Going Home to the Street

I'm gonna try something new and take my laundry down to the laundry mat, via back pack, a little a time.  I just can't stand the idea of hours of sink washing again--despite whatever Zen-like revelation it gave me last time.  I think I found a way to secure an extra duffle bag to my back-pack, so I'm hoping to take a whole load at a time...there are only about four this time.

Tuesday, thanks to my sister's generosity, I was able to borrow her minivan and move most of my stuff to her garage for storage.  I walked to the university bus, then caught a ride into the city, then walked the 4 miles to her house to pick up the van.  I like to measure distances and times.  The measurements were nice and neat that day: It took exactly 30 minutes to get from the city campus to the bridge.  It was exactly 15 minutes to cross the bridge.  Then 15 more minutes to reach her street.  And finally, 15 minutes to get to her house.  Like I said, nice and neat 1.25 hours.  It was a good day for walking, overcast and around 50 degrees.  There was the threat of rain but it never came.

When I drove back to my apartment and parked it was simply a matter of carrying the boxes I had packed a few days before from the kitchen door to the van.  I was surprised to be able to carry my entire library (about 600 books, in 15, 40 lb boxes) and a bunch of other stuff to the van with not a lot of physical strain.  Walking has really provided more strength and stamina than I remember having in the past--even for lifting and carrying.  I still sweat like crazy, but I've always done that.

I got back to my sister's place a couple hours later and did all of that carrying again, this time up a flight of stairs, and in reverse from the van-loading, carefully packing my precious books tightly in the attic of the garage, allowing enough space for a final trip.  At this point it really did look like it was going to rain, so my sister offered to drive me back to the campus in time to catch the next bus back to my town.  Then it was just a one mile walk back to my ever-more-emptied apartment.  Without a good waterproof coat, rain is the enemy of the walker.  I will have some thoughts about weather in a coming post.

I have to be out of this apartment and hitting the streets by the end of next week.  Being homeless for a while (hopefully less than two months) is going to be a great source of material for this blog.  I'm in good condition and have a plan about how to survive.  I didn't plan to write blog posts so frequenlty here, but I wanted to get the ball rolling before I am forced to wait days in between posting. 

I have been on the streets before to some extent and know a few tricks of the trade, so I'm not worried about myself.  I do have two old, sleepy cats though (one with only 3 legs) - my closest companions - and I still don't know what I'm going to do with them.  That will be my priority in the next 10 days; finding them a temporary home.  They will only need that two months worth of fostering, then I can take them back.

I'm starting a new business with a friend of mine, but getting the funding for it (as one might expect) has been a longer process than we had hoped.  However, even if I start making money before I can get a new place, I'll be doing all right.  I will have my mp3 recorder with me and my little digital camera, at least until they are stolen (kidding--kind of).  And I plan to publish occasional videos and/or podcasts on this blog as I journey around Southern Maine.  Since I'll be doing business writing and research at whatever library I happen to be near each day, I should be able to also upload the video and audio through their computers.  We'll see. 

As I've mentioned in past posts, there is a peace of mind that blows through me when IWallk.  Nothing feels more natural and free.  Being inside my mind and outside in nature is very much like being in the same place; even when that outdoor landscape is broken up by asphalt and concrete; even when the sky is cut and sliced by wires and telephone poles; even when it is littered by unthinking people; it is a kind of refuge, a sanctuary...a home.  Is one truly "homeless" if one is out doors?  Such a foreign place to us now.  We've spent the last few hundred thousand years trying to get out of nature and into a "shelter."  Now it seems to me, at least psychologically that "shelters" never really last, not as long as nature's places anyway; the outdoors has become a kind of shelter in itself.

A street is just an artery for human travel in space and time, being the same way in the modern world as our trails and paths were before the 20th. Century.  And they were the same as the trails and paths we used when we were animals living outside...living in our our home.

Indeed, because my heart has been physically broken and then healed again, emotionally I really know now that home is "where the heart is."  I'm not a fanatic about this street life though.  I know it would get old if I end up trapped there.  But I don't see it as a permanent home.  I KNOW I will be back to the indoors soon enough--rejoining what's left of the human exisitence as it is thought of today.  Like anyone else, I like to sleep in a warm bed, with my cats.  Even more, I like companionship and the feeling that there are family members and friends around nearby; that we are all together in one "place." 

I look forward to having my own family once this storm has passed by.  It turns out that this feeling was the illusion of my youth.  But it was just a fantasy, lasting long enough for me to appreciate the ideal of a "home life" (even though it wasn't actually happening) and then grow up to become strong on my own terms; strong enough to live on the streets for awhile if need be, without losing my hope for that same ideal of to actually come true in the future.  As we are beginning to see, perhaps it has been my walking on those same streets for so long that allowed my hope for the future to manifest itself in the first place, preparing me for exile and then for return.

I am definitely being led by Something Greater than myself now.  And it is my decision to surrender to Its Will, to stop fighting against what I know I should be doing.  There are even more profound futures to prepare for.  My one and only goal for the next two years or so, is going to be the discovery of that Plan, and then the following of It - no matter where it leads, no matter what I call my home - each and every day.  Today...that home will be the laundry mat.