There are those we know so close to desperation, or worse, close to death.
Or worse, feeling without love.
For me, I know I've faced more difficult situations than homelessness, trying or having tried every means possible to get out of such circumstances. I've learned some powerful lessons, having had to have stepped out of my comfort zone.
First or second hand, or even hands up
We can use what's facing us, the immediate, the hands-on, the direct.I know how I've had to use applied common sense, or statistics, or historical data, especially when I absolutely need perspective that I didn't have, so I wouldn't fall into outmodedness, so I didn't feel like a failure, so that I could carry on in the outmost reaches of where my life delivered me.
With the inference of all of us as being homeless, or virtually homeless, or even nearly so, we think of those we dearly love, those we've considered as neglected or ignored, our extended family, those we acknowledge as significant. At those times, we have to assess where we are, and we remember how we equivocate or compromise or furtively sense of those we truly love, or perhaps just care about their acquaintance, when we just assume we know where they are.
We must sometimes know what we may have neglected to know.
There are, which we often forget we are among, the free birds, those who have, regardless of their flitting around like hummingbirds in our lives, an importance to us (importance measured as testament to our assessment of our lives, as we come to know, through what we do in our lives, who we choose to befriend or marry, or how we deal with conflicts or grief or any anguishing reality, or how we learn to carry on without what we've had).
With reflection and perspective, we have a different mode of evading the statistical inferences, that that we may or can come to deny, at times, with our lives.
We then meet what's important and make our lives matter.
When we are quick to while away time
When I was first to discover how I had known how sure I was of my association to homelessness, there were those who I had to ensure my capability to ensile such that I've had to endure. They knew me. They knew I didn't belong among the numbers of those who I've had as close associates or acquaintances, those who know the harsh reality of homelessness. In homeless shelters. Or dole lines. Or free food congregations.There are those who knew I'd survive. There are those who I'd seen reconcile their desperation. There are those who trusted my will to outmode the anguish.
I met Denny two decades ago when I had been more than solvent, making more than six thousand per month, feeling guilty that I was spending several hundred dollars at a time when I was generously, in his opinion, tipping out what was more than adequate for the nominal subsistence working people expected others to provide.
Denny has always been a leveling conscience, when we'd be meeting casually in bars, or for music, or other random encounters.
A retired Marine, he's always had a grace.
This last week, Danny grew weaker and he complained, finally, how he felt close to death. Many of his friends and extended family do not want to see him dying alone, in his van, or in a veteran's hospital bed.
Visiting him in his hospital room, I felt stunned.
Anyone who knows me knows how long I've been witnessing my closeness to survival's urgings to this point of death, due to realities that always unexpectedly change.
Yet we all die, sometimes alone, without the empathy of certainty in life's misgivings.
As far as misgivings, I met Sophia this last week, inured to a libidinous neglect, and seeking comfort. Yet she was a stranger. Despite the conversations through which I'd divulged my outlook, my experiences, my current survival issues, not everything was clear. What I'd not said was to ensure that neither of us would jeopardize any sense of entertaining love.
Anyone who knows me knows how long I've been neglecting my libidinous urgings to this point of selflessness, due to realities that always unexpectedly change.
Yet we all seek love and attention, remaining alone, without the empathy of reciprocity in life's blessings.
Intolerant of loathing life's miseries, Sophia and I happily shared laughter, music, and food. We'd had physical comforting, holding each other in embraces that had a lasting quality. An all too brief and decent encounter, there was then a quick falling: having read my writing, she had an overriding comment that left me overwhelmingly upset; "my first reaction to your blog, I'll just say," she said, "so what are you, really, a total fucking loser?" She had an expression of total seriousness, yet with a diffidence tending towards an unmannerly lightheartedness.
I was speechless, yet firm in my need to react, by walking away, knowing I couldn't pretend there could ever be any relationship between us with such abject contempt, such a determined judgment, such utter rejection.
Lacking suddenly my common loquacity, I felt stunned.
She'd subsequently texted me several times: "upset with me?" ("what was your first clue?" I'd thought to reply) "honestly, I wonder why you work so hard!" "you never have any time for yourself, me, or anything else" ("besides you?" I hesitantly considered replying) "I don't understand!" ("what my silence and lack of response isn't enough of a clue?"); I never responded.
Carrying on with vital needs
On the rebound, I was met with the shock from others who I'd told of these two people so influencing my recent experiences and the resulting fortitude of my being without them. I know how to land. On my feet.Carrying on without others can be like a constant question. Shock fades, even anger and denial fade, yet the haunting loneliness of absence and rejection fade, yet slow as pain, stubbornly numbing and hurting simultaneously, perpetuating the sense of meaninglessness that life tends to bring.
Desire is our human weakness, which demands attention, so that the will to carry on life's blessing does not fade, so that we don't distract from vitality, or suffer long the will to contribute, to sustain, to fortify.
I have learned to make do. To carry on, regardless of circumstances. I have my plans to get out of scarcity, and to follow through with strength.
What others say and do is a projection of their own reality, due to what will always unexpectedly change.
And yet we are all after pleasure, or assuaging grief, knowing how to stand up, and put out.
Even after knowing how death and love play out.
