Making Dead Ends Meet

Today I felt that the appropriate theme would be a focus on the struggle to get by with little to nothing; its usefulness as a lesson and its ennobling quality for the soul. 

First I have to thank the people who have donated to this blog.  My only fantasy - and please don't spoil it for me - is that these donations are coming in because you enjoy the writing, and not just as charity?  OK.  Well, now that we have that out of the way...

Despite the wonderful support of you readers, I am still somewhat below the waterline; owing a power bill from my last apartment and trying (with very little success) to save up to buy a new hard drive for my laptop.   If I could accomplish this latter task, I would have the huge advantage of working online during the whole of the daylight hours, and not just 60 minutes a day. Night time is good, because I can finally get online, but I usually end up spending most of the time answering the many emails that come in during the day. And - as of late - I seem to be nodding off, no matter what my work plan is for the night, around 11:30 pm.

In perhaps a vain attempt to avoid confusion, let me say that I mention the above, not to glean sympathy or further donations...OK, not JUST to gain sympathy and further donations...he, he, he, but as a preamble to the philosophical standpoint that has made itself so apparent to me lately.

As I have discussed in past posts, the intellectual benefits of having long periods in which to think, to ponder, to contemplate - while Iwallk from town to town - is becoming readily more and more apparent.  The self-clarifying of my personal issues (that initially seem to be so irresolvable) - the way their solutions are facilitated - moves them a long way toward working themselves out. They register as actual, tangible solutions for my material struggles, bring a greater awareness of my place in the world - maybe even in the universe, and offer an unbidden, but welcome, vision of what seems to be shaping up as a relevant destiny of some kind.  If I did not truly FEEL the significance of a future role for myself I think I would be more prone to giving up.

This edification is not something I consciously seek, but seems rather to be automatic and inherent to the human state of mind when one is doing a physical activity over a relatively long duration of time.   At the same time, this process becomes a catalyst for lubricating the mental areas where friction once dominated and stultified the ambitions of the past.   By "friction" I really mean the scraping or braking to a slow crawl in the process of goal attainment.   And by "goal attainment" I really mean the non-material, more meaning-laden goals of the soul, not a promotion at work or the purchase of a new car.

There is a kind-of vital supplement to the light of experience found in the harder trials of life that I have on the street and it seems they can simply be found nowhere else. When we were so-called "primitives," this light must have been a more natural outgrowth of simply surviving in the natural world. But here in the 21st Century, and having grown up a rather pampered member of the human gene swarm myself, I never really knew, nor would I have ever believed, just how profound and profitable lessons learned through toil, hunger and discomfort can be.  I don't want to romanticize suffering.  Suffering should be avoided.  But if it can't be, then extract every last bit of positivity from it that you can.

Of course I see other unfortunate folks who are literally on the same physical road, yet worlds away from the above realization. They are self-defeated, unhealthy, addicted to their own sense of perpetual indignity.   There are ways of surviving that don't include letting one's self go. There are compromises with one's state of social deflation that don't have to include a sense of failure, nor a sense of personal downfall. 

One must always see where one is at in any moment as the most temporary place in life, but also the most important thing to be focused on.  Gandhi said, "What you do is not important and it is very important that you do it."  Only the future and the past moments are eternal.  In my personal view there has never been a past and there is no future.  The present is the evolving datum of experience, ONLY.  For myself, I try to stay alert to my own desire to stay afloat as best I can. I make it a game, a challenge, sometimes even a thrill to just maximize every situation that comes rolling down upon me.

As I was telling my good friend Jason the other night by email, I certainly am not always successful in prosecuting this positive attitude. I often DO feel defeated, unworthy and exhausted.  I doubt my self at some point every single day.  I feel intimidated by my own preaching. 

