street retreat reflections

Here are some of the reflections I wrote on the 7-day street retreat in San Francisco last week. There were 12 of us on the streets together and we had reflection sessions twice a day. The first piece is from a reflection session where we all drew a strip of paper. We had each written a question, thought or comment on one strip of paper at the previous reflection session.

The strip of paper I drew read:
"The dome of the City's Hall makes the grass grow faster."

I wrote in response:
The grass grows faster than the breakfast line at Glide, if you think it opens at 7 instead of 8.

The grass grows faster than my tired feet take me back once again, more and more reluctantly, to A Woman's Place.

The grass grows faster with a little sun and a little rain.

The dome of city hall is golden like the gentle light of an oatmeal morning, quiet streets, solumn red brick, cold cement-chilled sunlight, perfect for a delicious nap in the sun.

City Hall a jewel of gold and poured concrete.

Adelfa a smiling jewel of foggy blue eyes, swollen ankles and tidy shoes and clothes.

Westfield Center bathrooms a jewel of long late hours and precious paper towels.

Glittering pink jewels sparkling on the sidwalk near Abraham Lincoln.

St. Boniface a jewel of a church for its open doors, clean pews, vaulted ceilings and stained glass.

A jewelled hour of night, when the only sound is gentle breathing, rhythmic snoring, sleeping people.

______________________

And from the last day of the retreat, the final written reflection...

Itchy, dirty, tired. This morning the fog rolled in.

It's nice to finally have my cup of tea. Oh how I love my hot water-- I can't wait to take a hot shower, do laundry, take a nap in bed.

And today I started getting anxious about what next-- I need to start looking for a place to live for next month. Housing, shelter how will I pay for it?

Feel foggy-headed tired. Dry lips, bad posture, partly morning grogginess, partly another night of poor sleep on hard ground. Uncomfortable.

At Glide today a woman told me I looked nice with my hair down for a change. On the way to the Fools Court a man told me he was watching me all morning and was I okay? Okay, I'm okay. But if my days and future ahead of me stretched open without parents, housed friends to lean on-- if I was on the streets, I don't know that I would be okay. I feel desparate.

Weary, exhausted, saddened but okay, because it's over and later today I'll be clean, wearing clean clothes and tonight I'll sleep in a room by myself in a bed with sheets and blankets.

a floral interlude... from berkeley

Reflections from the 7 day street retreat

Protein on the Streets

Pork, Beef, Chicken and Sometimes Fish

The first few days I felt like a piece of meat

Raw, tender

Sexual slab of nourishment for

Lonely, hungry men

Men with groping eyes and gummy, toothless pick-up lines.

Pork pork pork

The sign on the way to Martin’s

“Eat here”

And a picture of a bubble-gum pink pig

Licking his lips

Despair—when pigs fly—end of homelessness, poverty

Pork pork pork

Feral pigs of wild moutaineous Hawaii

Almost mythical, huge beasts

Clawing, animal

Frantic, forced by flooding from the mountain

Seeking shelter

Unwelcome

Killed in Michael’s backyard to protect his family, his property.

Pigs, wild looking for shelter.

Pork meat pork meat pork meat

Meat pork meat

Pork beef chicken and sometimes fish

Cows: gentle, doe-eyed female

Pumped full of drugs

Milk-producing baby machines.

Cows gentle

Herded along

Move along, move along

Cows bonding as a herd

Like the chaos of a foodline

Together in our waiting

Together in our hunger

Chatting or quiet

Standing together

Cows together cows together cows together

Together cows together

Pork beef chicken and sometimes fish

Chickens screechy and fierce

Squawking and broody on the street

On my way home from church

In Honolulu

On the streets of San Francisco

Walk tough, don’t be a chicken

Fear…

That woman next to me is scratching again.

I hope I don’t get her mat tomorrow night.

I sleep anyway.

There sure are a lot of men hanging out on that street.

I hope they don’t stop me, don’t come onto me.

I walk down the street anyway.

That’s a nasty cough.

I hope it’s not contagious.

I breathe anyway.

Chickenfear

Natural and sometimes useless response.

Chicken fear chicken fear

Fear chicken fear

Pork beef chicken and sometimes fish

Two weeks ago in a sudden burst of poetic insight

A friend,

“Air to birds

water to fish

love to humans”.

Puckering fish, lippy kisses of lovers

Drunken slurpy kisses on the streets

Or caring for a friend

Sharing food, sharing clothes with strangers

Love is what we live in

Air to birds

Water to fish

Love to humans

Fish love fish love

Love fish love

Pork beef chicken and sometimes fish

Meat meat meat

2 scoops of couscous at St. Anthony’s

A mountain of drippy stewed vegetables

At the shelter.

More peanut butter and jelly sandwiches on white bread.

Life on the streets without meat.

I take the love, fear, togetherness, meat.

Raw, whole slabs of time on the streets

You gotta get your protein somehow.