Human Interludes 002: Conversations with Kallie
Beautiful observations of random folks with a dash of over-active imagination. Take a moment out of your day to delight in your fellow humankind.
“Sweet potatoes, roasted. With butter — real butter on them. None of that margarine crap. They tell you not to eat before going to bed, but that’s a load of bull. Your brain is working and goes into REM while you’re asleep, and your body needs fuel. Sweet potatoes are complex carbohydrates that are so good for you right before bed.” — Kallie
FACTS:
Two weeks prior to the above dispensed wisdom, I was just two blocks away. Running. Full-tilt.
I had to get out of the house to get out of my head. I also needed to pick something up at CVS and the only thing I could think to do to stay sane was to put on my running shoes, shorten the distance between self and errand and run.
Throngs of people lined the sidewalks outside of The Beverly Center. I sprinted at an exhausting pace, weaving in and out of human traffic. Drowning racing thoughts and expelling them in sweat. Suddenly, about half a block away, I saw a homeless woman from behind. She had shoulder-length gray hair and was wearing a navy coat. She had a worn, floppy, wide-rimmed hat on and as she was bending over her shopping cart of worldly possessions, a moment of zen amidst the crowd. I clocked a giant, tattered silk flower behind her ear, and a trail of a few other such items decorating her wares. It made me full-stop in my head, and break out into an instant grin. In the plainest terms I can use, here’s what happened next, unembellished.
As I took full notice of her, my mind was taken off of any self-pity or self-focused thinking. In this sea of madness, SHE had been the only thing so far that could knock me out of my head. I was so grateful for her. She, who has nothing and lives on the streets, still found some sort of joy in the same little things that I find joy in. I pulsed out gratitude from my every pore and beamed it directly at her and her flower adornment. And, as if she heard me, as if I had shouted her still-unknown-name at the top of my voice, she whipped her head around and looked directly at me.
I don’t just mean that our glances crossed paths. She turned around as if I had called her name, scanned the crowd around me quickly, and then our eyes locked. She had the genuine look of someone who found a long-lost relative in the most unlikely of places.
My reaction? Instead of what I thought I’d do in a situation like that normally (aka, mouth “who, me?” and turn around as if surely she meant to bestow that smile and love on someone other than myself), I stopped running and just beamed right back at her, tears in my eyes.
I walked into Target, which was on the same block as CVS, with a mission. I was openly crying. It made me so frustrated and sad that here, I, who also liked to adorn and decorate things and make them pretty, had the means to do so. And this woman on the streets had nothing and no means to do so. I was going to make her the best care package ever. Instead of hand-me-downs and essentials (which I did include some of, for the record) or things she’d receive from any shelter or mission, I decided that she probably liked art. I bought her coloring pencils (and a non-mechanical sharpener so that she wouldn’t need electricity to re-up their tips) and pretty paper and adult coloring books and notecards to boot. I included some female toiletries and also some lovely soaps and lotions. Then I started to go down the snack aisle and went a little nuts (Literally. So many nuts-so much protein, small footprint.)
Then I got a fashionable canvas beach bag with compartments to put it all in. I thought that everything in here — including the bag itself — could be of use to her in many ways.
I brought my wares home and assembled a beautiful care package. It was so heavy that I had to reassess the number of vitamin-infused waters and drinks I included in case she could not carry them. I also had to be careful for it not to be too flashy so that it didn’t put her in danger of being robbed by other homeless persons. There was so much to think about that I had never had to think about before, and I was happy to do it.
Cut to two weeks later, I still hadn’t found her again. But I knew she was in the vicinity. Some of my neighbors reported seeing a woman of that same description regularly, and I knew it was only a matter of time. And timing.
One mid-week afternoon I was walking with my laptop in my neighborhood, something I would regularly do to get out of the house for a change of scenery. I’d go work at a local cafe up the street and to the right of my home. On this particular day, I walked north out of my apartment building, and instead of turning right, something pulled at me to turn left. I decided to walk the west instead of east, and see what quaint cafe I could find there. No less than two blocks into my new path I was walking in front of Cedars Sinai hospital, a place frequented by the homeless of Beverly Hills.
As I’m walking by the cement bus benches, a woman with gray hair sitting on one of them calls out to me.
“Excuse me?” she says. I know instantly it’s her. She’s holding an old radio walkman and a broken pair of headphones in her hand. “Can you help me put the batteries in my radio? It looks broken but it works. I just got new batteries but my hands were both broken a few weeks ago and I can’t seem to get the batteries in right — it won’t work.”
All I could think in that moment was PLEASE LET THE RADIO WORK PLEASE LET THE RADIO WORK. For her sake.
