Early Saturday morning (2am), I was sitting at the entrance of the homeless shelter providing security of sorts. It was slow and all the folks inside (55 of them) were asleep. I was reading an old favorite of mine, Phantom Limbs by V.S. Ramachandran. Each time I read it, I take away something new, and this past weekend was no different. While reading a section about the neurology of the brain, I found that due to the millions of ganglia, axons, dendrites and their subsequent connections, there are more possible conscious mental states than there are elemental particles on earth! This started me thinking about mental states, particularly those of others. I wondered about the men, women, and children inside sleeping on thin mats on a tiled floor in a large open banquet hall. I thought about them a lot.
Around 3am, the first mother-daughter pair appeared out of the darkness for a bathroom trip. A small, heavy set woman led the way with a much shorter girl sporting long, pretty hair in step behind her. The little girl looked neither sad nor happy, just tired. I wondered what she was thinking, I wondered if she was old enough yet to be weary (a special kind of tiredness) of the trip to new shelters each day, and of the tired and defeated look on her mother's face. They emerged a few minutes later, in the same lock-step and disappeared back into the hall. I wondered how much of a chance this little girl had for a normal life. I wondered until I became too sad to wonder anymore and I stopped.
After ten or fifteen minutes, a very non-descript man shuffled around the corner and went into the bathroom. I forgot about him until another man, a bit taller followed him in a few minutes later. From around the corner, I heard the second man bellow, "That is so fucking wrong." I started to get up, imagining some conflict between the two over something I did not want to imagine, but I sat back down and waited. Eventually, the first, slower patron came back out and turned into the hall without a word. Several minutes later, the second offended party came out and over to my station. After a flurry of blurred obscenities, I grasped his complaint and hardened myself to the coming task. Someone, evidently, had made a terrible mess in the bathroom. I reassured him things would be ok and I went around a couple of corners to the men's room.
I have worked in hospitals, psych wards, and have changed a few diapers in my lifetime. Having done those things, I thought had seen it all, fecally speaking. I was wrong. I smelled the disaster before I got near it. When I opened the stall, there was fecal matter all over the toilet, floor and up three feet of all three adjoining walls. I had no choice but to clean it up, I couldn't leave the area like that for five more hours. The whole process took me an hour and a half with mops, bleach, rags, scrub pads, and more bleach. I kept thinking about mental states though, and what kind of mental state would prompt a human to make such a deliberate and over-achieving mess. I drew a blank.
Back to my post near the front door, I once again took up my pondering on other mental states like depression, happiness, and love. I wondered how we might direct those synaptic episodes in such a way to be happy, to avoid worse mental conditions. I wondered how being homeless, wondering from sleeping arrangement to sleeping arrangement would affect my neurons and subsequent mental states. I wondered how much transient existence I could withstand before I would lose a good part of my humanity. As these thoughts passed by, more folks came and went on bathroom trips, most greeting my respectfully. Another mother-daugther pair made the journey, and I desperately wished I had the wherewithal to do something, to help. The mother smiled at me as the daughter stumbled half asleep behind her. Human beings I thought, caught in inhuman circumstances. All of a sudden, the hundreds if not thousands of inane arguments I had heard and been part in regarding the causes and responsibilities of homelessness seemed base and inhumane - no one deserved this kind of life, no one.
The rest of the night passed uneventfully until around 6am when people began to stir and have breakfast. The crew before mine had made lunches for our guests, and I lined them up alphabetically on the table in the front so they could collect them on their way out for the day. I also manned the locked door, as they went out and returned from smoke breaks. At one point I noticed a sad little twinge in my heart as I watched a tall, muscular man about 35 reach down into the cigarette can to take up a few butts. He would be handsome if cleaned up I supposed, and I could only guess at what downfall brought him here. I wondered about his mental state as he picked up the throw aways, sat down on the large ash can and stared blankly off into the early morning mist.
