no place like home is someplace too

Being back in the mix means I'm back in the mix. It's frayed a bit now, half or at least a third of me is in the jungle but the rest of me is here and here is where I need to do what I can. I've got a new gig, temporarily running a smaller organization trying to bring more housing to those who need it.

So last week I went down into the creeks, the places where folks sleep who can't or don't want to go to a shelter, either because they are full (they are always full) or because they can't handle the rules, or because it's no place like home at all. A friend and I hiked down to a spot where we immediately stood out next to a group of 20 or so folks just packing up for the day. At first there was a lot of staring and then wondering why we weren't showing up like the church folk with socks and coffee. So after a few we start talking, an old timer leading the way. One by one they start to tell us why they aren't in a shelter and why this is all they've got and jiving aside the stories are theirs and ours and different and the same.

Drugs and drink and sick and violence and fear and filth and loneliness and hopelessness and humor and laughter and joy and strength and at the end of it all it's plain old poor. We hear their stories and then we tell them some of ours, that we are working on a project that will put keys in their hands. Not today and not soon enough but keys all the same.

They nod and they listen and invite us to sit. They tell us that sounds real good and how no one has come with lines like this and even if it's a good story why should they believe us and we agree with all of it, we admit the road is long but we have hope, and more than hope we have a plan.

It doesn't have to be like this I tell them and they nod their heads. We wind things up and get up to go when one of the guys reaches out and grabs my hand Don't forget about us he says. And I grab his hand right back and tell him we won't, that it might take us a bit but we'll be coming back. And as we climb the hill my friend and I are quiet, we've both done years in shelters and met thousands of folks and even after all this time and even some time away the problem is right here smacking me in the face. We can do better than this.

We will do better than this.



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who are those people that want everything to stay the same

Part of it is because we haven't been able to make the whole "lets live in the jungle" thing work out as well as we would have liked. I mean, it works, and it doesn't. Namely, we haven't been able to earn a living outside the US.

So he is there and we are here and I'm back in the homelessness mix. Again. It's like Groundhog Day, like I never left, and like I've been gone a long, long time.

So we are building a house in the jungle and earning a living in the States. There's a computation error there somewhere, the addition is more than the subtraction. Or something. People are starting to ask that question, the what the hell are you guys doing question. I'd be asking it too.

And yet still somehow it makes sense. Hope, see. We haven't yet given up on hope, on the fact that we can make it work in a way unclear to us now. That by throwing in the whole towel we'd not have learned what we have. That drumming under a full moon in the jungle is really awesome, or that there are excellent doctors in rural parts of the world, or that survival can actually take up 32% of your day, every single day. Or that bugs aren't really that scary. That the sounds of the jungle can soothe you, that you can do most things you set your mind to. That you can grow a butterfly tree. Or that you can be really, really hot and still actually maintain a pulse.

That the whole experience may stretch you in places you need to grow and still not know the way. That the way is the way, not that sign up ahead.

Now if I can only believe it more than 32% of the time, every time.

Oh, and I miss blogging. Especially now that I'm back on the street.



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