Yesterday, I left the misty damp of Shenandoah and drove 7-8 hours south and east to greet the misty damp, but warm, air of Charleston, South Carolina. Today, I desperately want to go out and walk around. I’m slightly hobbled by a blister that’s the size of a small hammer… and now, in this moment, I’m currently lost in what would have been a better word choice than hammer. Hammer is mildly funny, island nation on the brink of civil war would be equally funny, but a better writer would find a noun that also represents the inconvenience, discomfort, and pestering nature of a sizable blister. I’m not a better writer. Furthermore, I’m not sure I’m prudent enough to not chance it and spend part of my day walking around in discomfort. Blister be damned.
The first challenge I faced when I arrived in Charleston last night (and I use the word challenge loosely) is that I’m living out of my car and the hotel only has valet parking. Because it was raining/misting when I left Shenandoah, I didn’t get a chance to repack the car in a way that would ensure I didn’t have to make multiple trips to it for things I might need. I stopped about half-way through my drive to get coffee where I did some rearranging in a strip-mall parking lot. I felt self-conscious about the process, like I was bathing in public.
It’s taken all of two days of camping in the wet woods for my orderly life on the road to become quite disorderly. In my trunk, I have a bag of clothing that is “really dirty” and maybe still wet, a bag of clothing I could wear again if I had to, and my clean clothing. In the back seat, I have a wet-ish tent, folded up and stored away, that I don’t have the space or luxury to just dry out somewhere. I also have food in various bags, including some fruit that will probably rot if I don’t bring it into the hotel with me. I have Robert plant (my one plant) riding shotgun and I worry about him wilting in the heat in a closed up car. I have cleaning products and sweatshirts and other “stuff” shoved in nooks and crannies of the car. Again, because of the mist and rain, I couldn’t really shake out my sleeping bag and roll it up properly to fit back into it’s storage sack.. and most of my shoes have mud on the bottom of them.
All of this “stuff” was too much to carry in with me at check-in and my neurosis about being efficient and not being in the way meant only grabbing what I thought I’d need so as not to keep the valet waiting. The valet, a pleasant gentleman named Clay whose sister just moved to Nashville, looked at my trunk as I tried to grab what I needed and asked, “planning on moving in?” I shared my story about traveling and maybe going towards Memphis after Charleston which is when he told me about his sister. He’s very personable and seems to have a sense of humor. After showering, I went to get my car to head into town for dinner. The parking area smelled like pot and he asked if I was smoking. I said, no, I assumed he was… he laughed nervously and played it off. This may become the secret over which we’ll bond – though I’m not sure it’s so secret.
Where I’m staying, Comfort Inn, has a few amenities I might try to take advantage of (washer/dryer, gym, pool, and free breakfast). I could do some laundry and eliminate my bags of too dirty and only somewhat dirty clothing – though they’re both in the car at the moment. I’d like to exercise (blister). I’d even consider swimming, but the bathing suit is in the suitcase which is in the car. I don’t want to be a constant bother to Clay – so instead, I’ll act like a squirrel gathering nuts for the winter and every time I take the car out, I’ll bring another item or two with me to my room. By the time I have to check out, I expect the place to look like a squirrels nest…
I use the word “challenges” loosely because I know just how minor they are. As I walked around downtown Charleston last night, I passed about dozen different homeless people wandering around or hanging out on corners and in shop doorways. I spoke to one gentleman, Keith. He said hello, I said hello back. This was his invitation to start telling me his story which usually leads to asking for money. I listened long enough to know that he’s street homeless and 69 years old. He clutched in his hands a white plastic kitchen trash bag that looked mostly empty (perhaps used as shelter or a poncho from the rain). He also had a tiny green flash light that he turned on to prove to me that it was a flashlight and not a weapon. He said this several times, it’s not a weapon, it’s just a flashlight. I wondered about his experiences that make him feel he needs to explain this. How distrusting people must be of him.
