february log - part ii

2.20.11
Perfect
I attended Sunday service at St Dunstan's again today for community credit. The Reverend David Marshall spoke to the congregation about transformation and translation and language, all of which have been on my mind of late, and he was right on target. He spoke about "the perfect" we are asked to achieve and what keeps us from that. He invited us to consider the things that keeps us from being perfect. He said if we wrote one obstacle to perfect down on a piece of paper and gave it to him, he would burn it in the columbarium outside and smudge it on our foreheads on Ash Wednesday in a ritual of release. Hey, this is my kind of place! I sat in my pew considering all the things, so many, that keep me from perfect. How to choose? How to condense? While the Reverend explained more about perfect and its meaning, I began to write. He said the Greek word teleioi, used in the Bible, means not perfect as we understand it in English, but rather perfect as in complete, as in brought to full development, as in becoming what we are meant to be. I could feel the translation filtering through the pews, happening in the bodies all around me, in the heart and bodies of the congregation, mostly gray-haired, but also families with children, all understanding, ahhhh, complete.

Grow Up
Then the Reverend told us about the theologian, Eugene Peterson, who wrote a colloquial translation of the Bible in which he says, “In a word, what I’m saying is, Grow up. You’re kingdom subjects, now live like it. Live out your God-created identity. Live generously and graciously toward others, the way God lives toward you.” (Matthew 5:48, The Message). Shabang! That hits home. So, of the many things that keeps me, Mimi, from being perfect, I wrote this one: fear of success. Seems a silly thing to write. I thought it was a silly thing. I second-guessed myself. I don't know if I even believe it, but that's what I wrote and now it's in the basket and soon it will be burning in the columbarium and, if I come back on Ash Wednesday, the Rev will smudge it on me thus diminishing the wedge between me and my perfect self. Ahhhh, I will say, ahhhh, I am perfect.

It's All Up From Here
After church, I went to camp and got on my bike, my blue bike of transformation, with Ovid. I rode until Monte came along, "Have you seen Susan's painting? It's really good. You should check it out." Susan was bundled up and sitting in the community tent with her notebook. I went to see. She was painting a tent with a bunch of balloons tied to it. "What does that mean?" I asked. "They're for hope. That's our tent. Have you seen the movie Up? It's good. You should see it. In the movie this old man ties balloons to his house so he can fly to the place of his dreams. That's what I want to do. I'm getting tired of all these things encroaching on me." Susan has a quick hard smile, she flashes it periodically, she's got quick hard movements, she's lively and energetic. There is a lot of joy in her. I was struck by how odd her optimism seemed here in camp. Up! Susan and her partner make a strong team. They're on their way to freedom, recovery. "Today," she said, "marks day 36 for us. We have 28 more days before we can leave." "Spring is coming," I said. "I can't wait for Spring!" And do you know, there really are balloons tied to Susan's tent, purple and white balloons in real life, tugging at her tent. Not enough to lift it, not enough for a geographic shift, but enough to suggest it. The next day the balloons were tiring and slumping and bumping on the roof, but the dream was still in place.

Saint So and So
St Francis did it. St Anthony did it. Eschewed worldly riches, sold their belongings, became mendicants for the cause. Sounds easy when you say it like that, "gave up their riches." What does that mean? What are riches? I don't know, but say security, say safety, say opportunity, and that seems hard. Say start from zero. Say no help whatsoever. Say going down. To give away everything with no path is foolish. I've given everything away before, when I saw an opportunity, when I saw a path. What I want now is freedom. What I want now are choices. I met Beatrice today, an active proponent for Nickelsville. She's terrific, probably the best advocate the homeless have in Seattle. She's a slice of 7-grain bread. If I were in charge, I would put her in charge. I'd say here, you take over, here's your salary, make it go. Here's your Get Out of Jail Card. She is firm and compassionate, passionate and capable, informed and full of vigor. But everyone here is just fighting for a place to live, so her recompense for all that is a room with a lock. That's what she's working for, that and the hope for someone else in her shoes to also find shelter when they need it. I suppose the rest of us, in the larger world, in the world at large, forget sometimes that's what we're working for, a room with a lock, stability, security, community. I suppose that's why we sometimes go out on our porches and yell "We pay to live here!" I suppose it sometimes feels to us that a house and a community are our God-given right. I see now they are not. I see now they are things we work for and nuture and hand down.

Loss
Me, I want the mountains. I want the fields. I want the ocean. I want the road. I feel afraid for all the things I have to lose and I have absolutely nothing to lose. What is it I fear? Perhaps it's what I know, my ideas, my hopes, my understanding of the way things are and could be? I will lose these things if I go through with this, the path I'm on, this spiritual path, this path to me, to self-understanding. And so what do I know and what do I own? Nothing or very little. What might I lose? Only opportunity, that alone would hurt. Other things I do not have or do not need. I've been holding on too much to my limited notion of opportunity. What does that have to do with real opportunity? What is the worth of happiness? What is the use of stability? I drove Nicolas to Bothell to get $8 from his stepdad, the dad he grew up with, so he could buy cigarettes. He couldn't wait for Monday, so I got to meet his dad and his sister, nice people, friendly. They welcomed him in and even took photos. Strange to add in the family component, the extended family piece, to this homeless equation. It makes what is broken seem more urgent and wrong. But there must be reasons, mustn't there? There must be reasons. It's not for me to say or know. Perhaps there is healing there? Perhaps the fence at TC3 is about time and space for healing, for many, for most?

Healing Art
I am an artist-in-residence at Studio Current, an experimental performance space run by Vanessa DeWolf on Capitol Hill. Every month one resident artist leads a 3-hour workshop. The workshops are attended by the other residents and involved both teaching process and dialog. I led a workshop in late December about artist-to-artist collaborations. Tonight, Jessica Jobaris led a workshop on dance as therapy. Jessica is a gifted choreographer and dancer. I saw and championed her piece, "Imagine That Everything I'm Doing Is Exactly How I Want It To Be," the year before last at Sand Point. Jessica has since been studying with Anna Halprin, one of my very first female heroes. I saw Anna's film, Breath Made Visible, at NWFF last year and was sold on her genius at once, especially on her work with the San Francisco Dancers' Workshop. Tonight, in the studio, Jessica led us through a healing practice from Anna's book Experience as Dance. First we chose a conflict in our lives, then we drew it on paper and then we danced it. We devised language around our dance and identified some key phrases or releasing movements, then drew again and then moved from that. It was an amazing experience, for me, tonight, of transformation. Again that word. It keeps coming up.

Seattlest
I met with Amy Mikel, Arts and Entertainment Manager for the Seattlest today. Now that I'm nearing the end of my residency at Tent City, she asked what I've learned. O when people ask that, what I've learned, what I've done, I have no answer, none, no idea. What have I done? What have I learned? What do I know? Perhaps it's too soon? Perhaps it's too much? Perhaps it's not enough? I'm going to need time, thinking, writing and talking about that before I know, understand, all that's happened to me, in me, because right now I have no idea, none. I went to bed at 4am and woke at 8am for the interview. Amy is hands down the best interviewer I have ever met, a studied, introspective, open, wise interviewer. She is the first interviewer who has asked me, at the outset, "How can I help you?" Egads! I'd never hoped to entertain such a question from an interviewer. It gave me pause. I had to think for some time, a week or more, to know what that might be, how best a reporter might help me, this project. In our lives, as artists and not artists, we are not used to being asked How can I help? Amy is just now finishing a graduate program in Library Sciences at the UW. We got deep into dialog about what Song of Tent City might be. We talked a lot about the inner landscape of the artist, of my artist. I learned a great deal about what the project means to me and might become by talking with Amy. It feels so good to begin to process it.

