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.

TETHER GALLERY SHOW

	Opening: Thursday January 6, 2011 (6-8PM) Tether Design Gallery 323 Occidental Avenue South Seattle, WA 98104
	Residue from SONG OF TENT CITY, the self-designed poetry residency I began on 27 November at Tent City 3, will be installed at Tether Design Gallery in January 2011. The show opens at 6pm on Thursday 6 January for the First Thursday Seattle Art Walk. Includes installation, artifact, audio and live interaction during the opening. Get an idea of what it's like to live at Tent City. Sit inside the mini yurt I've been living in. Read poetry and handwritten journal entries written by homeless people living in Seattle. Listen to audio clips from artist collaborations between Seattle artists and current Tent City artists. Participating Seattle artists include Lyn Coffin, Josie Elizabeth Davis, Vanessa DeWolf, Ann Sloper and Sam Trout. Audio was graciously recorded and edited by the amazing, Christopher Wilson. Artists, on both sides of the fence, donated their time and efforts to this cause. All funds collected at the show will go to Tent City. Their greatest expense is transportation. When available, two bus tickets per day are provided to each camper, which helps them get to appointments and seek work. The next largest expenses are honey buckets and trash removal. 100 people live at Tent City 3. This gallery show will run through Thursday 20 January. This project received in-kind support from Tether and financial assistance from SPROUT! Thank you both.

In Watermelon Syrup - Tent City 3: Days 1, 2 and 3

in bed

the waters are creeping in they are 1/4 way cross the floor the sky is crackling a distant jack hammer is coughing i am on the floor i can see my breath i am more weathered than yesterday but the water is closing in there is nowhere to retreat there is only a growing dampness his cough is a plank falling his cough is a shipping container shifting the pattering sky is working my gorgeous desert ger we are in tarps after two days we are wrapped up in blue it is after midnight a man has come in tonight with one less tooth a woman has come in on crutches a woman has disappeared into a hospital what can happen to 100 people in 3 days in 30 days in 3 months what can happen to me my nose is cold i put on a second hat i hear no shuffling feet tonight only coughing somebody said hey i like antibiotics the nutella's too cold to spread she gave up the day old sandwiches smell wrong a slice of orange cheese and processed ham aren't worth it but there is fruit and there are mountains of carbs and coffee and cocoa the ship runs on the tall silver pot leaks coffee into an aluminum drip pan so many things have become impossible improbable making journals writing standing around you need heat and light and shelter and electricity and dry flat surfaces to work i must concentrate on staying dry and forget the library my headlamp flickers in a steady strobe the rain is damaging the village is sliding we are tethered to the church a mountain of mud is piling up and will encase us we gain no credit for attending this church and kris fed me and i picked up simon and jake and they were pliable and warm i washed my underwear in the sink but if i lie down now i will be just as cold and prone it is 1am there is no reason to want this there are no freedoms here there is no joy

In Watermelon Sugar
I have taken to carrying an old paperback edition (1968) of Richard Brautigan's novella In Watermelon Sugar in my right cowboy boot. I was planning to use the extra space for a second pair of socks and a book and spare change. And so I am. I got them used at the The Goodwill last week. They are my Tent City boots. They cost $7.99. I exchanged the pair I had on and walked out in them. They make me feel like a movie star and a hobo. The book is an added barrier to the cold and offers solace when I recall it and pull it out to read. If Brautigan were here, he'd see it was all syrup. "All of us have a place in history. Mine is clouds." (Brautigan) And the clouds are full and relieving themselves on us now. It has been raining for two days.

My raft is on sloped ground. The rain hits the square edges of my pallet raft and slides into my ger (yurt). It seeps up into the cotton liner. My first night out (Sunday 28 November 2010), the bottom edges of my ger covering were frozen around. It was a clear, cold night with a frost. "My life lived in watermelon sugar. (There must be worse lives)." (Brautigan) There are worse lives.. indeed.. in watermelon syrup.

Forget About Dry
I got a piece of advice this morning, "Forget about dry. Once you accept rain, the sun will come out." Good advice, but I'm in denial. And I'm cold. And I slept with two hats on. It's not that I'm colder than I've been or that I've never slept outside. I've been a commercial fisherman and been out on 7-day openers. I've sailed across the Pacific and been 11 days without a shower. I've lived at 10,000 feet and been stuck in a rock hut. But this is different. I've got a month of this looking me in the eye and there's no drying it out. This one is persistent.