As I sat watching a few early risers come out and take their lunches, one of them hovered nearby and started up a conversation with me. He was about 40 I supposed, well kept and healthy looking. I had forgotten I was sitting in front of a nearly life-sized statue of Jesus until he referenced the prophet several times in our ten minute talk. We started fairly enough on the terrible colds and flus rummaging around the group that night. After a couple of minutes, he switched smoothly into a discussion about some of the other guests who were talking about him behind his back, and how Jesus had frowned upon such things. I knew this path we were heading down, but his pace and gait were different, not typically schizophrenic. The slow-evolving conspiracy he was weaving grew steadily more implausible, but the paranoia in its threads did not match his tone and tenor. He didn't get excited as he elaborated, and from time to time he seemed to step back and acknowledge that most people wouldn't understand the dynamics he found himself immersed in. He assured me he wasn't drinking or on drugs, the prescribed or illegal sort. He had found a way to put a bubble around his malady, and could discuss it dispassionately but with firm conviction. He never once asked for my agreement or affirmation though, and I was grateful for that decency. Our conversation slowly reached its end, and he excused himself to go out and face a world of whispers and cold collusion.
Reading more about the loss of limbs and the phenomenon of phantom pains made me think about love, and the impossible task of getting over one. I learned that input from different parts of our body are mapped in different locations in our brains. Some are very close to each other - the most amusing pair were stimuli experienced by our toes and our genitalia, mapped virtually on top of each other in a small place in our brain, possibly explaining the proliferation of foot fetishes in many societies. I thought about love and intimacy, and the fact that a man or a woman could "map" their partner completely with their hands and lips and eyes and embrace. How they could overlay all the sensory data, touch, smell, sight, sound, and taste over their own mannequin of desire and hope, creating a spectre destined to outlive any ill-fated romance or immature love. I understood my own pain better at that point, but the knowledge lent no insight into its cessation.
At nearly 7am, most of the evening's guests were leaving the church. I hadn't dared to venture back into the bathroom, not wanting to find another surprise there. Several had ridden bikes, and a few left pushing strollers. Most thanked me as they picked up their sack lunches, and I felt woefully inadequate accepting their gratitude. Some went out to cars, some left on their bikes in twos and threes, and some just ambled away. Sitting inside, I didn't think much about where they would go or what their day would be like until one gentleman stuck his head outside and said "Good, no rain." In a moment of intense clarity, I knew my thoughts about the inconveniences the weather sometimes presents me would all be silly from that moment. I did know it would be twelve more hours until the next shelter would open to them, and I began to wonder about the rest of the day, the rest of their days.
I left the church/shelter at 7am and drove the short distance back to my apartment. During the five minute trip, I saw them dispersing on their bikes, on foot, pushing their strollers. Some were still paired up, others moving on on their own. I wondered on man's desire to live and push forward through any circumstance just to survive. I hoped their lives would again be about something other than survival, if indeed they ever had been. I felt guilty, sad, and somewhat irrelevant by the time I got home, and I took a very long bath, for many reasons.
Around 3am, the first mother-daughter pair appeared out of the darkness for a bathroom trip. A small, heavy set woman led the way with a much shorter girl sporting long, pretty hair in step behind her. The little girl looked neither sad nor happy, just tired. I wondered what she was thinking, I wondered if she was old enough yet to be weary (a special kind of tiredness) of the trip to new shelters each day, and of the tired and defeated look on her mother's face. They emerged a few minutes later, in the same lock-step and disappeared back into the hall. I wondered how much of a chance this little girl had for a normal life. I wondered until I became too sad to wonder anymore and I stopped.
After ten or fifteen minutes, a very non-descript man shuffled around the corner and went into the bathroom. I forgot about him until another man, a bit taller followed him in a few minutes later. From around the corner, I heard the second man bellow, "That is so fucking wrong." I started to get up, imagining some conflict between the two over something I did not want to imagine, but I sat back down and waited. Eventually, the first, slower patron came back out and turned into the hall without a word. Several minutes later, the second offended party came out and over to my station. After a flurry of blurred obscenities, I grasped his complaint and hardened myself to the coming task. Someone, evidently, had made a terrible mess in the bathroom. I reassured him things would be ok and I went around a couple of corners to the men's room.
I have worked in hospitals, psych wards, and have changed a few diapers in my lifetime. Having done those things, I thought had seen it all, fecally speaking. I was wrong. I smelled the disaster before I got near it. When I opened the stall, there was fecal matter all over the toilet, floor and up three feet of all three adjoining walls. I had no choice but to clean it up, I couldn't leave the area like that for five more hours. The whole process took me an hour and a half with mops, bleach, rags, scrub pads, and more bleach. I kept thinking about mental states though, and what kind of mental state would prompt a human to make such a deliberate and over-achieving mess. I drew a blank.