2.22.11
Retreat
At this very moment, I would like to retreat from everything I know and watch water falling downstream and get close to the grass and listen for the animals stirring at night. And I am going to, when I am done with this, I am going to. Who knows, maybe by then they will have me arrested and put in debtor's prison. Maybe I will be languishing in captivity there, writing a novel about all the things I had to lose and lost, a novel that unwrites itself as you go, becomes nothing with no afterword, poof. A homeless man walked around the café just now, he went table to table asking, "Will you buy me coffee? Will you buy me coffee?" The heads were shaking. No, no, no. It is snowing outside. Shake, shake, shake. No, no, no. I said yes. His name is Trent. I gave him $5. It is snowing. Where else would he go? I am going to be a pilgrim this summer. I am going to need help, support. I am going to flash my alms bowl. How can I live at Tent City, how can I work at Tent City, and not respond to this? It is snowing and I am different. Am I? We are all dying, everyone.

Lost and Found
I saw Trent again later in Subway, the sandwich shop, or maybe it was someone younger, a man hunched and asleep in his chair. At first I walked by then I turned and went back. Perhaps I have something, some information, for him, can tell him where to go? I went in and said his name and asked, "Do you know where you are sleeping tonight? Do you know the places, the shelters in town?" He smiled and said yes. It strikes, suddenly, that what I thought was compassionate, wasn't anything more than worry. It strikes me, suddenly, that this is what I may have learned, gained, a smidgeon of compassion. If each of us walking down the street were to check in on each other, make eye contact, give a verbal check—You ok? You look lost. What do you need?— And then listen. And then maybe provide that if possible, perhaps the problem would be solved or almost solved? Perhaps. No doubt I will look back at myself, at my me now, and think later, O, I thought I had compassion, but what did I have? I had only worry. I had a worry that went nowhere. And then, perhaps, I will have gained a smidgeon of compassion from some new experience, and I will think then I was half alive now. Perhaps. We are but carbon shifting. And I am going to TC3 tonight. And it is almost over. And we will be in the church tonight. And it has been snowing all day. And I have a security to fill.

Decisions
Homeless is not a decision, but pilgrim is. Nomads are back and forthers, but bums stick around. Vagabonds are acorns. Wayfarers are winged seeds. I cut fresh flowers from the garden when I was living in Tacoma, when I was house sitting and watching Hayley's chickens. I cut the sunflowers that were bent and the mallows and daisies. I put them around the house in the kitchen, in the dining room, on the deck. My mother used to bring me lilacs from our yard. She would put them on the nightstand when I was doing homework. She'd bring in a plate of grapes. It was her way of saying I approve of what you're doing now. Now that we're grown, we can do this for ourselves, approve of ourselves, of what we're doing, make small gift, love ourselves. There, in Tacoma, in late August, I was doing that. In the mornings, on the covered deck with wicker couches, I spent my mornings reading and drinking tea. I worked in the garden in the afternoons—sweeping and raking and weeding—while the chickens nosed about the yard. In the evenings, I wrote and made meals. Having a home creates a calm abiding structure, a sense freedom that invites routine.

Calm Abiding
Calm abiding structure is what is missing at Tent City. Knowing what day it is, what time it is, being able to make and keep appointments, are all struggles, even for me, at Tent City. Having good and regular sleep, feeling alert, feeling at ease, sure, clean, comfortable and confident, all of this is missing, for me, at Tent City. I remember the magnolia tree in the backyard rubbing up against the roof, the long waxy leaves rustling and dropping in the wind and in the stillness, making noise throughout the day. I slept in the spare room, the upstairs room with the little leather couch. There's nothing like being a guest in a house with clean white sheets and dark wooden furniture and books on shelves you've never seen before. It's a lure to walk into a life, such a clean white life, and rest. I miss the garden. I miss the labor. I miss having my hands in the dirt. Have I really decided I am going there tonight, to Tent City? I need rest. I will not rest there. Hmm, I will decide as I walk to the car. It is cold. Hmm, I either am or I am not doing a residency at Tent City. Ooooo!!!

2.23.11
Reincarnation
I did go to Tent City and, when I arrived, I was greeted by friends. Hello Mimi! I had a good long conversation with Jim who now tells me he has other names, but I think he is also Jim. I have always called him Jim. He was in a good mood tonight. He knows everything. He knows something about everything. He's got white hair and wears a cap. He is mostly quiet and always hunched and often angry. Sometimes he has rosy cheeks. His brother is an anthropologist. His sister is a doctor. He told me, once, about losing his family or being disconnected from them, alone anyway. We have talked about many things, standing in the dark, in the evening, around the community tent. Mostly I listen. Tonight we talked about end-of-life care and happiness and reincarnation. I like the unadulterated way he talks. No excuses. No apologies. "There's no reincarnation! You wanna know what reincarnation is? Well, let me tell you, it's genetic information passed down, on and on. There's a woman in NJ who's never been out of the small town she was born in, who never went to college, but she speaks perfect French and has an detailed and accurate memory of events that took place in France centuries ago. What is that? Is that past life recall? Is that reincarnation? No, that's a memory chip. Reincarnation is being remembered after you're dead, like that story about some grandmother you knew, who was just a wise woman, but not only intellectually, she had other kinds of wisdom and stories were told about her." Jim was talking about our humanity and I believed him. I asked him how he'd like to be remembered and he said he didn't know. That was up to someone else. We only have each other, and only for a short while.

On Waking
I grabbed my sleeping bag from my tent and went to the church. It's 22F with a lacing of snow. The puddles are frozen. I slept for 2 hours, did a security from 2-3am, then slept from 3-6am. Lights on!! How bizarre to hear Daren's voice in the morning, "Good morning, Mimi." I slept in the front row, on a pew, with my head under the covers for another half hour then left. The woman at the front desk looks spent. She looks so tired. Her replacement didn't show, so she's working overtime, hours after she was supposed to be off. All the other ECs who might have come to relieve her were also up until 4am or were next in line for work, so on she works. The commitment of the ECs, in the face of everything they have to endure and lose, is always surprising and always encouraging. The duty they show to the camp and their post is Napoleonic. And last night, I had a biscuit. Dinner was gone except for the biscuits. The fried chicken was gone. The mashed potatoes were gone. I saw a second tray of chicken behind the line, but if you go behind the line you'll get a permanent bar, so I ate crumbs. There were lots of crumbs. I heated them up and ate them with my hands. Yum.

Nice Vs Necessary
My mom has funny ways of showing she loves me. Six years ago she got me an i-pod for Christmas. I was in graduate school in New York City and struggling to make ends meet. I thought it was too big a present to be getting me. I have trouble with inequity, like not having money for the subway and owning an i-pod. How do you mesh details like that? I had trouble making sense of that. She also got me an electric toothbrush. I rejected both of those gifts. No, I accepted them with a sigh. Ugh, but I like the simple mechanics of a toothbrush! I gave the toothbrush to a friend. Now I think they're great. Now I think they clean your teeth a lot better than manual brushes, but then I was soo sooo poor. I was poverty stricken in NYC and poverty was all around and the sounds of machines were everywhere and I wasn't wanting an i-pod. I was wanting to hear and see everything around me just as it was. I didn't open the i-pod for a year. When was I going to use it? Where? I wouldn't think of blocking out the city sounds. I wouldn't use walking or biking, no, no, too important to hear those taxi horns. So I put it in a drawer and moved it with me wherever I moved. I used it for the first time this January, for the Song of Tent City show at Tether Gallery, to play the artist collaborations. I borrowed speakers from a friend and played the audio files on a loop on my i-pod. I was hoping it might one day be useful in this way and it was. At long last, thank you Mom!