Everyone wheezes and coughs. It must be the constant smoking and the sickness. Three people have gone to the hospital since I arrived and one hasn't come back. There are no community tents just yet. The movie tent is being used as overflow and the community tent somehow became a donations tent. So people stand out in the rain and gather near the front desk and the kitchen. Just stand there getting wet, smoking. They are wearing cotton. When I ask how they stay warm, they all say the same thing. Layers. You're right, whoever you are. I'm going back. I'm going in, to get warm, come January. Whatever it takes. Whatever I have to do. I'm going in. I couldn't stay out here for 3 months. I wouldn't survive it. It's miserable and cold.

Earning Credits
I checked in on Sunday night. I showed my ID and was read the Code of Conduct. I signed in agreement. Then the complex system of credits was explained to me. Each week I need to earn security and community credits. Here is how. To earn a security credit, I must serve a 3-hour shift as security officer in camp. I need 3-5 of those a week. It changes with the population. Sign up for security shifts happens the day before. To earn a community credit, I must go to a church service and prove it by bringing back a paper program, but you can't just go to any church. You have to go to a church on the list, a past sponsor. And you can't just go to a church on the list. You have to sign up for one of the few slots on the list of churches. The line for this forms at 3pm on Saturday. Sign-up starts at 4. If there are no slots when you get to the desk, tough luck. You should have gotten your community credits sooner. Another way to earn community credits is to attend a meeting at the SHARE offices downtown. Those too have limited slots though. At first it seemed like a hindrance to getting real work, but then the bookkeeper told me if you work more than 20 hours, fewer shifts are required of you.

Security Shift
I served my first security shift from 9-midnight. I did a camp walk-through. I removed a spider from a tent. I helped someone cover a tent doorway into which rain was falling. I helped someone else get a ration of blankets. I received a bowl of cold pasta salad from The Little Lamp of Jesus. I witnessed a bar, someone being barred from camp. I saw a relationship end. I made cocoa for Del and Rickey. I met two visual artists. I listened to Lantz, the camp sage, for a long while talk about life. As soon as I was able, I took off my yellow vest and went to bed. It is dark and cold. The camp is asleep and snoring.

Panopticon
There is a video camera on a very tall wooden pole just the other side of the fence. It is pointed at Tent City. Lantz said there are three cameras pointed at us. So who's behind them? It's the Meadowbrook Neighbors (more suitably subtitled: Neighbors Opposed to Tent City) watching and waiting, signing petitions, raising funds for unforeseen legal matters and, in a sense, creating their own prison, for when Tent City goes, on 27 February 2011, one wonders, in which direction will the cameras then turn? Who's next? Fears this big don't just disappear. Places like Tent City only expose them.

Tent City 3 - Move Day, Saturday 27 Nov 2010

Jetsom
By the time I arrived at 8:30am to help with the move, all the personal tents were down and the community tents (office, check-in, kitchen and movie tents) were being disassembled. The pallets and plywood rafts, upon which the city was raised to keep it from sitting in water, were being torn apart, nails were being pried and hammered out, and everything was simultaneously being hauled into piles for transport. Jetsom. Whoosh!

Labor
It was a nice, cool, dry, overcast morning, not gloomy, but Seattle wintry, full of potential. Good weather for outdoor work. After a few tries, I found someone willing to give me a task and I started folding tarps and organizing tent poles. Once I'd cleared a corner, I moved to pallets and boards and began carrying loads from the "barge" to the staging area. When the trucks arrived, I helped load pallets and boards. Heavy, hard labor. Hats off, jackets off, warm body making work. I'm happy in the weather, face ruddied by the wind and sun. My heart responds to the open air and my muscles thirst for work. Yes, I have a penchant for over-doing it and for later needing Tylenol and rest, but I felt appreciated and helpful. When the opportunity to arose to go off and have lunch with a friend, I chose instead to stay with the others in camp and have a sack lunch.

Team Work
I impressed some with my strength and willingness to work. They chuckled and said I was putting them to shame, but there were many able bodies at work and the team moved well together. It's been a long time since I labored alongside others to make something momentous happen. The solo and small group labors of a climbing or sailing endeavor is different than 50 able bodies coming together to do one thing. It felt as if we had a social purpose and that our efforts were necessary. And they were. We were raising a city! Being a part of that made me feel strong.

