[photo is my, @tristancarax]
This is for #WhenCoronaEnds - Initiative hosted by @theycallmedan.
The guidelines were:
This initiative is to share what you're looking forward to doing again.
- What are the first three activities you'll do when the coronavirus is over, and why?
- Start with the 1st thing you will do, the second and then the third.
Please write a whole post sharing your story.
And so, this is what came out at this current time of writing.
For those of you who don't know, I have been homeless for the last six-plus years here in Hollywood, CA. The first question that people usually ask me is, "How did you become homeless?" The things that they are assuming without questioning are "He's on drugs and alcohol," and/or "You're lazy and don't want to work," and/or "You just love freedom too much and don't want to take responsibility."
Let's answer the first question briefly here. I have had no solid family to rely on. Our mother moved us around the state of Colorado and never introduced us kids, but two or three times, to other family members, of whom we never kept in contact with. My mother couldn't hold down a job. She was on many pills that the doctors give out like candy. Add this on top of the trauma she never dealt with, you get one fucked up mommy that couldn't be that excellent role model so often found through TV shows.
Friends, virtually non-existent. It has been hard for me to keep relationships because, not only did I move many times as a kid, I've moved quite a bit since then. Numbers change, as well as the address, so losing contact with people has been quite easy for me. This is a normal thing for me.
I hated school. It was mostly a waste of my most formative years. What real-life skills did they teach? What about a trade? No, those things are meant for the rich and powerful, as taught to me by John Taylor Gatto.
College. Hmm... very little. Hard to study when you don't know what you are studying for so I didn't learn much there and dropped out.
Was taken care of by a child molester (CM), a person that we called Uncle, not a real uncle mind you. Our real uncle knew this person. After our real uncle died from a drug overdose (I suspect this CM had a hand in it) the CM was the money man since I was three-years-old.
Let's add on a traumatic back injury from the seventh grade that started to cause me chronic pain at the age of nineteen and hasn't let up since. When I tell people about this, they almost always say, "But you are so young. You shouldn't be in so much pain." Yeah ... thanks ... that helps - can you see me rolling my eyes?
My brother accidentally kicked one of my younger brothers when he defended himself from getting hit by a drunk dude (my younger brother) by clocking him in the face. My younger brother fell back and got a T-fracture and died sometime later. The father (the youngest had a different father) didn't even let me or my mother know until after he was taken off life support.
I've never been someone who gets a job just to have a job. I think that it is completely insane that people work from paycheck to paycheck. INSANE. (Let me ask you, how is that working out at this current moment, this living paycheck to paycheck thing?) Yet, this capitalist society is cutthroat. Play by the rules or your x-ed. There are only winners and losers. There is no room for artistic endeavors like creative writing, drawing, playing a musical instrument, etc. Only these list of desk jobs that are acceptable. - Yeah ... about that.
This is just a really brief overview of how someone can become homeless. It wasn't because of drugs; it wasn't because of alcohol; it might be that I'm lazy but, offer me something that I care for and you'll see how unlazy I am; Freedom? You're right. I don't pay bills and such but that also means that I don't have a car to freely travel, I don't have internet when I need it to write, I don't have money for food, and yada yada yada. So, while I'm free of some things, I'm locked down in other ways.
Now, if you have read the above, you might see how being traumatized and not having healthy ways to deal with that trauma could land someone like me, someone who looks healthy and completely sane on the outside, land up on the streets with nowhere to go or turn to. (You really don't have to look much further than your local, homeless, United States Veteran if you need more examples of people suffering from trauma.)
We can now question how many people are going to become homeless simply because of this covid-19. Will the people who still have a home punish the "lessers" for losing their jobs and blame it on laziness, drugs, alcohol, or what-have-you? I'm sure they will.
It isn't that I've been wasting my time on the street either. I've taken up yoga, qigong, and Taijiquan. These are all healing arts that work on the spirit-mind-body. One day, I'll be able to teach them. I draw a little. I write a bunch (you can see the proof by looking here on hive). I do other things that I hope will make me some amount of money to survive on. For now, they don't so I need help. I do things that help me heal and move on from the trauma that I've lived through so that I can be a better person than that person that passes on their trauma to the next hoping that they'll finally say enough is enough and do the work to heal.
I've been waiting on housing for about two years and got into "emergency" housing about six months ago. It finally came through so, yeah, I'll be looking for a place to live, again.
This is my main mode of transportation. It has been for almost twenty years. I have had a car a couple of times but that cost a lot of money and didn't (still don't) want to work 24/7 to keep it.
Besides, I'm thirty-eight and in shape. How many other people my age have stopped just about all working out after they got out of high school and/or college and took that desk job, which made their body lose the tone it once had from being so active?
I'm currently staying with some people who let me stay (1) because it has been raining like crazy here in LA, and (2) covid-19 has shutdown all the ways that I used to take care of myself, such as the YMCA (a gym) closing, which means that I wouldn't be able to take a shower.
I've been having trouble with my knee for the past year and biking wasn't helping it at all. Now that I have a place to rest, the knee is getting better.
I have people who feed me here, good food too. I started going to the Farmer's Market after I started to see my ribs from the lack of food. Asking people for food isn't something that I've ever had too much of a problem with so I did what I had to do to stop the hunger that was consuming me.
Before this, I was only eating once a day at night. Because I bike, do yoga, qigong, and taijiquan, eating once a day isn't the best idea.
I once had someone walk up to me, hand me ten bucks, and say, "Man, you are either a really good actor preparing for a part or you need something to eat now."
As you read above, this is what I do. I can't wait to get back to class! I miss my seba (teacher).
I miss playing with him. I'm one of those students that will gladly test the teacher's ability to my own detriment. LOL. It's part of my healing process from the trauma I faced so leave me alone about it. He allows it. I and those around get to learn from it. I love it. It often makes me giggle to myself when I'm away and bring me much joy.
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