The Night Jewel of Jackets
She got me two coats the winter before, a black Columbia jacket and a classic wool coat with a belt. The jacket was the kind ice climbers wear, with sealed seams and velcro closures and double zips everywhere. I never wore when I lived it in NYC even though it got into the teens and minus zero with the wind chill. When bums ask you for a quarter and you're wearing a jacket like that, what do you say, "I don't have any money?" But then I couldn't get rid of it because it was expensive and my Mom gave it to me so I carried it around for years and years. Burdens. Now that I'm at Tent City, seven years later, I'm wearing it for the first time. Someone said, the other day, "Nice jacket! Good jackets make a difference. Good jacket keeps you from getting wet," and all those feelings came back. My jacket is nicer than any jacket around. Everything I'm wearing is from the Goodwill, except that jacket. I have on the night jewel of jackets. I stood firm and tall and said, "My mom got it for me. It is a nice jacket. Someone stole the fleece liner, but the shell is still nice." And that's all. I moved on. At that moment I realized, and much more fully, how family keeps us, kept me, from falling in the gutter, which for most is terrible news (to fall) or terrific news (to be saved) except for the poet who might long for the gutter, who might wish to fall. Thank you, Mom.

A Different Place
I told Jim last night that we were all dying and he said, "That's right and if you can keep that in mind, if people kept that in mind, the world would be a different place." He's a wise man. He was spot on last night, spot on target. It makes me realize how all those people out there are so much more informed, so much smarter than I ever gave give them credit for. All those people know so much more about their situation than most of us do about ours, because they are out there, right up against it, seeing it all first hand, feeling life in live time, things we'll never see or feel or know. It's a tragedy or it's a release, it's one of the two or it's both. Either way, it's a terrible tragedy. If you are honest with yourself and the people around you, no one can take anything from you or hold anything over you. It seems impossible to be dishonest here, at Tent City. When I go away for my hermitage, when I splinter off into the unnamed woods, I will see what kind of honesty lives out there, in the solitary self. Tonight is the mandatory camp meeting. I hope to sign up for the security I owe. I need one more this week and two litter busters. The Wednesday and Thursday sheets are already full. The Friday sheet comes out at 9pm. I've got to get in line after the meeting and get on that list. I want to get through this.

2.24.11
Partnerships
I did a church security last night from 1-2am. When I saw the guy who was going to replace me go down to the bathroom, I asked him where he was sleeping so I could find him when it was time. He wasn't on the map. He told me, "I can't do a security. I'm sick." I said "Everyone who stays in he church does a security. You're signed up from 2-3am." He said, "I'll get my girlfriend to do it." Cringe! Later in the night, a woman came out to smoke. We say hello and I figured out it was the girlfriend of the guy I spoke to earlier. She said, "Yeah, he's sick. I'll do his security." I said, "I can split it with you." She's got her own security to pull. She's new. She hasn't got a clue about camp life. I can see they aren't going to last. I can always see that. And it aggravates me to see the women in the partnerships bear the brunt. I have seen that in other couples, her running around doing all the work and him copping attitude. That doesn't fly in camp for me. So I pulled a Mimi trick and sat all three securities, mine and his and hers, then went to bed at 4am. In the morning, while we were returning to camp, I saw them walking through the strawberry islands so I warned them not to do that, they obviously hadn't been told. He grunted and grumbled, "What can we do?!" There are couples where the guy takes care of everything and the girl acts helpless. It works both ways, I know. Either way it's not attractive and, at Tent City, all the unattractive things seem even more unattractive, because, just because, but the snooooow is lovely and, as with sailing, being up all night while everyone else is asleep is peaceful and free. It's a way of buying time. I think to myself, this is allll mine, ahhh! I took pictures of the snow and the sky this morning and the junkyard dog said, "She's taking pictures so she can write more mean things about us," which was frictive but I've got some sympathy for her now. She's been talking less. I see her struggle. She could be as beautiful as anyone, will be as beautiful as everyone, one day. Perhaps we all will be. Even me.

Choices
I told Nicholas I was worried about him. I asked him when he was going to clean up his act and get his life together. He said, "I need a girlfriend to spend all my time with so I don't get in trouble." You'd have to hear the voice. It's scratchy from smoking and slurs a bit and wavers a bit from the head injury, but it's lively and buoyant and simultaneously jovial and deviant. It always makes me smile. He could be such a beautiful guy, by which I mean happy and free. I said, "I don't think it works that way. I think you clean up first then the woman comes." He smiled and put his head to one and said, "That's what my dad says." I told him he had a beautiful life ahead of him if he wanted it. I so believe that. He's got a family who wants him back. He's got to make a choice.

A Blue-footed Duck
Since Nicholas is the kind of person who will say "Goodnight Mimi" across church pews, I asked, "Are you going to tell us a goodnight story?" And he did. I couldn't understand most of it, but when I realized he was going for a Scottish accent, I understood that he was telling a joke about flip, the flop, the Scottish guy's kilt and the sisters with the blue ribbon. I've heard it before. And that was goodnight. Hah! After running back to the security desk twice, I came in to sleep and Nicholas said, "Mimi, tell me a goodnight story." I told him an ornate tale about a group of people stuck in the snow who find a church. I told him about the blue-footed duck that followed them into the church, whispered things, and the sensitive young French man who listened to the duck and how the secrets of the blue-footed duck began to infect the group and how the group also began to whisper the same whispers in their sleep and how none of them knew the other knew it but how it came out as a song one day as they were hiking up the mountain to find a passageway and how this song was what opened the mountain top when they were stuck in the cave and though there was no hope and then, when the mountaintop opened, how they could see all the way to the green valley below where they are going to be safe. The end. The junkyard dog came in before I was done and I thought for sure she was going to tell me to shut up because she doesn't like me, but she didn't because she respects Nicholas. Ah well, my feet are cold. There is a lot of good to see in the world, even here, even here. Unhappy people require more time, more space. You can better see their good if you step away. It's the difference between mud-deep in TC3 and aggravated and oppressed and being grass-deep in Meadowbrook and at ease and caring. It is going to be 19F tonight!

Money
I lost my buffer this month. I have $700 in my account and rent is due, which means it'll be month-to-month after this. No more buffer. Return to start. Zero out. And there's no guaranteed income on my horizon. I have one job at the end of the month, which pays $250, and a week of dog-sitting and two days of office cleaning and four days of house cleaning, but that's it. Scrape, scrape. And so this is me being the artist before becoming the janitor or the circus girl, which brings us to one of the most beautiful lines in the history of poetry, "The Circus girls are rushing through the night" by Kenneth Koch. And that's everything to me. And so I'll be fine.

