“Home is the place, when you have to go there, they have to take you in.” Robert Frost (as told to me by my good friend David).

 I was out and about earlier and saw my friend David, whom I had the pleasure of getting to know well during my last stint at home. He was always extremely generous with his cigarettes (camel unfiltered, they will put some hair on your chest as they say) and company at a time when it felt as if the former were like my lifeline and the latter in short supply. 

When out of cigarettes, my once raging addiction had me regularly and routinely leaving the house for the sole purpose of finding tobacco to inhale in any fashion (cigarette, cigarillo, cigar, etc.) whether that meant bumming them from any and all strangers I’d see smoking or whom I merely sensed smoked (you develop a sixth sense when you become a member of any in-group it seems) or around whom I would simply smell wafts of the then delightful smelling second-hand smoke. If no one was actively and availably smoking, ashtrays, the locations of which within a walking radius of the house were mapped with military precision, my next bet for half-smoked cigarettes. No luck with the ashtrays? The ground was typically a good supplier, granted it hadn’t rained recently (yes, it was that bad, folks) of what essentially amounted to nicotine roaches (for those who have never smoked marijuana, a roach is what remains of a blunt/joint (a marijuana cigar/cigarette respectively), most of which has been smoked, or “put in the air,” in certain circles.  

(Last sidenote: Smoking is the only habit where once you finish, in a stomping fashion, you put your foot on or about your own butt (as they call the cigarette filter, the link to its anatomical counterpart and the history behind that is unknown to me at present—“intermanet”, here I come.) and then do it again. Similarly, drinking, out of a bottle presumably/hypothetically, is the only habit, where once you finish, the upturned bottle becomes the bearer of your biggest demon, not the liquid, but your reflection. And even if it’s smashed into pieces upon the end of the imbibing, it’s probably all the more indication that you may be as well.

As they say, “A stranger is just a friend whom you haven’t met yet,” and fortune found me in a position giving my habit of making quite a few friends out of former strangers, because of my penchant for puffing.

Besides being brilliant, for further background, David is an older gentlemen, 59 years of age it looks, and he works at the local library. During the course of our conversation, he expressed his unfulfilled desire to return to school and earn his degree, something he said could never happen because he refused to go into debt over education. 

After alluding to my educational debt, I let David know that my undergraduate and graduate pursuits at USC and Berkeley were funded through scholarships and fellowships respectively. David was quick to point out that as a minority I qualified for them, and as a white male he did not. I even more quickly responded, that as an older gentlemen, given the rampant ageism that abounds with other similar “–isms”, he might do well to inquire about monies granted to the returning student. He looked equally surprised and happy after I suggested some keywords for which to search. 

The conversation ended with me saying something I feel like have been sharing with a lot of people lately. Though it seems it’s a truism derived from the timeless adage (where there’s a will there’s a way,” I shared with David wisdom shared with me by a former mentor with whom I was lucky enough to recently reconnenct: “Desperate people make the worst decisions.”

If, “perception is indeed reality (of course saving the philosophical debate around that conditional for a later time)  then logically it follows that, you are only as desperate as you perceive yourself to be.

That said: Be aware that you have endless options any given time, you just have to see them. Where you do not see them, you must be resourceful enough to create them. Once realized, you must be confident enough to exercise them.”

He smiled gleefully, and take those are words that he would carry with him. I winked at him and said, I owed him for the Frost quote.

The Frost quote and following conversation with David were of particular interest to me that recently. For further qualification as to the nature of home as described by Frost, I'd add it's not a definite place as in, "the place" so much as it is "indefinite" (any place...take you in.") So much so in fact, that I had recently asked my dear and brilliant friend from high school, who also happens to be named Chris (who is also black, and though not formally diagnosed with any mental wellness issue, I could play arm chair psychologist and, with only a titular/nominal understanding of the condition, throw the oppositional defiant disorder label upon him – and that, amongst other reasons is, why he’ll forever be my brother from another :P), why being homeless was so bad. 

I had recently given the subject more thought than I had to prior, even in Berkeley, when spending at least a night in people’s park with the rest of the vagrant population (many whom I knew by name as they had lent their ear and advice during a trying time out there) presented itself as an enticing prospect to the horror of my treatment team. Umm, sidenote: they say a homeless person in NYC can average $100 a day. Shit, that’s enough to vacay for the winter (my first thoughts upon hearing that figure)!

Again, as with many stigmatized minority labels, such as black and bipolar, with homeless comes any number of negative stereotypes/preconceived notions whose validity may be questionable as fuck at best depending on circumstance. Would it be different if this population were labeled those who “spend the night outside voluntarily?” Oh no, then they would be just camping. Well how about, urban camping enthusiasts?”

Allow me to backtrack a moment for the sake of reference .I had also posed this same question to a lady in Starbucks with whom I was having a conversation this past week. Ironically enough, she was starting a non profit for the homeless, so she seemed like the perfect person to ask. Keep in mind she appeared to be around 33 years old, white, and was expecting a child in the coming months. As for the area in which I asked, it was my place of residence for the last 11 months, a quiet, relatively affluent, and definitely diverse suburb north of Atlanta (or technically it is Atlanta depending on who you ask) called Dunwoody. 

I asked the friendly young lady, who later told me her name was Wendy, “What is so bad about being homeless?” She was speechless. Apparently not expecting the query, let alone at Starbucks where everyone is interminably engaged with their technology and coffee (both of which are extremely overrated, in the estimation of many) to the extent that general conversation is jarring to say the least, and I'd boldly assume she also did not expect the question from the source (i.e., me).

She went to say in so many words that it would be scary not having a roof over your head. (again given my thoughts on the matter in the preceding paragraph, why not call this population fear-less as opposed to home-less if that is indeed the case). I prodded further, and pointed to the awning that surrounded the plaza of stores including Starbucks, as if to say, “how is that for a roof?” (again, for the sake of framing, the homelessness I hypothetically proposed was in that very place at that time, given those very conditions such with those clothes on her back). I further inquired about any concerns about the weather. Despite the passing flash storm on occasion, the general heat and humidity of the Atlanta area, make it a free shower at worst, as was so astutely pointed out to me by my friend Chris. As for concerns about the dark, I suggested going to Kroger (my former place of employment, a 24 hour supermarket, only a few stores down from Starbucks) if it was light she so desired (not to mention shelter, even better than the one provided by the awning mentioned earlier. Furthermore, food is in no short supply in the grocery store, especially in the 80,000 square foot megaplex that particular Kroger became. No money? No problem. Free samples abound in produce :)