I sat down next to her, still marveling at the fact that it was HER, the one I’d been searching for for two weeks, calling out to me. She explained that her hearing wasn’t so good in one ear, but she could hear just fine in the other and that her radio programs and music kept her sane out here. On these streets.
I put the batteries in and it worked. Victory!
We chatted small talk for a bit and then I walked on. I decided I didn’t want to tell her about the care package and my crazy story of meeting her previously until I had it with me so she would know it was the truth. But I did tell her that I was going to come back later that night if she was going to be in the area and that I had something to show her. I discovered a new cafe to work out of for an hour, all the while buzzing with my discovery.
I walked back home and prepared to go out that evening and find her. She alluded to me that she generally stayed around the hospital area at night even though the hospital security guards always moved the homeless along periodically throughout the night. It was the most well-lit and safest place for her to spend her nights on the streets.
I geared up in workout pants and a sweatshirt and my rollerblades. I heaved the giant care package on my back and went out into the night. North. And then West.
Sure as Sunday morning I found her. Exactly where she said she’d be. When I skated up, she beamed. “I thought for sure you wouldn’t come back,” she said. “You’re here!”
“I couldn’t keep you waiting and go back on my word!” I told her.
I sat down and we talked a bit. She was hilarious. So filled with life and stories and laughter. She also knew how to bark back at the hospital security guard when he drove up right on schedule, telling her to move along. I tried to get involved and he left us alone momentarily. I proceeded to tell her the crazy story of the lady I saw when I was running that one day. “Yes, that was me!” she confirmed. I explained to her that I hoped she didn’t mind but because of her awesome flower and other fun objects I put together a package of some things for her that I thought she might like.
“For me?”
“Yes, for you!”
She opened the bag and I explained the story behind the art items and also assured her there were survival essentials in there. She asked me to go back to the pencils and the coloring books and the notecards. She loved them like a little kid loves their new toys. All the while we talked, she would interject sage advice that you’d read about in any GOOP-esque health and wellness blog, seemingly.
“You know I love having long nails but it’s so hard out here to keep them clean. So I save up and get Trader Joe’s Argan Oil — it’s only 4 bucks for a whole bottle and lasts forever! — and I rub it on my nails and file them every day.”
Her nails actually looked healthier than mine.
“You know what else?” she said, “It’s hard to eat proper food out here because I’m so limited to hand outs and canned food and all that shit that has chemicals in it, but I would love to be able to have a garden. I want to plant sweet potatoes. They are so cheap and so good for you! Don’t you listen to those folks who tell you not to eat before bed to stay skinny or some shit like that. Eat brain-healthy foods so that your mind can process when you are asleep and forget what these nuts say.”
“I love sweet potatoes and real butter!” I exclaimed. “Thank you for the advice.”
“Well that’s just what works for me. I just share it and maybe it will work for you or a version of it will work for you.”
In all of this and the numerous follow up chats we had over the next few weeks, I realized so many things. We suffer from the same affliction from different angles of approach. I, sharp in mind and with some resources, she, sharp in mind but with none. We still wanted the same things at varying degrees. Healthy nails, good food that fueled our bodies and minds. A garden. Pretty art supplies. Music and radio. Kindness.
I also realized how much we look past people on the streets without seeing them, and without seeing that there’s only a thin veil of separation between us. Kallie told me that people walk by and say nasty things to her with disgust, even if she’s minding her own business. She was born on the East Coast in the 50’s in an outhouse and never got a social security number. She worked three jobs to support herself and her son, who was viciously murdered as a teenager. She was never able to recover from that loss, and eventually became homeless here out west. She was living by the beach, but some other homeless people attacked her — a woman in her 50's — and broke both of her hands. That’s how she ended up at Cedar’s. She didn’t like it as much out here as she did out by the ocean, but it was safer and she found some other homeless friends. They looked out for one another.
“Hi Joe!” she yelled across the street to the liquor store owner as he closed up and walked down the road. “His shop is the one where I get the batteries for my radio. He doesn’t know this but every night when he locks up I watch to make sure he gets down the street without any trouble from anyone.” She meant the other homeless folks who set up sleeping quarters overnight in the 90210. She watched him disappear around a corner, satisfied with her duty.
The next time you walk past a homeless person, I hope that you think of sweet potatoes with real butter right before bed. I do. And I also try to stop and smile and make eye contact and treat them just like I would any other human. With acknowledgement and dignity. Fixing the homelessness epidemic, especially in Los Angeles County, where homeless people are dying in record numbers, is a process that is going to take the whole village. Perhaps we can start with the one thing we can control moment to moment, without any special funding or resources. Our humanity.
This story is dedicated to Kallie, my Sage on the Streets, and flower-power friend.