Bedding
My new favorite spot is first pew, left side. They turn out the lights on you and everyone settles in. You have to get up some time in the middle of the night to do a security, to sit in the lobby with a bright yellow vest on, looking official, looking like you might be able to handle whatever walks in, the devil himself if he happened to show up. There is a young guy in camp that has my brother's same name. His girlfriend is always coughing. She's got dark hair and hollow cheeks. They are both awfully nice and fun and probably in their 20s. What are they doing here? When I said I was cold he said, "If you want to be warm, you need a tent-mate and a ton of blankets." Young and wise. If you want to know how to be warm, ask a homeless person. If you want to know how to run a homeless camp, ask the homeless. If you want to help the homeless, ask them what they need and want. Doing anything else is self-serving. We all have the need to give, to appease our shame. It is possible to do both by beginning with ears and a question. And once there was a woman on wheels with cracked eyeglasses who had a dog. They rolled together, from city to city, getting barred first from one then the next place, but the dog looked warm. It had thick orange fur and ate human food. On Sunday, this Sunday, when I am done with Tent City, I'm going to curse and drink, not because I love to , but because I am not allowed to and that makes me want to. Rebel.

2.25.11
Holy Sleeping
I walked down 35th to 105th picking up trash at 11:30pm. I had a litter buster to complete before midnight. Not until my turn-around point did my hands start warming up from the work. I kept shoving them in my pockets. It was a very cold night. I ate a pint of cous cous salad and drank out of the faucet before I went to bed. The meal was fine, but I did not enjoy it. Foodschmood! I know I need food. I need food. I know. I went into the church and started on the floor by the piano. I'm not sure if I slept. The floor trembles when people walk by. Because it was so cold, there were more people inside. The floor trembled all night. Once you decide to welcome the noises, they become affecters, positive sensations. Sometimes I let them. After a good long while of looking and listening, my eyes at foot level, I felt like Andrei on the battlefield in War and Peace, I felt like I was on a battlefield, looking over at Imhotep and Patricia, then the other way to Summer, experiencing small waves of divine love for everyone I saw, through all the small annoyances of flashlights and plastic bags and heavier footfall and throat clearing and belches and foul smells. I moved up onto a pew before morning, let myself be cradled in the slope of it. The pew was the more comfortable of the two. Darren woke us up again with quickly rising lights. "Come on, Mimi, you gotta get up!" He knocks on pews and stomps on floors. He was in the military. Now we all are. I'm in a stupor. There is a grant due today. I should have written it. At 2pm I go back to do a last, group, litter sweep of the neighborhood, then take my magic blue transforming bike away.

Piling Up
I'm in my office now. There's so much to do, it's around me in piles. Don't I have a right to be tired, to refuse all this? I was supposed to be on a hermitage in January, nourishing my artist, after two years of endless scraping to make rent, to find work, I was supposed to be renewing. My first hermitage was to be in Mexico at Lake Patzcuaro. O! Peter the Painter in Seattle has an uncle there with land who agreed to let me hermitize it for a month. So I renewed my passport. So I got an International ID Card. Pricey little items. And I was ready to roll. Richie, my brother, was waiting in the wings, to purchase the ticket for my Christmas gift, but along came that damned performers insurance and I was required to purchase it. I'd gotten a grant from 4Culture for "Studies in Everything" and needed to show proof of insurance. Most artists are working with venues that have insurance that covers them, but I was out on the streets, in the parks. It seemed ridiculous at first, to pay $250 for an event in a public park that wouldn't collect anymore than three people in any one place. It stunned me at first, the insurance company said it would cost $500. I sort of lost my mind that night. I couldn't sleep. My mind was racing. After that, I didn't think I had the money to do it, to go to Mexico, to afford rent in January and February, and then a picture of Tent City blew in—crinkle crink—and a different path opened up, a sliding board to poverty and transformation. I wouldn't take it back, no, not at all, but still I need the hermitage. My artist needs a break. April. In April I will go.

Going Going Gone

My spirit has begun to foul and all the trash bits have begun to annoy me. Picking them up, I think, "Does no one see this? Does no one see!?" Cigarette butts, cut up zip-ties, bits of string, bus tickets, tissues. Twice I have asked people to lower their voices, for the sake of the camp, for the sake of our neighbors, to which they retorted with even louder voices or walked off in a huff...while someone, somewhere, cocked and shot an air rifle.. kaPoW kaPoW! Now here's someone I could learn something from, the rifleman. Here is someone, I think, who knows about life in camp. It's a waste of time to even try to understand. Better to shake your head and walk away. Keep your mouth shut or take on a cargo of pain. Isn't that what he's saying?

And yet here I am, the new me, the neatnik, the loyalist, the pessimist, the aggravated one, roaming through camp with a critic's eye. What's this?! What's that? Out of order! Out of whack! Internalizing, scanning, scowling. Hmh? Where did this come from? I thought I'd looked in enough eyes? Thought I'd come to care about these people? Learned to sympathize with their situation? Or is it that I've looked in too many eyes? Is it that I've looked too long? Or that I've begun to bore right through and miss the point? Perhaps it's the weather and the headache and the sinus infection and the litany of rules and constraints and the constant smell of smoke and the dampness? Yes, the dampness. Perhaps it's all of these things doing the damage? An what comes after identification--oppression? Is the boat going down? Is it time to swim? Where is the shore? At first, one month ago, I looked on with curiosity. I thought, o what drama and o how silly. Now I look and think, enough already, please and phew! I thought I was skilled at evading it, but now the smoke is inescapable and making me sick.

New Year's Eve
I worked the 9-midnight security shift on New Year's Eve. Another holiday passes without ado. No ado. And the desk was steeped in smoke and chaos. What do I care? I walked through camp again and again. We had three securities because of the lost signup sheets. Happily, I was let out on a neighborhood sweep with the other woman on duty. A silent walk would have done me well, but she needed to talk so I listened as we walked down the dead end street. At the end of our tour, she told me about a dream she had where the trees held onto our stories. I asked the trees to keep us in mind, especially the one at the entrance. Remember this.

The Sleeping Altar
A firework or two in the distance. Inconsequential. I grabbed my bundle of sleeping bags and hauled them on my back to the church. It was freezing. Seattle Climate Date reports a low of 21F, 4 degrees colder than last night. I tiptoed around a man spread across the aisle and went up to the altar. I unrolled my bag by the wall at the far edge on the carpet. A floor has never been so comfortable. Or warm! I fell asleep immediately, but woke up to the same harsh story. Overhead lights. "You got half an hour to get up and get out!" It was a security calling us to wake. Not five minutes later came the second call and then individual calls, "You up? You up?" What happened to my half hour? Agh! I'm sleeping! It takes two minutes to get up and get out. Leave me be. I have a headache and two securities to pull after my meditation walk. Ok! Ok! I got up. I put my boots on and hauled my bags on my back. I exited the church and stuffed my bags in my ger and walked on out to my car. Got to get out.

1 January 2011
It was the dawning of something new and clear and orange, something I didn't have time for. It was New Year's Day and so early I saw the sun rise, but I didn't feel new. Nothing was new or beginning for me. I went away to sleep. I wasn't feeling good. I slept in a bed for three hours then cancelled the meditation walk. I knew four of five regulars were out of town. After two more hours of sleep, I dragged myself across town and back to Meadowbrook. I put on my security vest and walked around with my fingers in my neck, pushing on the nerve that calms the pain. I spent some time sitting low on the curb to avoid the cigarette smoke, but I had to keep moving if I was going to make it. I got up and walked around. I followed the gutters through the neighborhood on two perimeter sweeps. I had the feeling the neighbors getting into and out of cars were judging and pitying me. I was picking up bits of trash in a bright yellow security vest that marks me as a homeless camper. I felt I was being cast as a martyr.

