my ankles are soaked. it’s the first rainy day of winter today and walking to the bus an to the train station from the bus has completely soaked the bottom six inches or so of my jeans. as we pass ponds and inlets, though, i can see that the ducks and cranes are having a grand ol’ time enjoying the rain.
this morning i woke up to the sound of brad, from somewhere on the sidestreet, yelling, “get the fuck out!” and something being thrown against the side of the building. at first i thought it might be a domestic dispute, but i didn’t hear any stomping or other indoor fight noises.
then i heard a car door slam and i started to wonder if there had been a homeless person sleeping in brad’s vehicle. i thought back to last week when someone broke into the amb, too. at the time i told concubine he was lucky he hadn’t had to wake anyone up. i wonder how i would deal with the situation.
brad’s … concubine? … called down into the street after a couple more door slams, “brad, are you ok?”
“yeah,” he said still sounding really angry, “there was some guy sleeping in the van.”
so, what would i do if i found someone sleeping in the amb? (since i don’t have my own vehicle, i’ll use the amb as an example.)
what i would like to happen is for me to be able to say, “hey, time to wake up. this is my ambulance and i need to use it.” then the person would get up and go on their way.
but, i’m smart enough to know this probably wouldn’t happen. a lot of the homeless are dual diagnosis for a start. they have mental illness and they’re addicted to drugs and/or alcohol. i have a friend who was homeless for a month as a social experiment. he planned on the whole summer, but he was so mean to people after the first month (grumpy and unwilling to answer when new people at the shelter asked him where to get food) that he quit early. so, possibly mentally ill, high or drunk, and pissy from being on the street… whomever i found in the amb probably wouldn’t be cheerily willing to wake up and move so i could drive off on my merry way all dry and warm, too, when they were going to be booted out into the rain.
as much as i don’t like my ankles being wet, they don’t like their ankles being wet either.
brad’s angry voice this morning inspired me to try some tonglen. man, is that hard to do first thing in the morning! after just a couple breaths i felt horribly alone. clearly, i wasn’t doing this right. instead, i asked concubine for a cuddle and focused on the good things i have.
i guess that’s what the ducks and cranes were doing, too.