“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.
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“Here’s the plate mom” Fiona says. She says it several times, I should have ran over and grabbed the plate. She was being helpful. I was too busy cooking dinner and gathering flashlights and candles for the safety box. Fiona had been putting the little tea candles back in the tin they came in. She had put them on the plate earlier when the power went out. It’s hard to imagine how much we depend on electricity. When I got home with the kids yesterday, I still had no idea how long the power would be out. I was not on the shut off list. I sat and panicked. The thing I worried about most was the food in the refrigerator. I worried how I would save it and how I would feed the kids. But the power came back on in a few hours. The kids got to eat extra popsicles and I got a practice run going through a PG&E Blackout. I need to organize my emergency preparedness kits a little better.
I was able to work in my studio several days this week. It felt good. I wish I had more time. I worked on collages, I ruined a ton, but I have some I like so far. I also framed four of my works on silk. They are hard to see in a picture. The detail and the shadow that should be cast behind the silk and stitch. The works I created this week are broken faces. Fragments of internal and external selves. I started volunteering this week at Jack and Fiona’s school. On Tuesdays I do art class. An artist comes from Youth in The Arts and does a project, first with my son’s class then with my daughters. It was great fun. I’ve also been doing a Art Journaling project with my kids most nights. It’s been an inspiring, creative week.
I only had one ASL class this week, our Thursday class was cancelled. The one class we had we practiced a story we need to do for our midterm. Most of the lesson is about facial expressions. So I studied facial expressions a lot this week. I didn’t go to my Spanish class again. That was too much for my brain. Doing ASL and Spanish on the same day. I thank my friend who suggested I drop Spanish; she was so right on!
This was a good week for Tantrums. Monday through Thursday Fiona did not have any major tantrums. It’s the first week in a long time. I’ve adjusted many things at home, and I think the school adjusted a few things as well. I’m also at their school more and Fiona loves that. I think Jack likes it too, even though he said he didn’t want me to come to his class originally. It was interesting to see the class dynamics. Jack is super eager. He wants to always answer the questions, to volunteer to do what the teacher asks, he’s super comfortable with people looking at him and listening to him talk. Fiona is much more subdued. Much different than she is at home. Fiona does raise her hand sometimes when the teacher asks a question, but not like Jack. Jack’s like a racehorse wanting to be set loose to run.
It’s almost time to go now to pick up the kids. How can I be fully engaged with them? How can I set my own work aside and pay full attention to Jack and Fiona? How can I react with grace and patience every time they experiment with a mood or a boundary to push? These are the things to answer.
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Early October. Sky blue, morning air cool, Fall light bounces off surfaces illuminating trees I hadn’t noticed before. Dragon flies flutter above in the afternoons. There is a stillness, maybe it’s created by that in between summer and winter. The school year has only just started but I feel like my kids have been in Kindergarten forever. I haven’t had much time to write. I’ve been studying American Sign Language, I have class Tuesday and Thursday, and on Sundays my family takes an ASL class together. I was taking a Spanish class too, but this week I got a cold and I decided the Spanish class was too much. I want to just focus on ASL and get back in my studio.
The transition to Kindergarten has been easy for Jack but difficult for Fiona. Jack loves his school, he’s so happy. He loves the schoolwork, he loves his friends, he wants to go every day, and barley gives me a hug and kiss goodbye. Fiona loves her friends. Her favorite days are when I do early drop off to get to my ASL class. I set Fiona and her friends up with coloring activities and they have the best time. When I drop her off early and she gets to color she’s happy. But on the days where we get there right in time for class it’s a difficult drop off. She asks me to stay or she asks if I can take her with me. It makes me feel so bad.
After school Fiona has started to have tantrums. I thought it was only on days where she had speech, but now it’s become a regular thing. She’s so exhausted after school, no matter where I park my car, she sits on the sidewalk and throws rocks and dirt and pulls up plants. She says, “I hate when you park here mommy” Or she kicks my car. Yesterday we didn’t even get out of the playground at school. She sat down and wouldn’t move. I sat in the shade and waited. That’s all I can do. At home when she has the tantrums, she throws things, she takes everything off the shelves and throws them on the ground. I have to keep Jack away from her or things get really ugly. Yesterday Fiona had two tantrums, one after school then one later at home. Jack was her target. She followed him around the house throwing things at him. Once she was done everything went back to normal. It’s like there’s this angry frustration that Fiona has to let out.
All these years Fiona has never had any behavioral issues. She’s always been my easy kid, Jacks always had tantrums when he doesn’t get what he wants. Very typical tantrums that last only 5-10 minutes. Fiona has always used her words or cried and explained she was mad because of something or that her feelings were hurt, but she’s never been an angry kid.
I got a new journal for the kids. They are filled with prompts, about feelings, memories, self-image, ect. And places to draw or color. I did the first entry with Fiona the other night. The prompt was to pick three emotions you feel often and use colors or a pattern to represent those emotions. Fiona picked Alone, Sad, and Left Out. Her pattern was broken hearts. I couldn’t believe it. Then she drew a picture of a memory of something you miss, it was her best friend from her pre-school. I just started bawling. It made me so, so, sad. To be only five years old and going through all this. I have never talked about being left out or alone. I don’t know where Fiona got those terms? I do talk about sadness and am sad a lot! I’m happy a lot, but I do have lots of sadness. I could understand my kids really understanding the feeling of sadness. But alone and left out caught me off guard.
Maybe not totally off guard because I’ve been reading so many books, the mask of benevolence by Harlen Lane and Alone in the Mainstream by Gina Oliva, and my readings of deaf culture in my Signing Naturally book from my ASL class, so I know that many, many, many, deaf and HOH people have felt alone, sad, and left out in mainstream education and at family and social gatherings in general where ASL is not being used. But to hear that my five-year-old daughter is already feeling this way broke my heart.
My daughter has had issues with her interpreter, but I’m hoping things will improve. She loves many things about school. She has made some great friends, she loves the writing and spelling parts, she loves art. I could never separate her now to move her to a different school, like CSDF. It would probably be better for her self-esteem and more than likely a much better learning environment, once she was fluent in ASL. But it’s too far away and I think the act of separating Fiona from her brother and her community here would be devastating.
It’s been a rough few weeks. I’ve also noticed Fiona asking “what” all the time. I fear there is something going on with her right ear. We have an audiological appointment next month. It’s not easy. This is not easy. There’s nothing I can do but keep communicating with Fiona’s team of educators and do as much as I can at home. And make sure our family is becoming fluent in ASL. I have to be patient with Fiona’s tantrums because she’s frustrated and going through a very difficult transition. She’s gone from a Total Communication program where there were six deaf/hoh classmates, sign language was used all day long and communication barriers between friends, misunderstandings were addressed by the teachers and used as a learning tool. Fiona loved school. She did so well, she tested above average for her age. It was the perfect environment for Fiona.
Now she is mainstreamed, a class of 22 hearing students. Fiona is the only one who is HOH, who needs to use an FM, who has an interpreter, who has to work so hard to understand what is being said. It’s not a great situation for a five-year-old. When kids just want to fit-in and be like everyone else. I hope things get easier for Fiona.
Dirty Laundry Blog by Jennifer Hynes 