The Siberian Bear
Richard the Russian, Richard the Bear, Richard the Siberian, in the fuzzy hat with the ear flaps--where does the hat ends and where does the beard begin--pleasant Richard who sits long and moves little and cannot maneuver without his walker, asked the donations coordinator if he could have the mat that came in with the new donations. "I'm tired of people nagging me when things come in." "I'm just asking. You won't get anything if you don't ask." "What happened to the last mat I gave you?" "It compressed to nothing and, you know, I had that accident. I threw up on it." "Well, you need to wipe that up." Now here is a guy who could benefit from a warm place to live with access to assistance, but they say he's where he wants to be, among friends who care about him, yet he's begging for a mattress from someone in the same situation. Dear Richard, You have altered my state completely. Up is down and down is up and I'm sorry the world is unkind and forgot you--forgot your farm and your cask of wine and the children clambering and the birds for your hair. You deserve better. I'm resigning my post in the hopes that one better than me might fill it. Sincerely, The Poet.

Hatching
When I came back from my second perimeter sweep, Richard and Jarvis were hatching a plan. They'd seen I was sick and were working it out. The camp accountant informed them, "She owes two securities," and so they found someone to cover my second shift. Richard promised her $5, the going rate for a security and I found her in the community tent and gave her $6. I nearly made it to 3pm, but as I was restocking the paper in the honey buckets the scales tipped and the nausea hit and my mouth started to water. I threw up. I can think of nicer ways to spend New Year's Day. I went out, pulled off my security vest and said, "I'm leaving." Someone behind the desk shouted at me to read the letter on the bulletin board. Not now, I'm sick. My eyes were still watering. Roger asked if he could introduce me to some people on a tour. I looked at them all and said, "I'm sick." I had a difficult drive across town. When I got to Fremont I crawled into bed, took some Phenergan and slept and slept. By 4am, I was up and eating and feeling human again, then I slept some more.

January Marching
I was back in camp and breaking down camp on Sunday morning. I needed to be at Tether Gallery by noon to install my ger and cape and milk crate bed. I brought a foam roll for Richard to use as a mattress, probably not the best bed, but perhaps better than what he had. My head was still heavy with the memory of ache. The roof of my ger was covered with frost, the edges of my cape were frozen and it seemed everyone wanted something from me. Hear me! Hear me! But no one came to help. No wonder. I was emitting sparks and my mood was darkening still. I was losing the tether altogether. Then, as I was carrying my things to the car, Brian offered to help. He carried three loads to my car. That acted as a stabilizer and so I held on, but after my second trip to the car I came back to find half my bed gone. My stack of eight milk crates was now down to four-- swiped to make another bed. No...! I still needed my bed. I found the person who had them and asked for them back. He said he'd be with me in half an hour. But I needed my bed back now. I had a friend on the way to drive them to the gallery. I took my complaint to the EC who assisted me. I was now floating free from my tether. Yes I need some time away. Yes I was unwell. Yes I was going...

The Kites We Keep Alive
Take any sane, happy, well-adjusted individual (not saying I am), put them in a tent, in a parking lot, with 99 other individuals in Seattle, in the winter, and subject them to a litany of oppressive rules, they'd all go crazy, one by one. Some might look like me. Some might look like that woman over there. Others might look like him, or him. They'd all suffer emotionally and physically and mentally from the same disease--systems overload. Yes there's a next stage, but will I reach it? I don't know. At the next stage, you purchase an air-gun and learn to shoot it. You buy a permanent sealant and learn to glue your mouth shut. You buy a weighted hat for your head. You are fitted with a semi-permeable membrane to speed the internalizing process. What does it take to stay healthy in Tent City? Or is it impossible? Or is that the point? It isn't possible? You can't flip facts. I'll have to wait til the next level to know. I'll tell you when I get there.

Away Away Go

A 3-Day Bar

The night before the big studio recording, one of my main collaborating artists received a 3-day bar from Tent City for missing a scheduled meeting. Aiyiee! I was in camp when he arrived to explain his situation. His zip drive walked off with someone at the library. He'd been frantically trying to retrieve the disk and recompile his graduate school applications when he lost track of time and missed his meeting. The camp adviser was lenient. In light of the freezing weather, he'd be back in camp on Sunday and they'd hold off bagging and tagging his personal belongings if he successfully filled his three securities. Mark's participation is crucial to the project. He's one of five teams, only three of which are prepared to go into the recording studio. I stepped in to offer assistance. Here's a guy who, in the midst of trying to drive out of a rut, lost his very last home due to a missed meeting? Seems harsh, but rules are rules and Tent City isn't the easy ticket we outsiders think it is. I offered him a place to work for the day, a computer to help him reconstruct his files and sleeping quarters for three days. It took some pains to set it all up. It meant borrowing a friend's old computer, installing Word at 5am, reclaiming my boat heater from a friend's garage and going to Tent City at 6am before making a 7AM meeting. But I just couldn't fathom losing another artist. The collaborations have been a significant part of the project and, after losing Giant, the resident poet, I knew I needed to fight for Mark.

Where? Where?

Giant, aka Matthew Barrett, left camp yesterday with no proclaimed destination. It was planned, but not long planned, his departure. When I asked where he was going he said, "Away." I knew he'd been having a hard time, not only with the camp politics, but with the anniversary of a friend's passing and with his tent-mate's impending departure. And by now I also know that even a sane, healthy, well-adjusted individual would break down given these conditions. You need to get out. The conditions are too much, too constant, too implosive. I'd seen Giant begin to turn offers down. He didn't want to go through with the collaboration. He declined to read his poetry at the Christmas dinner. He seemed both hurt and proud. This wasn't his first time leaving and it won't be his last. I trust he knows what he needs and is following a path. He'll be missed. He is missed. He was an upstanding member of the community who fought for what was good and pulled his own weight and shared what little he had and was eager to help and quick with a joke and a smile.

Coffee at Victor Steinbrueck Park 

SHARE consultant, Scott Morrow, heads to Victor Steinbrueck Park (the little park with the totem pole by Pike Place Market) in the freezing dark, predawn every Tuesday, Wednesday and Thursday morning from 6:00-7:30AM with coffee and donuts for the homeless. He's been doing it for 20 years. It's the way he connects with people on the streets. Every few years, he moves to a new location in a different part of the city. If you want to  talk to Scott, that's the time to catch him. I needed to see Scott about arranging community credits for Tent City 3 residents willing to work the Tether Gallery show on 6 January. I'd like to mimic Tent City life and need a couple of securities and an EC to screen people. If it weren't for the predawn coffee, I wouldn't have seen the magnificent sunrise! Ten shades of orange washed over Puget Sound and Rainier stood up in her nightgown and the Olympics, powdered themselves in a wisp to the west. Everything was a mix and marriage of elements, then the oranges darkened and magically became blue and the day began.

