Getting By by Kaze Gadway

Getting By by Kaze Gadway

“This is not my best day,” a man bent over a grocery cart that has all his possessions.
“When were your best days?” I ask. He looks like a strong wind will blow him over. He is thin but has a warm looking jacket.
“I want to say High School right before I graduated but one of my teachers told me that all I did in school was to get by, just coast by the real stuff. I was mad because I was so proud that I was walking with my class and she put me down. But she was right. I got a job dishwashing because a friend told me about it. I always thought I could do better but I never put myself out so I kept working until they let me go when jobs got tight. I never got another job. It just seemed to take too much effort.”
“So, what did you do?” I ask.
“I lived off friends until they kicked me out and I ended up here,” he says. “Probably this is the best time of my life because I am finally getting my act together. If I don’t plan where to eat then I don’t eat. If I don’t find a camp then I end up sleeping where I get beaten up. It may not seem like it but I am taking charge of me. I am even looking for a job to get me out of here. It’s funny the way things happen, isn’t it?”
I agree with him and think back of my youth when I did whatever came by because that was easier than planning. I wonder how many people I meet on the street are looking for a way to get their act together.

Identity by Kaze Gadway

Identity by Kaze Gadway

An angry young man complains that name calling troubles him. “That’s not who I am,” he says.
“Who are you in your own words?” I ask.
“I’m not lazy or worthless,” he says. “I see myself as a hard worker with bad luck.”
“What can you do to change your luck?” I ask.
“Keep trying to get a job and off the streets, I guess,” he says. “I don’t see myself as a quitter either.” He laughs as he stamps his feet with a stunned look on his face. He repeats himself. “I’m not a quitter.”
He laughs again and heads off down the street.
What a great image to start the day.

Get Rid of Them by Kaze Gadway

Get Rid of Them by Kaze Gadway

Do you feel people want you to fit in a mold you don’t like?

This is a question I ask the Native youth with whom I work and the street people with whom I talk. It becomes the question I ask myself when I do something or hear something with which I feel uncomfortable.
“I think that we just herd them out of town. They don’t add anything to our society and they have no place here,” says a grumpy old man drinking his coffee in the table next to me.
I lean into their table a bit trying to hear if they are talking about bats or people.
I never find out so I don’t say anything. I don’t know if I would say anything if they are talking about sick people or homeless or college students. But I feel uncomfortable even hearing the conversation about getting rid of people or animals or things because they don’t “fit.”
I feel like my identity is at stake. There have been so many places where I don’t fit. Yet I have been included in so many gatherings even when I have felt that I participate under false pretenses.
It comes down to what I value whether or not it makes me comfortable.

Get Rid of Them by Kaze Gadway

Get Rid of Them by Kaze Gadway

This is a question I ask the Native youth with whom I work and the street people with whom I talk. It becomes the question I ask myself when I do something or hear something with which I feel uncomfortable.
“I think that we just herd them out of town. They don’t add anything to our society and they have no place here,” says a grumpy old man drinking his coffee in the table next to me.
I lean into their table a bit trying to hear if they are talking about bats or people.
I never find out so I don’t say anything. I don’t know if I would say anything if they are talking about sick people or homeless or college students. But I feel uncomfortable even hearing the conversation about getting rid of people or animals or things because they don’t “fit.”
I feel like my identity is at stake. There have been so many places where I don’t fit. Yet I have been included in so many gatherings even when I have felt that I participate under false pretenses.
It comes down to what I value whether or not it makes me comfortable.

bruises by Kaze Gadway

Bruises by Kaze Gadway

“Whoa,” I say. “Sorry about your face. Have you seen someone?”

The young man lights up with a smile and says “I’m okay. I got kicked in the face by the owner of the store in front of the sidewalk I slept on.”

“You know, I don’t get it why owners like the whiners and the ones who work the system but hate those of us who are looking for jobs or just trying to survive without begging for charity. There was this one dude who whined about being kicked out of his house and having no place to stay and I know that he cadges money all day long from tourist and blows it on booze. The owner pats him on the back and lets him sleep in front of his store. I come along and don’t beg or whimper and he kicks me in the face while I am sleeping.”

I’ve seen this too. Those who have dignity are treated worse than those who pretend humbleness. Those who are truly devastated and worn down are picked on without mercy. If it were not for compassion among the street people, those who worn down would not last long.