I hope it is not too much information to admit that in my past (more often than I probably should be saying) I have contemplated removing myself from this world. It is a seductive notion that once experienced and seriously contemplated can haunt a person, no matter how successfully they think that they have re-adjusted their viewpoint, even unto the natural end of their lives.  And to be perfectly honest, during the darker and less-confident hours, I do still see the ghostlike dress of that seductress...lightly flowing in the stale air.  She is a beauty, but pale and cold, stretched out across some dirty, back-bed of my mind, waiting for me to return to her. She will not leave me, until I leave this earth.  My challenge is to no longer go and visit her.  I know she's there but thankfully I have neglected her for many years now.  She is my dead end.  To sleep with her is to sleep forever.  How could I call to her now that I am finally awakening?  Still, it is a curse that when I dispare I hear her intoxicating voice calling to me...  Even writing that gave me a shiver....

There are many things that I hope to sit back and relate someday as I recline on my future back porch; maybe with a bit of humor and a little smile on my face.  After my camera battery died and I was walking past a retirement building in the west end of Portland, and after filming my last post, I saw two old guys sitting on a bench talking.  It suddenly struck me the way an involuntary flash rips across the mind of the unsuspecting, that one of those men was actually me.  I saw through his eyes.  I saw the city.  I saw the weird looking bearded guy with the camera and the sagging backpack walk by.  And the eyes of my future self met the eyes of my present self.  I was swept away into the future.  I talked to my wrinkled up old friend about the adventures of my Odyssey so many years before.  And there were a lot of funny tales to tell my captive audience of one.  I REALLY felt this exchange for a moment.  Then I was back in my younger body, in the late afternoon, making my way to the Casco Bay Bridge.  Just what would I tell my old friend someday?  It is funny all the practical things I've done to survive.

Here are few... 

Change is important.  And here I refer to coinage.  Returnable bottles and cans are nickles and they are everywhere (see my post Learning a Litter More Each Day).  Twenty of those suckers earns me a green piece of paper, called a dollar bill.  Not taking advantage of what the "normal" people toss in the bushes as refuse would be insane when spending so much time on the street.  I pull in about $1-$2 each day from returnable bottles.  That is a lot.  It can be 15+% of what I spend in a day.

My budget of blog donations and a few occasional royalties allows me to spend about $3-$6 per day.  And that doesn't count laundry day.  That is what's known as a "starver day."  But I'd rather have clean clothes.  A missing a meal is worth it.  Again, why let myself go?

One local supermarket has machines that take individual bottles and cans.  So I'm in there three or four times a day, turning bottles and cans into little promissory notes, and then converting those into food each evening.  I'm also there to buy food with my budgeted money too.  I am there so often that I smile and wave to the security cameras; knowing that the people watching the doors are wondering just what is up with me.  I figure I might as well be friendly if there going to have to see my ugly mug so often.

This same store provides some other essentials including a clean, private bathroom.  This has been a place to wash up and occasionally load up on toilet paper and paper towels (not too much but enough to last a couple days). 

Each day - several times a day, I've noticed - the deli puts out meat ends (get it, "ends meet...meat ends"?).  I can get nearly a pound of turkey or ham, or a baked chicken quarter for about $1.69!  Any of those meat items is certainly enough protein for the better part of 2 days.  Near the bathroom area is a nice, cold water fountain.  I fill up my 1/2 gallon jug with water and that too will last all day, of course refilling is easy. 

Further down the isle are day-old, price-reduced fruits and vegetables.  Bananas, especially are a good deal, $0.50 for about 5 or 6 pieces of fruit.  Bananas are also serotonin catalysts (a blog post usually follows one of these purchases!), and they are high in carbohydrates for short term energy expenditure.  Then in the vegetable isle there are single cucumbers and/or large carrots for $0.59 each.  One whole wheat bag of 8 hamburger buns is $2.50.

So, $1.69 + free water + $0.50 + $0.59 + $2.50 = $5.28 (no tax).  That is three or four well-balanced meals.  I stretch that into 2 days of 2 meals per day.  No need to eat more than two meals.  That kind of spending is on a good day.  But getting a few of these things even on a poorer day is not bad.  It IS enough to survive on.

