At MM 99, on our way home from the keys a week after we’d arrived, we had our second synchro at a place called Denny’s Latin Café. It’s Cuban run, has a small walk-up window where you can order the best coffee in the keys and delicious Cuban food. Some picnic tables are set up along the side of the building, in the shade, so we usually settle in at one of the picnic tables with our dogs.
There’s a place similar to this near our house, a Cuban bakery attached to a gas station where the lure is the coffee and the Cuban food and not the price of gas! In both places, I usually order the coffee and food and Rob takes the dogs for a walk. At home, he walks them in a wooded area behind the bakery, where he has discovered that several homeless people have set up a makeshift camp. Sometimes they come out to see the dogs and trade a few words with Rob.
At Denny’s Latin Café, Rob just grabbed a picnic table and set out water for Nika and Noah. I went up to the window and ordered coffee and lunch and then went over to the table. By then, Rob had been joined by a man with a white beard and a middle-aged barefoot woman who were loving on Nika and Noah.
The four of us traded dog stories. In the course of conversation, we learned he was 55, a native of Key Largo, and that she was from Georgia. They wanted to buy the dogs some treats, but had only $4 between them. Her sandals – beach thongs – had broken apart the day before and she was considering walking over to the Salvation Army to see if she could find a cheap pair of sandals to wear. She sometimes slept on a sailboat at night that belonged to a “maybe boyfriend.”
To this, her companion quickly said, “I’m not the boyfriend. We’re just hanging together.” He paused. “We’re homeless.”
This admission struck me because I’ve been reading a memoir by Nick Flynn called The Reenacments, about the movie based on his first memoir about his homeless father. DeNiro played his father and Julianne Moore played his suicidal mother. As a young adult in his twenties, Flynn went to work in a homeless shelter, where his father was later a resident.
Now here were these two homeless people, who might have stepped out of Flynn’s book. Law of attraction? “Where do you sleep at night?” I asked the man.
“Wherever I can,” he replied.
“It can’t be easy to be homeless in Key Largo,” I remarked, thinking of the endless highway, the concrete, the traffic, the tourists, the cops.
“Key West is worse,” he said. “The cops there can be brutal.”
At this point, I’m thinking of Flynn’s memoir, of the homeless encampment behind the Cuban bakery near our house and of how we’re sitting here talking to two homeless people outside a Cuban bakery in the keys. A weird synchro, and I think the significance lies in what I learned about myself.
I’ve never sat and conversed at any length with a homeless person. I was struck by several things: neither of them was drunk, as homeless people are often depicted to be (drunks or addicts); they didn’t ask for money; they loved dogs; they carried their life stories in the creases of their faces; and they seemed resigned to living as they lived.
I felt strangely moved and haunted by this encounter. I kept staring at the woman’s bare feet, trying to wrap my mind around the fact that she couldn’t afford a pair of the cheapest sandals and that he slept “wherever he could.” What did that mean? He slept under bushes? Under the picnic table where we sat? In the parking lot of the Starbucks next door?
There is a slice of humanity in the U.S. that these two people represent, a marginal culture denied access to…well, just about everything. If six degrees of separation has shrunk to half of that, could I have been that woman or could Rob have been that man if some of the decisions we made throughout our lives were slightly different? If we’d been born into different families? Different circumstances? With different needs and desires?
As we were walking the dogs back to the car, I felt choked up for the same reason I do when I see an animal that’s suffering, a child that’s abused. I grabbed my wallet, scooped out the cash I had –$20 – and walked back to the picnic table. The man nearly fell off his bench when I handed him the money. Our eyes locked for a moment.
“Thank you,” he whispered.
“Take care,” I said, and hurried back through the brutal heat, and quickly got into my air conditioned car with Rob and the dogs and headed home to my life, and yes, I was flooded with gratitude for everything my life is.
A cynic would say I just handed them twenty bucks to blow on booze. Maybe that’s true. But when I give to the Red Cross or some other organized charity in the wake of a disaster, where does that money actually go? To administrative costs and salaries? How much of $20 gets to the people who need it? At least the $20 that I gave went directly to the people who needed it. What they do with it – buy her sandals, buy themselves a good meal, buy a bottle of vodka or buy a little hope for another day – is their business.
