deep breath and look at Sebra. I tell her we will call Paul again from the car when we get to city hall. I was able to shed my nervous uncomfortable smile on my face and my questioning. I was able to hunker down with Sebra in the situation and grasp the seriousness of it. We got to city hall, I backed into her spot, kept the car running and called Paul again. I took another deep breath; I had been pronouncing Sebra’s name wrong all along and her patience was running thin. I said the name correctly and reversed what I would say to Paul when he answered. Sebra and the kids watched me in silence. The phone rang and Paul answered. He was twenty minutes away and had the meds.
Sebra and I got out of the car. She was amazed her sleeping bag was still there, but someone had put poop on top of it. It was poop on a plastic bag, Sebra wanted me to take it to the trash can by the library, but I wasn’t going to do it. She scooped it up with her sleeping bag and put in by a bush, but she was concerned because other people stash their blankets there and people walk through there. Maybe I should have tried to get rid of the poop, but I’m always leery of needles and scooping up a sleeping bag with poop on it seemed like a risky thing without proper safety equipment.
I set up her bed, I put an old beach blanket I had in my car down, then one quilt, then the other and the pillows. She kept saying they were too nice to be used outside. She asked if I had an extra room, she could sleep in. I said no. She wanted to know If I could stay longer or come back, I said no. At the plaza I had touched her shoulder when I was apologizing for upsetting her by asking so many questions and she had said don’t touch me. But now, as I was leaving, she said Thank You so much several times and gave me a hug.
I got home and had to start making dinner right away, it was my husband and my anniversary, and I had promised him stew. He had called me on my way home wondering if he should just order his own food. I felt bad but have an instapot! Stew can be ready in an hour and a half! I got the stew started and kept thinking about Sebra. I had to take a shower, it just felt like I had that smell on me. But I felt, I can’t really explain how I felt. Just thinking that we, as a society are willing to let our fellow humans sleep outside in freezing cold in their own piss is what I thought about. How could we do that? Sebra really didn’t know what to do, except that she needed her meds, she needed help. At least ten people walked by her in the plaza as she asked people to use their phones. Everyone said no. Then a cop car showed up, someone must have called the cops, but by this time Sebra was sitting by me. The cop stayed for maybe fifteen minutes then drove off.
Last night the kids kept asking me questions, where do homeless people sleep, where do homeless people eat, why can’t Sebra get a bed? I had told them about the beds at St. Vincents, but that they only have a small number of beds. Jack asked why can’t Sebra put the quilt on the floor? I said it doesn’t work like that. He couldn’t understand. When I told them about the soup kitchen, I said we could go help one time and Fiona said YES I WANT TO DO THAT! Jack said, no, I don’t want to see that homeless person again.
I think it’s scary to see what we all are, that innate humanness that’s in all of us. Some of us luckier than others. But we don’t know what Sebras circumstances are, how she arrived at this place. But I think it can happen to anyone. I think Jack and Fiona can see that too, and that they are lucky. They are lucky to sleep in a warm house. I just got a freeze warning on my phone from tonight until Friday. I hope the city does something to take in the homeless people tonight. I think I need to make a few calls today.
Category: holidays
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I walk up the damp, green moss, quiet, trail. Morning, dog by my side. I look at her and am glad today is walk day. My mind is calm at this moment. I see a black widow crawl away, I call her Ruby: mysterious, elegant legs, a large, sturdy frame, and a serious face. She makes her escape, down a hand spun creation, not present one second ago. I am in awe. My heart beats a little quicker as I head up the path, walking by menacing, bare poison oak vines that have been transformed into a palette of thick and thin lines, damp air between, sun shining through the cold, foggy, misty, November dawn. I feel like I am walking through another world, in my peripheral vision I see a meticulous web, so perfect I question ever making another thing when something already exists that surpasses all beauty and innovation that the world has ever or will ever display anywhere ever again. The otherworldness, the quiet places it takes my mind. I see one after another, just as special, just as intimidating. The quiet ground, damp with decay and new life. The Bay trees with their bright green trunks. Just me and Billy the whole walk. Like the perfect paint splatters on my studio wall. Or the painting Jack made last night that I want to frame and save forever. (Which really is not that long) Deep breath. I’ve been practicing my deep breaths. It’s been essential to keep myself from crossing my psychological health boundary; the one that keeps me here and not living with the spiders. From not imaging the creepy little walk they do down my neck, or having them enter my mind as I’m sound asleep, unable to defend myself. I take deep breaths.
