#39: TOPICS (And Taking a Break.)
TIME TO TAKE A BREAK! I’ve been writing these “Fields of Vision” posts every week or two for a year-and-a-half. I began with Writing Asides, about what writers do when they aren’t writing and, since last July, Street Cred, about my friends who live on the street by day and wherever they can by night. I’m going to stop for a bit and then do more of these and/or something different. I’ll send an email when I start posting again. Thanks for reading!
TOPICS
This list isn’t intended to be complete. Certain topics, “homelessness,” in particular, could link to every post. So I’ve tried to curate each “tag” to guide you to a few posts that seem particularly relevant.
Note: The only problem with reading the posts out of order is that, over time, I became increasingly aware of just how fungible the truth is out on the street. Sometimes people actually did tell me the truth. Others simply embellished freely. And some folks outright lied and/or tried to scam me to the extent I began to consider it a pathology. In any event, as long as you take most of what people told me with a few grains of salt, these are pretty good pictures of different aspects of life on the street.
Regardless, as my friend Kathleen McGraw, the Medical Director of our local hospital, told me: “It is our responsibility to keep folks from falling deeper into the hole, help pull out those we can, and prevent others from falling in at all.” I hope these essays have helped a little to do just that.
Housing Subsidies/Motel Vouchers
Medication Assisted Treatment (Methadone/Suboxone)
Thank you for opening our eyes, our minds, and our hearts. No matter how “fungible” (I love that!), the stories may be, behind them is one of us. A fundamental, raw human being.
Thank you, these have been a weekly meditation and have absolutely changed the way I look at people I pass on the street. I have stories of my own now! Looking forward to what comes next.