I’m just blown away by how this level of poverty can exist in a country so rich (and so in debt to the China) that it burns untold trillions on endless war, on less than two hundred detainees at Gitmo, on chasing some whistleblower across the planet, on culling emails and phone calls from people everywhere on the planet, on rigging elections and struggling to control women’s access to birth control and health care, on…well, take a look at the news.
I really hope that change begins one on one, me with myself, me to you, you to me, us to others, and that it then fans out, that proverbial ripple in a pond, until it touches all borders, all shores, all people. Then that six degrees of separation is nevermore.
A week ago, I was the planner for the Sunday worship service at my church. I acted in a two part vignette. In the first part, I sat on a park bench reading a newspaper while one lady was at the podium reading Psalm 42. After she finished and sat down, I did a little “rant” about all the bad news in the world and asking where God is, and how the negative news makes it harder to find God in one’s life. I mentioned maybe its time to put the newspaper down and stop reading the news. Then I pretend to notice an ad for a new iPhone and walk off the podium, excited about getting an upgrade so that I can be even more connected.
In part two of the vignette, I walk across the podium and “trip” over a guy in a sleeping bag. Then we engage in a conversation about the coolness of a new iPhone versus personal / face to face conversation. The guy in a sleeping bag played the role of Army veteran of the Afghanistan War who hasn’t been able to find a job and doesn’t have any family to stay with, and I mention being interested in Veteran’s issues since I am a veteran myself.
The point of my vignette was that the news and the technology sometimes takes us away from “God” (or “spirit” / spirituality) and that face to face conversations with real people are the true gems in life. We should do more of this. I’m not always good at it because I’m an introvert who feels my energy being sucked away by “needy people” who require too much attention. But doing the skit made me more conscious of the homeless that I come across in Portland.
Many people shared with me after church that it was one of the most moving services that they’ve seen in a long time. I have a feeling that my profile at church has increased and that I’ll be asked to do more creative things for the worship service!
Thank you for sharing this story and I liked that you gave them $20. It might not be much to you, but it meant the world to them. I doubt that they used it to buy booze or drugs. I think many people are hungry and would use it to buy food. And maybe even a new pair of flip flops.
Obama is a puppet (and so was Bush, etc.) and there never was either an intent, nor was there the possibility of, significant change from that office at this point in history. The poverty in the US has recently been very quickly getting more intense. It’s not an accident. It’s not neglect. It’s deliberate.
If Ron Paul had been treated fairly in his last attempt for that high office, he’d be the President. Then, there would have been change, with some limitations and delay because of the US Constitution. Ron Paul was never run by the ruling “elite.”
Fact is, Obama did not win this last time. He obtained the second term, but he did not win it. The Ron Paul Supporters did not vote for either Romney, or Obama. Many people have no idea how large that group was — the Ron Paul supporters, and that is because the mainstream media is hardly truthful. In addition to all of that, there was massive vote fraud. No, Obama did not win this time.
I was moved by the story of the homeless man. There are many such people. They are not typically drunks, or drug addicts, anymore. Some are engineers. There are people still living in their cars, whole families even, with the young still going to school. It’s becoming increasingly dangerous, no, not because of criminals wandering around, but rather because of an increasingly growing gang of brutal cops. And, no, that’s not an accident either. It’s designed to create hostility between one group, and another, so those engineering all this can have fun watching the results – – from afar.
The poverty, and the conflict, should stop between all of us who love liberty, want jobs and prosperity for the homeless, so they can work and find some nice place to live. The conflict comes, mainly, from the brainwashing in the schools, and from the media. It comes from Obama lovers hating Ron Paul supporters. It comes from ignorance from those who think they really have all the answers because some professors gave them those answers, and it seems to them they have nothing more to research, or question.
And, what we are all looking for is prosperity, and peace, for the people of this planet. We cry when we see poverty, and are grateful that we are not in that condition. That’s good! But, what did Gandhi say? He said, “We are the change we seek.” If we are at peace, we will find peace spread. Gregg Braden, who if you have not met him, will see what he wrote, that the square root of 1 percent of any given population is what begins to turn the inner change to the manifestation of good and beauty in the outside world. That means 8000 people in this world of ours. I believe that. Find out more about it at the web site WORLD PEACE ALLIANCE.