There are many kinds of homeless. The ones the tourists see are usually those who are working the system and trying to make people feel sorry for them. Most of the ones I talk with are protecting the weak and clothing themselves with as much dignity as they can.

I am sure you can see the parallel in “housed” society.

Things Going Well by Kaze Gadway

Things Going Well by Kaze Gadway

When I stopped to talk to someone I knew on the street, I ask him as usual “How are thing going?”
“Things going well,” he says with a big grin. “I had a good breakfast and I have a good sleeping bag plus a blanket. So I am fed and warm. I can’t ask for more.”
It intrigues me sometimes when I start a conversation and the street people have such vitality. I expect them to have desperation or depression and often they are filled with energy instead.
I am reading a story about the early Colorado mining days where the grime and lack of amenities abound. Yet families managed to find something beautiful like a colorful cloth used as a curtain, or dried flowers to put on the mud walls. It seems that during the worst of times in our human history, we still find a way to bring some color, some comfort into our lives that inexplicably cheer us.
I think that is why I like to hand out assortment of things with different colors, like hats or scarves or rain hats or candy. Those on the street get such joy at choosing something with different colors.
Sometimes abundance is in color or smell not in numbers. I have to think about this for Thanksgiving.

Fear by Kaze Gadway

Fear by Kaze Gadway

Sitting in the coffee house, people all talk about their fear that Ebola will migrate from Texas to New Mexico. They tell me all the steps they will take if it does—mainly isolate themselves.
Sitting on the streets, I ask someone what they are most afraid of. “Getting beat up…harassed by police…food places closed…getting sick in the rain.” These are very basic fears of the poor.
So what am I afraid of? “Getting Alzheimer, running out of money, falling down in my house and not be able to get to a phone and nobody checking on me, my friends dying, losing purpose.”
Fear can be negative and positive. Fear makes me more careful and has me planning for eventualities. Fear can also paralyze me, depress me, spin me out of control.
I find that doing contemplative prayer (aka meditation) regardless of my feelings does two things. Stuff that I thought I had dealt with comes floating to the surface and I practice letting go of anything but being related to the source of my wholeness.
What about you?

Not Worth It by Kaze Gadway

Not Worth It by Kaze Gadway

“They promised me some shoes and a new backpack if I came back the next morning,” he recounts about someone at the back door of some kind of a settlement house. “The next morning I went back and they wouldn’t open the door. They told me to get lost. At first I was mad, and then I decided that it wasn’t worth it so I got over it. I guess people believe that the promise they make to us just doesn’t count. He’s the one who has to live with it. I’m used to it.”
Another man quips: “Maybe he was a politician.”
We all laugh and I think about how far down in society is the distrust of promises of those in power.
Someone on radio commented that she was an agnostic, not in religion, but in politics. She no longer believed in any party, any politician, any form of government promises.
Those in power don’t keep promises—has this become the bedrock of our society?
I look into myself to remember just why keeping promises have always been a sign that I have integrity and integrity is not something I will betray.
I also think how much we are dependent upon agencies and institution having integrity. The Post Office keeps putting someone else’s mail with a different box number in my box. I can’t trust that my mail gets to me. What is horrible is that I shrug my shoulders and think that is about average for our society.
I wonder what I do trust anymore.

Managing Style by Kaze Gadway

Managing Style by Kaze Gadway
I’m watching a street man trying to stand up to hold on to his walker. He was twisted up in pain. His blanket would fall off and he would take the longest time to pick it up and put it back on his walker. Then something else would fall and he would painfully bend down to pick it up. It took about an hour for him to finally get moving.
I agonized over if I should go over to help or leave him alone so he could retain his dignity.
Later on I notice that I am slowly dragging my feet across the sidewalk. Has it become easier for me to not pick up my feet? What style do I want that illustrates my inner dignity? So I pick up my feet and my pace and stride down the street.
As I grow older it is more important to me that I choose whatever exterior that I can manage and I just don’t slide into whatever is easiest. It is too easy to let my physical limitations dictate my self-image.
The image of the street man doing the best he can with obvious pain and yet still working on moving down the street, haunts me.
I so learn from being out here.

Contrasts by Kaze Gadway

Contrasts by Kaze Gadway.