Audio Recording

Christopher Wilson, the recording artist, arrived at my studio at 5pm with a large silver trunk in his arms. It contained the majority of his digital recording equipment--audio monitors, preamplifiers, filters, noise reducers and power sources. I went to his car and helped him carry the rest of his equipment in. I had no idea there'd be so much of it--headphones, vacuum tubes, mic stands, silver cords, acoustic blankets and, ah, that little Brauner microphone like a little robot in its box and like a satellite poised on the mix stand. Roger, from camp, could have told me its magnitude and star date. While Chris was setting up, I asked about the equipment and about the kinds of work he does. He records classical music. When he was at Cornish, he scored modern dance pieces then moved towards something called electronic academic. I asked, What's electronic academic? He told me to check out John Gibson. I'm listening now. Shhhhh. Don't anyone move. Such a focused music. Isolating, heady. It's got something to do with the horizon, I think. One moment you're walking on water, the next your father is breaking the china. It belongs in a gallery. Would be friendly to an installation. Or partnered with an art film. One of Gibson's pieces is a laptop orchestra called Wind Farm. Six sound artists sit on the floor working laptops, three florescent bar lights placed on the stage behind, three monitors above show clouds passing over water, then turbines.


Oakley arrived at 6pm as instructed and the others were soon to follow. Three groups came in to record. Oakley and Josie Elizabeth Davis were the first pair. They recorded a loose presentation of their project, which involved photographs of a stream Oakley planned to take and a musicalized accompaniment Josie would develop. While their piece didn't appear to stem from a specific experience at  Tent City, Oakley's choice of an eagle and a running stream struck me as poignant--both powerful symbols of freedom in the natural world. Lyn Coffin and Mark Miner were next with their prepared script, "Beowulf at Tent City." Unfortunately Lyn was out of town, but luckily the fabulous Vanessa DeWolf agreed to read for her. And Mark is such an articulate guy,  so able to convey the experience of life at Tent City in clean, clear language. They spent a bit of time reviewing the script and explaining the significance of the choices Lyn and Mark made and what a particular objects and actions meant. The last artist pairing was Jacqueline Jaurez and Vanessa DeWolf. They had an easy rapport and laughed a lot. They shared stories and talked about their ideas for a performance. At the very end, they tried a short improvisation with words they developed at their first meeting. That was exciting to hear.

3AM Security Shift

After checking in on the cats and resting a bit, I arrived in time for my security shift at 3AM. Quite a feat, given that I had, just moments before, been sleeping on a sheepskin rug in front of an electric fireplace with two black cats at my feet. I'm cat and dog sitting this week which means access to lovely, warm homes and sweet, furry animals that need my attention. I'm crossing town twice a day to visit them. Along with my many duties at camp and my attempts to prepare for the gallery show and listen for the Song of Tent City, it's too much, but I couldn't say no. Not only do I love all these animals, I need the money.


Lost
Alas, the sign-up sheet for Friday was "lost." When they reconstructed it, they forgot about me and someone else signed up for my shift--a shift I waited in line in the cold for, a shift I needed. So we had three securities instead of two, but with half the camp inside the church asleep, it made little sense to have extra securities outside. I offered to do a shift inside or fill a shift later in the week if that was needed. "So you're bowing out?" was the response I got. Ach! It's assumed, at all times, in all situations, that you're in the wrong, negligent, planning to be negligent, and should be made jump through hoops to prove yourself. The system is against you from the start and makes you feel as if you're in junior high school and being penalized for the mistake it is assumed you are going to make before you have the chance to make it. The whole world makes mistakes everyday and it is forgiven for them, but when Tent City makes a mistake they lose their home. That is the difference. But when one is working in a system where they cannot be right, they have little incentive to be conscientious or helpful and so have to learn other ways of coping. I understand why why people get frustrated. I myself need to get out and have been noticing that urge since I first came to camp. It's cold. One just can't stand around doing nothing, freezing their feet and hands off. One needs to get out. Go to a cafe, a bookstore, . The rules seem sometimes to be so roundabout and ridiculous, they seem designed to make you fail. They only way to outsmart them is by not being around to follow or break them, is by getting out. I signed up for three open shifts, then bowed out of this shift and went to bed. Before I left, I went inside the church to see the sleepers. I have work tomorrow. I have to clean house and make an airport run before noon. I could use the sleep. 

Going Inside
On very cold nights the residents are invited inside the church to sleep. Into. Inside. Walls around. Roof over. Into. Last night was one of those nights. It was our second invitation in fact. This time we accepted the offer. After giving up my security shift, I went in to see. It was my first time inside Maple Leaf Lutheran. I sat in the first pew, in the dark, listening to the concert of snoring. It was a mix of strange and peaceful and human, bodies all around. It made me think of the real and unhallowed sounds that would have accompanied that hallowed event with Mary and Joseph in the manger. People all swaddled and curled up on the altar, in the aisles, on the pews, sparkling paper stars overhead. Two men stood guard at the doorway, waiting, listening. The world outside stood waiting, listening, glistening and proud, as if just having exploded, as if just having stretched out.

Homeless Homeless Everywhere

Nickelsville

I attended this week's SHARE/Nickelsville meeting. Once a month the group meets at the Nickelsville encampment, the rest of the month they meet at the SHARE downtown office. This was a Nickelsville week and I was looking forward to seeing the site. I'd heard a bit about it and wanted to see how it compared to Tent City, where I've been living,  a couple miles to the southeast. Nickelsville is an unsanctioned homeless encampment in Lake City at the old fire station. It's been in the news lately because of the Ten-Year Plan to End Homelessness and because Mayor McGinn is working in earnest to find Nickelsville a permanent site. The meeting was congenial and well run. Credit is given those who attend, so there was a sizeable group, about 25, gathered in the community room, which is also a bunkroom. There were cots and bedrolls and bags of personal belongings lining the walls. It being just after 9am, there were still a few people in bed sleeping. Others were sitting up, working on crafts or reading. After the general discussion, we broke into committees. Half an hour later, we reconvened and reported on our work. I served on the Needs Assessment Committee. Deputy Mayor Darryl Smith is asking to work with the homeless encampments to initiate an ongoing, anonymous survey of the homeless in Seattle. As with everything, the decision is considered and put to a vote. Should we work with the city? Should we accept the survey? Does it address our needs? What changes, if any, should we make? Who should administer the survey, an insider or an outsider? Copies of the survey were distributed. We took some time to fill it out and then talked about the experience. The survey requests information on your origins, gender and race. It asks about your willingness to find and keep housing. It asks about your sources of income, your impediments to finding housing, and your use of and need for social services. The city says they want to better allocate funds for the homeless, but to the homeless person completing the survey, those services may seem desperately far away or absent altogether. The incentive to fill the survey out is a gift certificate, dollar amount undisclosed. Our group of four was split. After much discussion, we decided, with some rewording and clarification, we could accept the survey on a trial basis of three months, if administered by someone in camp.

Dream Catcher

I met one the TC3 founders at Nickelsville. Falcon is an administrator at Nickelsville now. He showed me his dream catchers (he makes them) and took me on a tour of the camp. Their footprint is about half the size of TC3's current camp. Some of the residents live outside in tents, others live inside on cots. The insiders sleep in common rooms, a couple of feet from one another, on cots or bedrolls, with no dividers and no furniture for their belongings. They collectively share one refrigerator, one freezer and one tv. They are one hundred people. Pet owners stay together in one room. Cats and dogs, all on leashes, perch on their owners' beds looking innocently about. They seem healthy and well-behaved. The Animal Rescue League offered to license, spay/neuter and microchip any animal at Nickelsville free-of-charge. I wonder why, if you could live in warmth and comfort, you would choose to live at Tent City? At Nickelsville, you have access to indoor spaces, hot showers, plumbing, a kitchen with a sink, a stove and cupboards. With rules, come freedoms. More is required of you at Tent City but then there are more freedoms. The freedom to be cold. The freedom to be wet. The freedom to get rid of problems. The freedom to speak out and be heard.