But, first of all, get this very important fact straight, inner peace being the core of the creation of outer peace means we stop fighting each other.
Beautiful writing, Trish. Humanity is under attack, there is no doubt about it. The world is beginning to wake up and really see what is going on – the poverty, the helplessness, the debt, the inequities, the control, the brutality, the greed, the brutish way we treat the most helpless among us. It is time for change – and not the bullshit kind of change Obama sold us – the real kind that begins with each and every person. One person at a time, that’s how we take back our world.
I’m disappointed in Obama. I realize that once you’re in office, it’s tough to alter the status quo. But honestly, this is not change I believe in.
He’s worse than Bush because he sold us hope, and then passed draconian laws meant to enslave us – by executive order no less. Manchurian Candidate?
No one, with the possible exception of Nixon, was worse than Bush/Cheney. My problem with Obama is pretty simple: if you promise change, then please, implement change, fulfill your campaign promises. Close Gitmo, for starters. Get rid of the patriot act. Disband TSA and homeland security, agencies bush created in the fear-fueled days after 9-11. Rein in the NSA, the CIA, all the ridiculous spy agencies. At this juncture in time, I hope that Ecuador offers asylum to Snowden, that he releases more documents, more secrets. If he doesn’t do it, someone else will. That’s part of the function of Pluto i Capricorn – expose all the dirty secrets held by all the dirty agencies. Knock ’em down, force them to rebuild. It’s the underworld that’s being brought to light.
I hope it’s not too late to do that. I worry about drones over American cities. I feel like these laws were shoved through by executive order for a reason.
I don’t think Obama has the power to change the status quo. Well, at least not in any meaningful way. I believe that he would end up like JFK if he did try to change the big things. All presidents are able to do is add their little “flavor” on American culture during their time in office. The Military Industrial Complex and the corporate capitalists on Wall Street are the true power makers in our country.
Obama is a puppet. You people are writing as if he has some control. He was created to take the heat for the “elite” who run him. Bush was the same. Clinton’s mentor was Professor Carroll Quigley who wrote TRAGEDY AND HOPE, about the world wide establishment that OWNS presidents. Try doing some research. You people should get a clear, and complete, view of what is going on. Try looking at a video called THE OBAMA DECEPTION.
Why so angry? Why the ‘you-people’ stuff? Why foment conflict? If I can quote you:”But, first of all, get this very important fact straight, inner peace being the core of the creation of outer peace means we stop fighting each other.” I don’t see that attitude in this post.
geeeezzee…i had mental images of you all sitting there with that couple…it was uncannily “real” – i was particularly taken with your remark about how it could be any one of us on that other end – the homeless end – as it’s something i think about and have often said to my children and to their children when we see someone in a situation such as that – and how important it is for us to reach out and help – never mind the result of that reaching out in terms of what that person does or does not do thereafter – it simply is our responsibility to help in whatever way we can those less fortunate than us – i also do not give to most charitable organizations – i take things i no longer need or want directly to shelters or other organizations where i know the items will go directly to those most needing them – when sandy hit, rather than send money to some unknown [even known] organization or group, a bunch of us got together clothing and household goods and bedding linens etc and another person loaded up her car and made the drive up the coast, delivering the things directly to those needing them – anyway, beautiful story – beautifully told – and a wonderful synchro –
One on one makes the most sense to me, too, Gypsy.
This story is more interesting and significant than anything featured in the news.
I just sent you an email. That other post wasn’t sposed to come up till tomorrow. I’ll put up your comment then. Thanks!
A touching story. I don’t think it matters what they do with the $20 when it’s given from the heart and not from some form of obligation. As you intimate many of us could easily be on a far different journey if slight differences had or hadn’t happened in our lives.
Like you I wish my taxes weren’t used for wars and so on – all we can do is our personal best to give our smiles, thoughts and help whenever we can in whatever way we can.
I don’t think it matters, either, how they spend the money. Our personal best: I like that, Mike.
This is a great one, and really moving. I am right there with you.
Thanks, Melissa.