Some pictures from my sleeping place. Definitely a nice way to wake up in the morning...
I was up and out of there within a few minutes. I slept very well, and still had the songs from Grease going though my head. The rose garden is especially beautiful in the morning...
This guy started the rose test garden in 1917. Can't remember his name.
These (in different varieties) are my favorite colored roses. They are pink with gold in their centers.
More of the tree datura (Brugmansia) with their fragrance competing against the roses.
Rose garden office--which is never open.
These look like a variety of bleeding hearts, but I think they are something different. Any ideas?
A tree number. Many are tagged in this way.
On my walk back to Burnside, I thought I'd take some shots of the many large residences along the way. These could easily be located in the West End of Portland, Maine. The whole area is very similar, sans the Maine trash along the streets...
I got to Starbucks and worked on the two posts for the day. It took about six hours. Then I headed out to see more of the city. I figured there must be some kind of Sunday event going on. I headed down toward Pioneer District...
As I came around a bend, I heard a wonderful fusion of Indian classical and space music. So I followed my ears and ended up at the Indian Festival...
Indian street food. I wanted some...
A prayer song.
The presenter. I wouldn't mind at all if more American women
began wearing these colorful dresses.
Perfect amphitheater for such an event.
This girl could dance. She had won a contest in India, with a prize of coming here to dance.
Quite a colorful variety of people, all races, creeds, ethnicities,
genders and ages, enjoying the day together.
A huge Apple and Macintosh store, absolutely packed with people.
Scarlet Salvia Splendins.
Some of the streets I walked down had a few homeless people. I tried to speak to a few of them, but (besides wondering if I could give them anything--money cigarettes, rolling papers, weed, mostly) they were not overly talkative.
The homeless situation here in Portland was not what I'd thought it would be. There are fewer folks living on the street than I expected. There does seem to be a culture - a community - in this group that is highly (morally) supportive of each other. They have their systems of survival down pat. I'm generalizing of course with all of this.
There seem also to be very few people who don't hang out with other people. There are many platonic and romantic couples. Pairs of male friends (only friends--buddies) are most common.
Some people are in really bad shape, physically. Back and leg problems are predominant. Others are (to my mind) suffering from hallucinations and other forms of dementia--talking to themselves and invisible people, pointing at random things, and half-dancing, could probably use a mental check up at some clinic. But who will help them know what is available, where it might be located and how to get there? The relatively stable people get the unstable food, help them to bathrooms, and make sure their clothes are not too bad. But this is all outside of the "system".
Occasionally, some community effort or non-profit organization will visit the streets for one day. And, this is a respectable effort. However, most days are a matter of monotonous routines, mixed with long periods of inactivity.
There is always plenty of conversation, some of it fairly intellectual, and a lot of it very immature and shallow--much like the conversations among any group of people, regardless of income level.
When I first got here I had great ambitions of profiling individuals, taking their pictures, learning their life stories and publishing their plight. Strangely, but inline with the trend of most of my plans, this was not a realistic concept; one that was totally mismatched to the situation at hand.
These folks are not interested in having their pictures taken. I should have seen that one coming. I wouldn't want my picture taken out here either, and I am probably looking a fair bit cleaner than most of them. And, my ambitions for getting them involved in some kind of political effort are falling flat. They really (at least here in Portland) don't care that much if things change or not--apparently.
I've seen very few families on the street; only one, actually--a woman and two children panning for change on a street corner. Efforts to make or get money, range from returning cans and bottles--the more ambitious folks do this, to panning, to working intersections with cardboard signs, to doing nothing at all and waiting for their lives to fall apart enough to be rescued by other people, least common is selling drugs, probably because it requires a capital investment, and few folks can save the money they make to reinvest, nor might they have the self control to not dip into their own supply.
I was both frustrated by not being able to profile these folks as I'd wanted to, but also had to admit to myself that things were not quite as bad off as I'd assumed they were. What an odd situation to be in! I felt a bit like a war correspondent who has missed the war.
Nevertheless, I handed out about 25 cards to people - though hardly any of them ever use computers - and I had no individual stories to highlight in this post. It seems that I have more success in finding interesting stories when I simply let people come to me, rather than going to them. This is something I learned with the non-homeless, but I really thought I could march in and be overloaded with info among the street people.
I will stay here in Portland for a few more days. But, despite the wonderful efforts of people to share this blog at Facebook, the number of reads has gone down in the last week. My 20 second videos of cats get ten times more "likes" on Facebook than the blog links. And I am constantly without enough money--though a couple people had gotten me through from day to day; nothing is left now.
On the way back to Washington Park, I was constantly asking myself the rhetorical question: "Why the hell are you even trying?" Like I have repeatedly done, I NEED to push this sentiment out of my mind, or it begins to take over, tempting me to quit; something some people would love to see happen, though I have no idea why. What on earth would ever motivate a person to nay-say another person's project? Is it spite? Jealousy? Just game-playing? Are their lives so boring and settled in convention that to see someone attempting to do a novel and unique thing, threatens the belief system they have adopted for themselves? I just don't know. I really don't. And, none of them are going to fill me in.
The psychological aspects of this project are affecting me in a way I just can't seem to escape. There are frequent waves of support for the things I think aren't that important, and then some of my greatest efforts - ones that I'm just positive people will rally around - are completely ignored.
It is hard not to take it all personally. I know that - beside the people who actively want to see me fail - this whole thing is just subject to the whims and fickle nature of public interest, or lack thereof. It is that simple. Unless something significant propels a project into the hallowed "viral" state, it becomes fundamentally, nothing. I have no choice but to continue. And so, I shall. But the stress of the emotional roller coaster is taking a toll on me. I feel it weathering and eroding my ambition. I write about these inner concerns, because they are so incredibly present in every moment of every day, and especially at night, when I try to sleep.
The walk back was pleasant enough. I stopped into the Dollar Tree to buy the day's meal; sardines and peanuts.
Sculpture along Burnside.
Partly frustrated by my lack of progress in highlighting the issues of homelessness in Portland, I resigned myself to easing my mind in the only way I could, photographing more flowers. I guess maybe it's overkill at this point, and perhaps it was more for myself...
There are other flowers besides just roses... A hibiscus bloom.
A nearly black rose, somewhat misleadingly named, "Midnight Blue".
One of my favorites. There seems to be a glow in the center, especially in low light.
Pure white.
Another glowing example.
By the time I was ready to go to the sleeping place, I was feeling quite disheartened, but getting used to it. My plans for the Northwest were changing. So much time had been lost in waiting for mailed items in Redding and Salem that I really needed to accelerate the trip from here on.
UPDATED TRAVEL PLAN
This will all require a lot less walking between towns, since the northern part of the US does not have the density of populated areas. That means that Amtrak and bus travel will be a necessity, and it is likely that a very long ride will be necessary to move from the West back to the Midwest.
That summed up my thinking on this day. Not every day can be exciting. Not every moment can be satisfying. Not every experience can be edifying. If I am supposed to become "immune to disappointment" then the opportunities to practice that ideal are not in short supply. Too bad I still can't seem to master such a thing. In fact, I can't even get close. Today was proof of all of this. I'm quite sure that coming days will bring a change of wind direction out to blow me out of the doldrums... Frankly, it can't be soon enough.
I lay awake for many hours, thinking..................... unable to fall asleep until about 2:00 am.
The doldrums do go away.
ReplyDeleteI hope they go away soon for you
Thanks, Don. I think you're right.
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