Square One

After the Nickelsville meeting and tour, I went back to TC3. It was windy and snowing. The sky was in a dark mood. The fence was coming down. Bits of paper and bags were blowing about. A few people were sitting around recharging their computers and phones, eating, smoking, staring into space. I took in a handful of the Tether Gallery posters. I'm meant to be filling them with original art. "Want to make some art?" "No." "Want to try an experiment?" "No." "Want to be part of a gallery show?" "No." "What do you want to do?" "Let me think about it. I'll get back to you." It was cold. My head hurt. I was tired of trying, tired of being stressed out, tired of the conditions and the schedule and the need to produce something. Forget it. I give up. I can't do this on my own. I don't even want to. I have 200 blank posters and too few willing artists. It's not their fault. No one said they had to want to make art. I had hoped to organize a performance. I had hoped to make a film. I had hoped to construct a reading room. I had hoped to do so many things. But it's cold and we're sick and tired of the conditions. Our situation is leagues less than ideal and there's no end in sight. So maybe it doesn't want doing. Which is fine. Just fine. I don't want to be a ringleader. Or a misleader. Or a savior. Or a commander. Or anything at all. I just want to live and observe and communicate. Back to Square One. Hah. Square One. I spend a lot of time there. It happens every day or so. And it's frustrating and exhausting and confusing and makes me want to quit. How many times can you invent a project? I'm used to developing something and seeing it through. I'm not used to continually reinventing and failing and reinventing and failing again and...ugh.. all the way...so many shifting variables. Whatever it is I'm doing, I quit. I have nothing to prove. Yes, I can be cold, but you could always be colder. Yes, I can be hardy, but you can get hardier than this. Yes, I can be insightful, but you already know everything. Yes, I know nothing. It's true. I'll never know your experience. It's impossible. And it's time to recoil now. Maybe in a day or two, I will try again, try to offer and receive, think of something new, but for now I quit. I'm getting too involved, too enmeshed. I care now at a fighting level and that's not good. I'm no longer in a position where I can help. I've been beaten down. And now I'm one of you. And here comes the song. I can feel it. Yes, here it comes.

CoughCoughCough

I no longer notice them, the coughing ones around. Has it stopped? No wait. There. Someone sneezed. We're still sick. We've been sick all along, since before we began. I just finished a course of antibiotics. I got sick while I was on them. And now that I'm through, I'm sick again. Fatigue, sinus pain, congestion, headache. Oooo. I finally scheduled an appointment to see the doctor. I've just been sick too much. Like my many artist friends, I have no health insurance. If there's something wrong beyond what Country Doctor (clinic) can fix, I'll have to wait until I have health insurance. Alas. I'm just an artist. Expendable.

SONG OF TENT CITY
@ Tether Design Gallery

A designer-run gallery dedicated to supporting emerging artists, designers and visionaries.

323 Occidental Avenue South

Pinoeer Square, Seattle

Opening: Thursday January 6th, 2011 (6-8PM)

Regular Gallery Hours: M-F, 11-5PM

Going Home to Meadowbrook

Venture
Where are you when you're homeless? Certainly you're somewhere. Are you trespassing? Are you just in limbo? How long do you go without a home before you're homeless? And then what part of society and what rights do you lose? Does having a home affect your humanity or intelligence or usefulness? If a home is an answer, is homeless a question? Or a mistake? Can a home safeguard you against depression or death or isolation? Certainly homes burn down and blow away and leak. Is a home a physical or an emotional need? Though I've been without a home, I've never been homeless. Why is that?

Assumptions
When I told my peers I was going to live at Tent City, I was surprised by how many asked if I was doing it out of necessity or as a project. Hmmm, I thought, people must see me as unstable. But perhaps unconventional is more true. I've been told to keep in mind that when I'm done I'll be going home, while those I'm serving won't be. What does this assume? That I have a home. I have no home. What does it mean to say I have no home. I don't know if I can even explain, but I know that while I am not homeless in the way that some people are, I also have no home. I have a 24' sailboat and rent a small office in Fremont. I am a successful artist who lives from job to job. I have no health insurance. My student loans are in deferment. What else does it assume? It assumes that some of us aren't going home. If those people are not going home, where are they going?

Waypoints
Tent City is not an endpoint. It is a waypoint. But what if there's nowhere else to go? That's when people get stuck. The waypoint becomes a default endpoint. If you can't get a job, you'll eventually be homeless. If you're homeless, it's unlikely anyone will hire you. If you don't have a job, you can't get housing. If you can't get housing, you're no one. Nowhere. The responses of my peers got me thinking about who I am and where I belong and where any of us belong. Housing in the U.S. is not a right. It is a privilege. Is this the problem? I worry about the scrambling I see around me--to fit in, to be seen, to be heard, to be safe, to be free of blame. I see it in everyone, in the poor and in the rich, in the artist and in the entrepreneur. We're all scrambling. Why? Is it fear? Fear of what? Being homeless? Being nobody? If we look at it from another angle, perhaps we can see how it is really about being loved and about belonging. And if it is about being loved about belonging, we can surely, in a country so rich with land and resources, create a place for everyone, with houses and roofs and jobs for all. Then, when there is less scrambling, there will be energy for organizing.

Dwellings
I was looking into DIY and low-cost shelters when I came across the Irregular Shelter site with 67 options for irregularly shaped, alternative living units, including Homeless Chateau and the Edar (Everyone Deserves a Roof). Irregular Shelter led me to N55 and the manual for Micro Dwellings, a system for constructing low cost dwellings. N55 is offering alternatives like the walking, watertight dwelling pictured above. Unlike many sites and sources on homelessness, they discuss not only the problem, but the causes--the non-availability of affordable housing. "Current building techniques in the western world have failed to incorporate knowledge of geometry that enables lightweight and durable constructions which can be produced at a fraction of the cost of conventional houses. The lack of innovation in this field can be ascribed to the enormous economic interests that are tied to real estate. Challenging habitual conceptions in this area is seen as a risk not worth undertaking. However, the present situation creates considerable inequalities, where people with even average incomes can't afford to buy or rent in major cities or suburbia. As a result, monoculture prevails and people with lower incomes are forced into the margins or into finding alternative solutions. Making dwellings available for less money would reduce the need for high incomes. This in turn could free time for activities other than money-generating work, something that could have a positive social impact" (N55).

Not only must we find a long-term solution to homelessness, we must identify and promote better temporary solutions. Currently, hundreds of people are living in flimsy tents in the freezing, rainy season as well as the beautiful dry season in Seattle. Standard camping tents last little more than a year when subjected daily to the elements and then must be covered with tarps and repaired with duct tape. I'm not a historian or a politician. I'm a poet going to do a poetry project at Tent City. Like you, I care about issues and worry about affordable housing and healthcare and education. As we work towards these goals, I wonder, whose voice can we afford to lose--the weak, the poor, the aged, the sickly, the artist? When one day we lose our voice--for all of us will age and get sick and grow weak--who will speak for us then? Who should speak, and when?