He didn’t get far into his story because I told him I didn’t have cash on me (a lie). I’ve worked in the area of homelessness advocacy and prevention (not front-line direct service work) long enough to know that the money should go to programs trying to address the many complicated and interrelated issues that cause and keep people homeless. If I’m going to provide direct support to individuals like Keith, it’ll be in the form of buying them a meal or a cup of coffee or something like that. Instead of giving cash, I make a point of saying hello, making eye contact, shaking their hands, letting them know that they’re not ignored – because people like Keith are easy to ignore.
In fact, many of us avoid making eye contact and stopping to talk because we know they’ll ask for money, and we worry that they’re dirty or violent or looking for alcohol or drugs or we just don’t want to deal with it. We’re uncomfortable around the shouting and ranting and smells. We treat it as an imposition on our space and peace of mind without pausing to consider what a complete lack of sleep does to a human being and how convenient it is that we can keep our worst moments hidden behind the closed doors of our houses. People like Keith have to live their entire lives out in the open. It seems like the least we can do is acknowledge their existence.
When I see a person like Keith, I’m tempted to treat him to a cup of coffee and listen to whatever it is he has to share. I think about what a missed opportunity it is to connect with someone because society has taught us to fear and avoid such people. I want to know what he did before he became homeless. What did he want to be when he grew up? What does he want now – like urgently, what’s the top five or ten things that Keith would like in life?
Given this perspective, my bullshit issues are quite trivial and my situation (one that is by choice) is absolutely luxurious. Only one blister and a bag of clean clothes? If anything, I feel guilty even suggesting that I’m living out of my car because I can afford a $5 shower at the park or the 5 bucks it’ll cost me to do laundry. I can afford the hotel and to gas up the car and go when I need to.
Which brings me to some admittedly disjointed observations I’ve had about lots of different cities. (Vomit of words with poor transitions and coherence). As I’ve told people that I’m going to travel about, visit cities, and maybe move to San Fran, a very common response is to criticize the dirt and the crime and the homelessness. Not once has someone offered suggestions on how to make these things better. It’s easy to judge and criticize without seeing things first-hand and without offering solutions. Very few people I’ve talked to have taken a sympathetic approach to these issues. Very few people I’ve talked to have ever had a conversation with a homeless person. Instead they ask, “why would you want to do that or live there?” I don’t have a good answer other than to say witnessing is an important step to acknowledging (and maybe addressing) the issues. What I’ve liked about almost every city is the ability to walk around and experience different communities… but there’s a hard truth to that experience. Having everything within reasonable walking distance is an ideal, but also a luxury. Homes in Richmond, VA, Charleston, San Francisco, Savannah can easily cost over a million dollars. A lot of the homes here in downtown Charleston are going for $2 million or more. Rents are equally out of reach for many people. These beautiful cities also highlight the disparities in America. In the shadows of the grand estates shuffles an entire underclass of homeless and impoverished people. As inconvenient as those people might be to our middle-class sensibilities… they have just as much a right to access walkable neighborhoods and services away from pollution and highways. Maybe if we invested there, maybe if we tolerated their existence among us better, we might make this life more tolerable for more of us…
Another thing I’ve noticed is that almost all of the people working in the service industry (in the kitchens, as the valets, cleaning the rooms) are people of color while many of the owners of businesses and the professional class are white. This can’t be by accident, and this observation feels especially poignant in a city like Charleston where the slave trade thrived. How did all of this wealth accumulate here and why don’t more people have access to it? We can find some answers in events like the burning of Black Wall Street… but why aren’t more people outraged by this inequality? Most of us don’t fit in on either of the extremes. Most of us are content with what we have and we’re taught to feel a sense of gratitude for not being worse off. I struggle to reconcile these things. To me, it feels like we could be doing so much better as a society.
I don’t know what to do with any of this – other than to observe and tuck those observations away for later consideration. I also don’t know how to tie any of this together: the trip, the blog, the thinking, the experiences. It’s early. I’m only a week on the road with lots more to come. I suspect the writing will be a little on the incoherent side. I’m trying to balance experience with reflection, and I’m heavily favoring being out in the world experiencing things. I’ll close with a picture of the cafe where I’m living my privileged life where I’ve had coffee and a glass of wine and I’m writing and checking my phone and just enjoying being outside. (yes, I walked – blister be damned).
