Judgement Day

Time To Wake Up

Always liked Steve Winwood. I was a teenager in the eighties and fell in love with his “Higher Love” single that was all over the airwaves. I was at the Brattleboro Retreat that summer, and I remember coming home and dancing on the deck my father had built, a beautiful deck that came off the hilly landscape and led to the above-ground pool. I danced to “Higher Love” on that deck, under the stars.

I was happy.

It’s chemical.

Serotonin, dopamine. Neurotransmitters. Miami Vice. I look back now and I like that girl, the girl I was. I was trying to do great things. That was my schema. It didn’t matter what you did; just do it fabulously. First or go home.

Striving is part of our species and our culture and many families. It’s definitely in mine. It’s born in us. It’s what makes us live. We are always reaching for more. We put our hopes on tomorrow. Tomorrow, it’ll be all right.

Better, faster, smoother, bigger, louder, stronger. Always more “er.” The whole point, right?

Today is the first of the month. A lot of people at the shelter get checks today.

I have struggled with judgement my whole life. I think of it as baggage to carry around. In one way it makes things easier, but it’s still heavy and clumsy and you know what? I wish I didn’t have it. Wish I could just let it go, lay it down on the floor and let customs take it and incinerate it or do whatever they do with it. Incineration would be appropriate, because that is a good and honorable way to cleanse things.

I like honor. It’s a good word. I like the meaning, but I like the word, too. You could use it for a first name.

It’s a good day to do your laundry at the shelter because a lot of people will stay out. There will be laundry slots open, and the dorm will be quiet tonight. People will be out drinking and buying drugs with their checks.

They come back to the shelter Sunday or Monday.

I’m in the woman’s shelter, a low-slung concrete building with a housing unit attached. The shelter for the men is a tall, squat building; four or five stories. There are apartments at the top.

There’s lots of judgements that go on about the homeless. Like with anything. We, as a culture, have our homeless schema. This is what it’s supposed to be, these are the kind of people who are homeless, this is what we do to help them.

We never readjusted that schema. Politics got involved. There’s money to be made in housing the homeless. Jobs get created.

Homelessness could be solved with the truth. Tear it all down and see the truth. All that’s needed is the truth. I fear that what most people know about the homeless is based on falsehoods. Perhaps that’s the way it’s always been, and that’s why there have always been homeless people. We keep trying to build something, but the foundation is crumbling from the start.

Some people do not want to work. It’s that simple. The middle class anger toward the poor is justifiable. They’re right. Your taxes are paying for people who want to smoke, do drugs and drink. But, oh well.

The whole system needs to come down. We need a re-do. America needs a restart button, because we’re holding onto functions and ideas from the past that are no longer relevant.

The homeless cycle always comes full circle. Again, and again and again. New people, same reasons. It never changes. Our society, our American culture, is still processing homelessness. It’s still churning it about in there, a cud it’s going to examine and then swallow again.

Maybe we’ll figure it out. Maybe we’ll be the ones to figure it out.