Hard-A-Lee
I drove across town, through Lake City, south on 35th past Nathan Hale High School and up Ravenna to Maple Leaf Lutheran Church, a bulky, brown A-frame on the corner of NE 100th & 32nd NE. As I approached, I realized--Hey, I know this neighborhood. My good friend Frank lives here. The Fiddler's Inn is around the corner. My life in Seattle started here. When I arrived, in '99, I stayed with a friend just off Lake City Way. I stayed on his couch (which means I was homeless) while looking for an apartment. I'd come for the love of the mountains. I'd climbed Rainier and was smitten. I quit my publishing job and left Boston for the wilds of Washington. In the first seven days, I took a job as a baker in Wedgewood. Every morning, I rode my bike across Lake City Way and up 35th in the dark, cold, wet, October predawn, leaves painting the roadways. Two months later, I had a shared apartment in West Seattle and took another job. Then I landed a steady job at a publishing house and moved again. Then I became a project manager at the UW. It wasn't until 2001 that I moved into the little studio apartment I called home. I stayed there for two years and then was sailing and able to buy a little sailboat and another dream spread itself before me--to sail around the world--which I did go and crew on a boat out of CA across the Pacific to Polynesia where I lived in a lagoon for three months. Home. Where is home? Here it is, in a parking lot in Meadowbrook. With a red brick neighbor with a cross to bear and others who don't want me here: "No Tent City."

Neighborhood Notification Meeting
There was a "Neighborhood Notification Meeting Regarding Temporary Encampment" at Maple Leaf Lutheran Church on Sunday 14 November. This meeting was intended to "provide an opportunity for the public to learn more about SHARE/WHEEL's Tent City3." I found out about it by chance, just the day before, when paging through the church's website (the host site typically has a tab dedicated to info about Tent City). I went to the meeting to show my support and get a sense of the camp-to-public interface. I also wanted to meet the outreach coordinator for the church whom I'd spoken to on the phone. I still have so many questions. I don't know what the relationship is between the church and the camp or how SHARE/WHEEL communicates with them. I don't know if any indoor places have been identified for holding classes or meetings or perhaps that's just not done. What is an acceptable noise level? Can residents play music in camp? What is discussed at the weekly meetings? Is there an inter-camp mail system? I wonder Are there any existing programs that meet daily or weekly? Do people stay in the camp during the day or does camp empty out in the morning? How are meals organized? How strict is the footprint of Tent City? Where will my desk go? How about my tent? Most of these questions will, no doubt, be quickly answered when I begin to live there.

Exposed
There was a sign on the main door directing neighbors to the basement of the church. The basement was configured with ten rows of folding chairs, a speaker's podium, a row of banquet tables with a microphone and several staffed information tables around the room. I saw Roger straight away. Hello hello! Roger has been my main contact for TC3. He's a woodsman-like character with wire-frame glasses, a sock hat and plaid jacket. He reminds me of Pierre (Count Pyotr Kirillovich), the protagonist in War & Peace, capable of great joy, but reserved, holding on to something, sparkling beneath the surface.

I wandered about the room meeting residents, neighbors, church representatives and SHARE/WHEEL advocates. I learned there would be no contact between the 30 homeless staying overnight in the church (who are sent by bus and must arrive together and are offered mats on the floor from 9pm to 7am) and the 100 homeless men and women living in Tent City3 (who must sign in once a day to maintain their residency and who live in tents and leave their belongings and attend meetings and fulfill camp duties), even though they are sponsored by the same organization, SHARE/WHEEL. I learned about a plan that is underway to provide a warm, dry place for four hours to the residents of Tent City on Christmas Day and about a plan for making Valentines in February.

The meeting was called to session at 7pm. There were roughly forty, middle-aged, Caucasian adult men and women in attendance. Pastor Julie Blum of Maple Leaf Lutheran Church welcomed everyone. Pastor Steve Grumm of Our Redeemer's Lutheran Church in Loyal Heights, a past host of TC3, managed the meeting from there on out. One of his first statements was, "We will all be civil." A flag went up for me. After a short presentation by the residents of Tent City3, the floor was opened to questions. Those who wished to pose a question or make a statement had to sign up. Each person was given two minutes.

Civil
Some came forward with an interest in helping. Some offered praise or recommendations for Tent City. Some talked about the wealth of opportunities Tent City offered them. One said her son learned to play chess at Tent City. Another related a comment by the Seattle Police Department, who called Tent City's visit to their neighborhood a "non-incident." One related an incident, the only one in two years, for which the police were called. Two neighborhood teens were found to be the cause of the disturbance. The most thoughtful question came from a man, a new neighbor, who said he had children and wanted to know what happened to the homeless person who came to Tent City and was rejected because they didn't meet the criteria or wouldn't follow the rules. Do they end up in the bushes nearby? A spokesperson for Tent City explained that those people were escorted to the bus. The escort waited until that person got on the bus. After-hours, they would be put in a cab and the driver given a script. But to which neighborhood they went or from which neighborhood they had come, no one knew. Some were fearful. There was a cluster of fear in a row behind me. Each took a turn at the microphone. None had signed up to speak, but spoke when the floor was opened. Each voiced a concern, not for themselves, but for their children. One asked why the church had "ambushed" them. Another reprimanded a homeless man on the panel for slouching. What these three had in common was the ability to speak, but not listen. Each had to be asked to stop and wait for the response they'd requested. One man was so agitated he left the room. There were audible grumbles from the crowd as he left. By the time the meeting was over, the invisible fence around an invisible Tent City was electric. I felt sick and anxious and emotional. I was impressed by the calm of the residents, by their grace and patience. I congratulated them all afterwards. And they said, "It gets worse." There are roots of fear and faith, I suppose, in the unknown, in the system, in the other, in the wall. And so where do I stand? I have a lot to learn. I want to be strong and brave and graceful like the men and women of Tent City. I want to be able to stand up for what is right, to combat ignorance and fear with love and understanding.

Code of Conduct
Unlike the rest of us, when Tent City moves into a new neighborhood, they must sit before their neighbors and prove they are good people--responsible, quiet, clean, courteous, trustworthy, nonviolent, noncriminal and sober. Despite the fact that Seattle's Tent City is noted as a success story by the National Law Service on Homelessness and Poverty, they must constantly work to prove and improve their reputation. Those wishing to reside in Tent City must go through a screening process. Residents must show an ID, be drug and alcohol free and commit to participating in camp maintenance. They must sign and follow a strict Code of Conduct. Tent City does not tolerate drugs, alcohol or weapons. Neither does it tolerate verbal or physical abuse. Sex offenders are not allowed in Tent City. Those in violation of the code of conduct must leave the community. Two security workers from the community are on duty at all times and check in with all visitors. Quiet hours are observed from 10 p.m. to 8 a.m.

Weather
As I write this, the rain is lashing against the window pane. It is suddenly cold. Winter has found us. The rain is coming down in sheets. It makes me fearful. It makes me worried. It makes me think of the people I don't yet know in tents tonight. Soon it will be me. It makes me think of the people who aren't in tents, those waiting out the storm. For now, I'm relishing the heat in my office.

Related News
City Inside/Out
with C.R. Douglas
A Permanent Home for Nickelsville?
Premiered Friday, Nov. 19, 7 p.m.
After months of negotiation, Mayor Mike McGinn has proposed a more permanent site for the roving homeless tent city of Nickelsville. The mayor wants to set up Nickelsville on a vacant lot in SODO--the industrial area south of downtown. The new site would include tent housing, showers and social services. This is a big change in city policy that up until now has frowned on hosting encampments on public land. Is the new mayor being compassionate or misguided? To hash out the issue, we bring into our studio Seattle Deputy Mayor Darryl Smith, Real Change's Tim Harris and The Seattle Times' Bruce Ramsey.

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