Coffee is a luxury and I celebrate with a coffee on mornings after a donation is made.  Coffee (in moderation) is also an appetite suppressant and obvious energy provider.  Thankfully I am blessed with a high sensitivity to caffeine.  I can buy one large Green Mountain coffee at McDonald's ($1), drink half of it and save the other half for the next morning.  It is my present to myself.  On a rainy day, or on mornings when I am down town earlier than the library opens, I use my purchase of a coffee to basically rent a table for several hours.  And that will allow me to work in my notebook without guilt or pressure to leave.

Here's a funny one... Twice now, while in Portland, people have asked me for cigarettes.  I don't smoke (since 2000), but I found a full pack of Marlboro Reds (someone's bumming!) on the sidewalk, realized their value and kept them.  So when I am asked for a cigarette I sell them for $0.25 each or 5 for $1.  If the guy (and it usually is a man) looks REALLY bad off, I will just give it to him.  I've made a couple bucks doing this, and I still have a few left to sell.  It is funny to say, "Yep, I've got a butt but it'll cost you a quarter," and then watch their reaction.  Most people look confused for a moment, but surprisingly even a guy begging for change in the morning will spend a quarter for a butt in the afternoon.  Hey, I think it's fair. 

Yes, smoking is bad for people, but these folks really couldn't sink too much further anyway.  To punctuate depression and destitution with brief moments of pleasure is OK in my mind.  Maybe I'm overly liberal in this regard.  And, though some of you may disagree, I believe that having a little pleasure is a HUMAN right.  Only in the stark, hyper-stoic, self-righteous, prudish and constipated Western mind does the idea of complete abstinence from all forms of psychoactivity reign.  Most people don't realize that the desire for intoxication is not exclusively a human trait.  Animals seek intoxicants too.  Our brains are designed to use them.  And that is a FACT.

My advice to moralizers who want to engender guilt for partaking in the occasional intoxication - a mental break from the monotonous life of being downtrodden - is: GET OVER YOURSELVES!  Most "normal" richer and more fortunate people imbibe to release the pressure of the day and the knowledge that they are whoring themselves to "the man."  Why shouldn't the people who have been thrown away by society, trampled under foot and made to feel like trash be able to take a break every now and then from that condition?  Just my opinion I guess.  The percentage of alcoholics (for example) in either group ("well-off" or homeless) is about equal.  Hell, I'm a bum and (right now anyway) I don't use any "drugs." 


When  it comes time to rest, it is much more couth now that warm weather has come, to take a nap in any of the parks around this area of Southern Maine.  Deering Oaks in Portland is especially luscious and green.  No one gives me a hard time and there is shade from the sun on hot days and sun to warn me on cool days.  I often don't quite get enough sleep at night since I have to be out so early in the morning and am working on  business plans so late--sometimes until 3am.

The real question is:  Will I be able to be so prudent and frugal when I have plenty of money again?  If I could be this efficient with my funds when I am re-upped I should be able to save quite a bit.  Honestly though,  I don't think I have the self control to keep from buying Sushi instead of meat ends, to see a movie instead of roaming a beach, to sleep in until 9 am instead of being dressed and out the door by 6:30 am, to fill my shelves with fine wine instead of filling my jug with water...  I wish I could live starkly poor even when my bank account is overflowing.  It is something I am anxious to try.

But I promise you all this...

I KNOW now that there is no reason for three car garages, yards filled with unused jet ski's, boats, and ATV's, shopping JUST to shop, saying "yes" to a boss who is abusing power, dreaming of STUFF instead of dreaming of peace of mind, eating until I'm full instead of being just a little bit hungry when I go to bed (over ONE BILLION people go to bed having not eaten AT ALL, every single day; half of them are children), drinking until I'm drunk instead of enjoying two beers, pissing on the homeless instead of empathizing with their plights, squandering fossil fuels instead of walking when I am able, presuming I know what is "normal" instead of allowing for the spectrum of all possibilities as the REAL state of "normal."

A dead end is a dead end.  But when two dead ends meet they are no longer "dead" or "ends."  They are ONE ROAD.  And this road leads to the brightening of the spirit, the strengthening of the soul, the justification of the mind and the comfort of the body.  Whenever I reach the end of the road I don't stop............Iwallk.