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“Look, a dove” I say to Jack, holding him in my arms, turning to watch as the dove flies into the pepper tree. I notice a second dove already in the pepper tree. “Doves stay with one partner; it looks like the other dove is making a nest, collecting sticks, leaves and other things. They are going to have baby birds. First they will lay eggs and sit on them until the little baby bird pecks at the egg and it cracks open. Then the mommy bird will go get a worm and feed the baby bird.” I show the sign for bird, I have one beak going inside another beak. Jack wants to hear the story again. He asks me several times during the day and last night at bedtime. Fiona was already in the car so she didn’t hear the first version of my story. I still feel bad about that right now as I sit here and type this. I don’t feel like Fiona and I share as many moments in story. We share many moments where she wants to just be held and cuddle, which I don’t get with Jack, he always has to be moving. It could be a personality thing, but I always wonder if it has to do with her hearing loss. I wonder about the connection between language and imagination. I wonder should I be doing more alone time with Fiona. I find myself directing questions and statements to Jack. “Look Jack, there’s a dump truck” as we drive. Fiona doesn’t usually have her hearing aids on in the car, I know she can’t understand me, but Jack can. Mmmmmm. These are things I think about.
I am distracted now by the sky this morning, it’s fire red over the horizon line, the valley dark, with silhouettes of still bare trees. But if I was up close I may see a few tiny green leaves or flower buds on the California Red Bud. Spring is upon us. Last night, I made it out the door, out of my studio, just in time to take Billy for a hike up the trail before dark. The light on the trail was muted, but I could still see the blue bottles, Blue Bells, and Beardtongues. I had a strange day in the studio. It’s been strange for weeks now. I have the figure curse upon me. I am obsessed, but my ideas are murky. It looks like this happens to me every year around this time. Is it the transition from winter to spring? Is it about birth? Death? They say your body never forgets traumatic events. Christopher was born in February. This time, 1987, I was almost sixteen years old, nine months pregnant and no one knew but me. My stomach hard and big, I would walk my dog Rutger for hours, down a trail at the bottom of a hill, along pepper trees, crying. When my mom got home from work, Danny and I would make spaghetti, I remember that plate piled high, I couldn’t believe how much I ate. But my legs were still skinny, everything was still skinny but my stomach and I figured out how to hide it well with big baggy t-shirts and sweaters, and tying sweatshirts around my waist. Habits dressing I carried with me for most of my life. It transitioned into hiding my boobs because they were big and I hated the way guys were always staring at them. Jack and Fiona were both born in February. I thought they were going to die; I was so scared. Even after they were delivered I couldn’t believe they were going to survive. How? I wondered. They were so small. And I only had experience of dead babies, not ones that survive, that live and thrive. In two weeks Jack and Fiona will be two years old. They are such good babies. I could never have imagined this happening to me.
Next month, in March I was born Forty-Five years ago. My birth was traumatic, I almost died. I was very sick my mom told me. I was born with a kidney infection, I had to have an operation and was in the hospital for a while. She didn’t tell me this for most of my life, then one day it came up. What she did tell me was I was born with a third kidney. It doesn’t work, it’s not fully formed. But it’s in there. When I had my appendectomy I told the surgeon just before I went under, I was afraid they would open me up and my insides would look odd, I was afraid they might take out the wrong organ. February, scattered with hot days, birds and blossoms. Memories of loss and trauma mix with memories of birth and life, new beginnings. The smell of the wet ground and fermentation, slimy mushrooms popping up. Spring.
Now the sky is slate grey. It’s 7:19 AM, babies still quiet. I’m on my second cup of coffee, this morning it’s just as good as my first cup. It’s time to start getting ready for the day, making breakfast for the babies, making lunches. As I looked at the date, 2/11/16, I was just reminded of Valentine’s Day, another February, sometimes traumatic, event. But I’ve decided that from now on holidays are going to be just for fun, I’m not going to get all deep about how Valentines days puts too much pressure on couples. How it alienates people, or makes people feel sad. Or how it’s another commercialized holiday just to get people to buy stuff. No, I’m going to have fun on valentine’s day, maybe I’ll make valentine’s day cookies for the babies and my husband. Maybe me and the babies will make Valentine day cards. If there’s one thing I’ve learned during my forty fourth year of life, it’s that life’s way too short to think too deeply and too politically about every single holiday. I’ve decided from now on holidays are holidays, nothing more.
Dirty Laundry Blog by Jennifer Hynes 