Muddied
After the snowstorm and freeze of last week, followed by a quick warm-up, the ground and tents and tarps were wet and muddy. The heaviest tarp took six men to lift onto the truck. It was all but loaded in the truck when a stream of muddy water leaked out and down our arms. Eieeee! My green pants were streaked with mud water and my white down jacket was turning brown. When I looked around, I saw everyone had muddied legs and arms. Where this group was going there would be no hot showers, no sinks with soap, no laundromat. What do you do to stay warm and clean and dry? What would you do for a home?

Catullus

I had some casual conversations with the men as we worked. They knew me as the poet and asked me about my work and plans. Somebody asked me who my favorite poet was. I said I liked Russell Edson. He said he liked Catullus, the greatest lyric poet of Rome.

To whom am I to present my pretty new book,
freshly smoothed off with dry pumice-stone?
To you, Cornelius: for you used to think
that my trifles were worth something,
long ago, when you took courage, you alone of Italians,
to set forth the whole history of the world in three volumes,
learned volumes, by Jupiter, and laboriously wrought.
So take and keep for your own this little book, such as it is,
and whatever it is worth; and may it, O Virgin my patroness,
live and last for more than one century.

--Catullus

Gender
The women were at task sweeping and clearing trash. The entire back end of St. Mark's parking lot was to be swept clean by this afternoon. I'm happy not to have been on the women's crew. I would have been frustrated to be resigned to lighter labor when there were people ripping out nails and stacking pallets all around. I've worked with all male crews before--as a mountain climber, an industrial landscaper and a commercial fisherman--each time it's been an endeavor in proving your worth. Once proven, you're on the team and treated like the others.

Angels
Like anywhere, the people at Tent City are a mix of types and personalities, some cheerful, some not, some hard-working, some complaining, some agreeable, some disagreeable. I'd wanted, in my mind, to lionize this group, to make them into a choir of faultless, suffering angels, but like anyone anywhere, they're just people, some of whom I'll get along with and some of whom I won't. It was nice to be reminded so soon of this. It will help me, I think, see more clearly.

River Barge
The broken skeleton of Tent City, now visible, showed, in the rich NE quadrant, a field of black bags stuffed with blankets and sleeping bags and other sleeping material. In the SW, there stood a monolith of milk crates, stacked 8 high, 20 wide and 20 deep. These are the crates that, when tied together, make all bunks for the residents of Tent City. The houses float. The residents too. The whole camp floats!

Reassemble
At times, the place looked impossible--nails and cups and bits of trash and dissimilar items strewn about. Ten, at times, it looked like it might be improving. Every time I turned around I thought, ok, two more loads. Then the trucks came and went and I turned around again. Two more loads. Two more loads. It went like that until noon. Then 2pm. Then 4pm. Finally, when I left to get my own gear and shelter together, I do really think there were only two loads left. They'd begun sending people to the other side to assist with the 30 residents already there receiving and setting it all back up on the other side. Then I finally got to the other side with my poetry ger (yurt), I was amazed at how clean and orderly it all was. O what a task!

Dog-leg
I picked up my own pallets the week before from a free pile in Ballard and now, learning that I'd need to get my own plywood sheets together, I raced to the hardware to buy them and was lucky to have a helpful staff two minutes before they closed. Then I drove back to Meadowbrook and began installing. The guy in charge of the new city layout placed me on my own in an open space between two rows of tents, like a buoy in the current. I'm on a separate raft now, in the middle of a dog-leg, floating between two barges. A street lamp, like Sirius, overhead.

Help
Everyone was interested in the ger as it was going up. Looks cozy! How can I get one of those? What is that? And then, when I was bringing my bags and belongings in, I didn't get far past the entrance before someone took a bag out of my hands and said, "That's not how it's done here." People help one another and ask for help. I suspect that'll be the hardest part for me. A resident came forward later to help bend a board into place and then located duct tape when I broke my fiberglass pole and needed to make a repair.

Dinner
People went past, steaming plates in hand, announcing dinner. Dinner's here. Did you get dinner? I had a bite to eat before I left for the evening, beef stew and potatoes with gravy. The meal was provided by a famous couple who have been feeding Tent City for 10 years now, every other Saturday. What a difference it made, a hot meal. How grateful I was. At 9pm, I left for Fremont. I still have a few loads to transport, so I won't sleep at Tent City tonight. I figured it would give the residents a chance to check out the yurt and poke their heads inside. Everyone was interested in seeing it and it being so late and dark, perhaps tomorrow morning they'd get a better look.