Back to my post near the front door, I once again took up my pondering on other mental states like depression, happiness, and love. I wondered how we might direct those synaptic episodes in such a way to be happy, to avoid worse mental conditions. I wondered how being homeless, wondering from sleeping arrangement to sleeping arrangement would affect my neurons and subsequent mental states. I wondered how much transient existence I could withstand before I would lose a good part of my humanity. As these thoughts passed by, more folks came and went on bathroom trips, most greeting my respectfully. Another mother-daugther pair made the journey, and I desperately wished I had the wherewithal to do something, to help. The mother smiled at me as the daughter stumbled half asleep behind her. Human beings I thought, caught in inhuman circumstances. All of a sudden, the hundreds if not thousands of inane arguments I had heard and been part in regarding the causes and responsibilities of homelessness seemed base and inhumane - no one deserved this kind of life, no one.
The rest of the night passed uneventfully until around 6am when people began to stir and have breakfast. The crew before mine had made lunches for our guests, and I lined them up alphabetically on the table in the front so they could collect them on their way out for the day. I also manned the locked door, as they went out and returned from smoke breaks. At one point I noticed a sad little twinge in my heart as I watched a tall, muscular man about 35 reach down into the cigarette can to take up a few butts. He would be handsome if cleaned up I supposed, and I could only guess at what downfall brought him here. I wondered about his mental state as he picked up the throw aways, sat down on the large ash can and stared blankly off into the early morning mist.
As I sat watching a few early risers come out and take their lunches, one of them hovered nearby and started up a conversation with me. He was about 40 I supposed, well kept and healthy looking. I had forgotten I was sitting in front of a nearly life-sized statue of Jesus until he referenced the prophet several times in our ten minute talk. We started fairly enough on the terrible colds and flus rummaging around the group that night. After a couple of minutes, he switched smoothly into a discussion about some of the other guests who were talking about him behind his back, and how Jesus had frowned upon such things. I knew this path we were heading down, but his pace and gait were different, not typically schizophrenic. The slow-evolving conspiracy he was weaving grew steadily more implausible, but the paranoia in its threads did not match his tone and tenor. He didn't get excited as he elaborated, and from time to time he seemed to step back and acknowledge that most people wouldn't understand the dynamics he found himself immersed in. He assured me he wasn't drinking or on drugs, the prescribed or illegal sort. He had found a way to put a bubble around his malady, and could discuss it dispassionately but with firm conviction. He never once asked for my agreement or affirmation though, and I was grateful for that decency. Our conversation slowly reached its end, and he excused himself to go out and face a world of whispers and cold collusion.
Reading more about the loss of limbs and the phenomenon of phantom pains made me think about love, and the impossible task of getting over one. I learned that input from different parts of our body are mapped in different locations in our brains. Some are very close to each other - the most amusing pair were stimuli experienced by our toes and our genitalia, mapped virtually on top of each other in a small place in our brain, possibly explaining the proliferation of foot fetishes in many societies. I thought about love and intimacy, and the fact that a man or a woman could "map" their partner completely with their hands and lips and eyes and embrace. How they could overlay all the sensory data, touch, smell, sight, sound, and taste over their own mannequin of desire and hope, creating a spectre destined to outlive any ill-fated romance or immature love. I understood my own pain better at that point, but the knowledge lent no insight into its cessation.
At nearly 7am, most of the evening's guests were leaving the church. I hadn't dared to venture back into the bathroom, not wanting to find another surprise there. Several had ridden bikes, and a few left pushing strollers. Most thanked me as they picked up their sack lunches, and I felt woefully inadequate accepting their gratitude. Some went out to cars, some left on their bikes in twos and threes, and some just ambled away. Sitting inside, I didn't think much about where they would go or what their day would be like until one gentleman stuck his head outside and said "Good, no rain." In a moment of intense clarity, I knew my thoughts about the inconveniences the weather sometimes presents me would all be silly from that moment. I did know it would be twelve more hours until the next shelter would open to them, and I began to wonder about the rest of the day, the rest of their days.
I left the church/shelter at 7am and drove the short distance back to my apartment. During the five minute trip, I saw them dispersing on their bikes, on foot, pushing their strollers. Some were still paired up, others moving on on their own. I wondered on man's desire to live and push forward through any circumstance just to survive. I hoped their lives would again be about something other than survival, if indeed they ever had been. I felt guilty, sad, and somewhat irrelevant by the time I got home, and I took a very long bath, for many reasons.
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