Empathy and emotional work
I walked down through the thick of the press of humanity covering the streets just a block away from the touristy areas, then into the touristy area too.
I think maybe I will avoid those areas, it's not good for my brain and I'm not useful to them. Nor welcome, really. People just live on a spot on the sidewalk and just don't move from it if they can help it. Like I imagine cave men lived in caves, but these people have only the doorways and canopies of the uncaring buildings to shelter them.
I saw a ton of petty crime too. People selling all manner of things that were either food not properly packaged and kept, or stolen goods. Whether stole from people or stores, it really all looked stolen and some of the "shop keepers" looked pretty healthy for the location. But I don't know how poor they yet are, for sure. But like, the pile of suntan lotions or the kitkat bars or the deodorants, all sorts of things someone could shoplift. Mostly it's 2nd hand clothing and it's so weird to see the stuff traded the way it is in stories of the 18 century and forward through edwardian times. The people who stole Scrooges bedsheets would have sold them down on Pender street in down town east side.
The whole thing is heart breaking. To see all the folded people and know they're doing it because it's all they can do and they've got nothing left, not even hope. To have to just walk past, a tourist. Then look down and see the walking wounded in front of me. More than one with ruined feet and legs from unhealing wounds and swollen red bruised calves and ankles. I forget the name for it it but the skin literally sloughs away into an open septic wound and it never stops hurting. I mean, the bandages are generally sparse and filthy too, and they're just not getting the care or comfort or nutrition they'd need, nevermind the drugs.
I wanted to reach down and cup my hands around their legs and magic them better. I knew I couldn't and even if I could I wasn't allowed to and didn't have permission. It was all just such an emotional lift and carry. I tried to radiate pink light, send balls of green into people, and ooze a bit of gold over the floor as I walked. But come on, it's maybe magic, or maybe just wanting to feel virtuous. Or both. I dunno, but my sheer helplessness was frustrating to be sure.
On the same vein, I got a free naxolone kit to bring home so that's comforting, ish. I have to learn how to use it. I got cpr training but naloxone didn't exist yet and that I havent' learned. Like how do the ampoules work? How do I know I need to do this to someone? It's terribly invasive, I wouldn't want to get it wrong.
Folded people.
Seriously, that's the new addict look. I don't think the heroin addicts folded, I think they flopped. Even when flopped, these people are folded in half at the waist. I bet they have terrible digestion too.
Like, just think of all the side health issues plaguing them day and night. You are nauseous and crampy at the best of times. You have the mother of all back aches and it blends indistinctly into the grandfather of all migraines. One or both feet, ankle, calf is screaming constantly of fire and tiny dwarfs with pickaxes chipping away the cooked leg. You probably have 3 toothaches at any given moment. You itch, everywhere, even after scratching. You can't look at yourself, it's too gross, you're that dirty. Believe me, a few hours makes you grimy in this city. Your butt is aching from the cold concrete too. Your bones never quite get warm until it's so hot you sweat constantly and then you are always thirsty to go with the hunger. Doesn't matter if you're fed, it's not nutritious so the cravings are there. Lastly, to relieve yourself you must walk 3 blocks and stand in line for your turn. I did not go in so I do not know the condition of the staffed washroom in question.
All of this before you add the addiction itself, and much of the above are caused not by the addiction but the lifestyle forced upon a human without shelter. Most of it is caused by being homeless. Many many of these folded people are drugging themselves senseless to get through the pointless hours of their painful lives. We haven't even discussed the many emotional and psychological reasons to cry and feel the sharp frisson of existential fear shock us like rats in a lab test, or dogs with shock collars and sadistic humans.
Why wouldn't they drug themselves? I ask you? They are the detritus of the city's population washed up on the filthy shores of lac despair and what else can they do but find the nearest available source of morpheus?
I could go there and serve up water and bandage up legs and get spit on and yelled at and robbed for my thanks and maybe some would actually thank me and maybe someone would experience a better life. Sure. I could try. I think I don't have the spoons, mind you. I'm so germophobic that way. Plus the size of the need is so scary.
But it's not going to make a dent in this problem. (I should seriously think about finding a group to lend my time and labour) We need something better. Care first, housing first, income first. or vice versa. Well those three first. sobriety as it comes naturally, with assistance at every step. I know we can't catch them all but imagine a world where the social services focuses on trusteeship and service outreach because the money comes direct from the canada revenue agency to each and every citizen via either their bank account or said social service workers and trustees. Because trusteeship is often extremely necessary even for sober people who can't manage money. when I was very young and with someone who had zero ability to anticipate the future, I was assigned a trustee for quite a few years. I loved having the bills covered and no arguing about paying them this month. Dude's approach was to always be 80 days late and slide the utility payments around so none ever got paid every month. Now I"ve used this trick to manage a big need like car repairs, but I focus on getting caught up right away.
These days there's no such bills, I have shit for income, and saving for bus repairs isn't going fast enough to comfort me. I did get wind of a place that might serve me well for repairs.
Yah. So that was a hard mile to walk. Very hard.
I went to see the pride parade that isn't until tomorrow. I did wander around the trade show and get some pamphlets from aid organizations who might have services for me. I have a very hard time reaching out though. But I am forcing myself to try. I think I will go back tomorrow, I can actually put my bike on the train and get delivered only two blocks from the parade site and I think I can get there half way through. Leaving at 11am was too much. I'd rather go around 2 and this time bring my own coffee and cookies.
I got $10 for doing a survey and letting them paint a card with blood out of my finger, LOL, and that paid for mediocre coffee and a terrible cookie. i also got shat upon by a crow for giving some to a pigeon.
Not sure if because he knew it's crap or because he was jealous, LOL, but I threw the rest in the trash.
I tell you, that place is a whole vibe and I forgot what it's like. It's been awhile. pretty girls in way too little jiggling prettily about the place and musicians filling the air and just people everywhere doing not much of anything at all. It was something I used to take for granted as a young person, but lost completely in saskatoon as the years went by. the place just isn't like that. here on the north shore isn't either. People are walking around in their own neighborhood on errands on making time with someone. It's not a whole vibe, just a normal daily routine. But this scene today from one side of the downtown to the other was just this insane collection of people with nowhere to go and no reason to go there anyway. From those who simply lived right there on the pavement to those who were here on vacation to those who were out for a walk in their downtown, it was just all this milling about and lounging and loitering. I had such a hard time coming home, it took threats and growls from my ostomy, reminding me there's no toilets for me, to send me back to the sea bus and then home. It is too bad Rene can't come. If i had a bike mounted dog carrier.... Hmmmmm LOL, not this insane beast. She doesn't trust enough to sit still when asked. Just to roll her on and off the sea bus and trains, see, as she's required to be contained and carried. But she would hamper me going in places far more than my duct tape cadillac on two wheels. It's pretty good to lock up on the street because of the tape, although NO to that on pender street, you know, not safe.
yeah, going to be processing the scene for some time. Do I want to try and act from that impulse of healing or not, for instance.
It's not like I have to, see. Nobody does. That's what makes those who do all the more admirable to the rest of us. They really aren't being forced at all. They too can walk down a different street and let the masses of misery mill moresly into the morgues of the metropolis.
Where is my path? Is it there in that sea of pain? Funny that I could see yours but not my own. I walk in darkness with a flashlight it seems, one signpost or path block at a time.