I couldn't make it into the Day Center for my shift today. I was prepared to drive instead of bike, then leave early if I couldn't hack it, but when morning came, heroism was out of the question.
I wasn't getting better after all, and walking sick into that small space would be like detonating a dirty bomb.
My reddened eyes were crusted shut, my nasal passages clogged, and a deep, insistent cough threatened to crack my ribs and wring my diaphragm until I retched. My hair was matted from alternating sweats and chills. Muscles and joints ached from the viral bludgeoning they've received these last six days. The night's struggle showed in the tissues strewn across my bedside bureau.
But at least I woke in a bed, with a roof and walls that allowed me to stay there and ignore the risen sun and the gathering sounds of the day.
I'm also protected by a health plan and an armamentarium of pills, sprays, syrups, lozenges, juices, solutions and inhalers. There's carpet on the floor and a furnace that keeps the temperature constant, so I can barefoot my way to the bathroom. Should I really experience distress, there's a telephone nearby and my address is recorded in the emergency response system.
I have a home.
Getting to know more people here in Colorado and at the People Serving People shelter in Minneapolis has expanded my appreciation of home — as well as what it means to go without.
The landmark McKinney Act [PDF], reluctantly signed by President Reagan in 1987, defined homelessness* in terms of "individuals who lack a fixed, regular, and adequate nighttime residence." That's about as concise and nonjudgmental as can be.
But note the nighttime qualifier, as if people need only a place to retire, perchance, to dream.
For the rest of us, doesn't our sense of residence largely derive from our waking experience?
Home is where we eat, store valuables and invaluables, feel safe, watch TV, hang family pictures, socialize, take phone calls in private, make love, accumlate wealth, gather our mail and newspapers, leave the cats when we go to work, vacuum naked, argue or sing in the shower without being overheard.
When we are home, even if we are dogged by fears of its impending loss, we can turn down the pilot light of consciousness just a little because we own a place, lease it, rent it, have hopes for it, and sleep, sometimes, without having to fall into it.
And when we are not home, we are still homed.
We carry that state with us always, but not as the homeless man carries his back pack or pushes his shopping cart. We are free to return home to perform all of the above routines, while the homeless woman sets off on perpetual errands. Food here, mail there, clothes in a Rubbermaid bin in this facility, a computer in the library, one cup of coffee from the gas station and face washing at the park shelter.
Last week I saw Robert walking his bike from the grocery store across the bridge. Later I asked if he'd had a flat or a breakdown, and he said no. It was just too cold to ride. Sometimes he has to walk first to get the feeling back in his feet.
Before I called in this morning to beg off from my service, I couldn't help but imagine waking up with this flu on a compressed cardboard mattress, stirring my bone-cold limbs and peeling back the layers of sleeping bag and blankets. I've slept in my clothes from yesterday, and in the freezing air, I wouldn't change them now if I could.
I rub the crusts from my eyes and regard the underside of the bridge. Any sane person would stay down, pull the blanket back over his head to recapture the retreating warmth. But there will soon be people along the trail, and bound up in this sack I can't fight or flee. There's no calling in sick from this place, and no reason to stay, even if I have nowhere to be.
__________
* HUD recently revised its definition of the homeless to embrace people who are:
Living in a place not meant for human habitation, in emergency shelter, in transitional housing, or are exiting an institution where they temporarily resided.
Losing their primary nighttime residence and lack resources or support networks to remain in housing.
With children or unaccompanied youth who are unstably housed and likely to continue to be because of disability or multiple barriers to employment.
Fleeing or attempting to flee domestic violence, have no other residence, and lack the resources or support networks to obtain other permanent housing.
