Money makes the world go round…well, maybe not for much longer. The late great comedian Bill Hicks once said “It’s all about money, not freedom, ya’ll, okay? Nothing to do with fuckin’ freedom. If you think you’re free, try going somewhere without fucking money, okay?”
So true, so very true. Walking to the gas station, comforted by the dark, cold glorious morning light, swinging the over used empty red cans….knowing, just knowing that someone will help.
And they always do…
It’s all about faith. Faith in others. Faith in yourself.
This morning I’m thinking…not much longer. The finishing line is finally in sight…
“you can take the artist out of the street but you’ll never take the street out of the artist”
Here it is…finally.
All beautifully edited, organized and ready for your viewing pleasure.
Vernon & I have been recording these mini videos for over a year now…they are funny, No! they are downright hilarious.
They were, still are our way of dealing with the hard times. They bring a lot of smiles to a lot of faces too.
We knew that once we were able to invest in a laptop, I could go to town putting them together. In the form of short films each documenting our lives together while facing the challenges of houselessness, severe economic downturn yet falling completely, madly and utterly in love with one another. We are inseparable. A creative force bouncing ideas back and forth between us all day long. Each wanting the other to be the best person they could possibly be.
Vernon showing out gloriously for me. Me, behind my omnipresent camera, ardently filming his every joke, his daily human encounters…his celebration of life by uniting people with humor. His uncanny knack of diffusing any situation with much laughter. Much laughter. His ability to tell a story, sing a song…to pull you, the listener completely in. Just as though you are right there.
I wanted to show the world this amazing talent, this man of sharp and clever wit…this awesome performer who brings such joy to all he meets, everyday.
I wanted to make Vernon Rust the movie star he deserved to be….
Vernon titled this piece ‘song for Helen’. It’s beautiful. Probably the sweetest thing ever.
The road together has been long and difficult. Since the day when Vernon rescued me from a house of no return, with broken arm and a completely annihilated faith and so carefully & dutifully assumed ‘head of household’ of our newly formed family. Only thing, we had no house. We have slept under a bridge, by the side of a road, in a car…vulnerability became our way of life. often I slept for 4 hours while he guarded and then we switched over. Never in my wildest imagination did I think I would draw from my many experiences as a nurse working the night shift. Thinking back I have never really had a home. It wasn’t until I became homeless did I really consider let alone understand, the meaning or value of having a home. Many of the homeless that you meet ‘out there’ (the streets) say that homelessness is a state of mind and not just a situation. It’s very complex. Of course growing up, our family homes are ‘homes’. But it’s different. We are all so young and typically its an environment our parents pick out. I left the family ‘home’ when I was 18 years old and headed to the nearest city to start my nursing career. My first place was one room with single bed and wash stand. Nurses quarters. I can tell you right away, it was temporary! I felt very alone but at the same time excited about the path I had chosen. Next came a handful of shared flats & houses with other nurses. Sure, they were comfortable, clean, a place to rest & regroup for the next day. But they felt very much like stepping stones. Yes…stepping stones to get to another place.
My spirit became restless and the world called on me to travel, to expand my horizons. I accepted a travel nurse position in Orlando, Florida. That was where I met and married my ex-husband. It was a long, draw out and for the most part unhappy 15 years. Things at ‘home’ were so stressful that I threw myself in to my work. I don’t have much more to say except it was here that the river grew very wide and it seemed as though there weren’t anymore stepping stones.
Somehow I dug myself out of that hole and moved to San Francisco. It is a city that felt more like home than any place had up until then. But my apartment yet again was purely a place to set down, hang briefly, try to sleep and then get back to work. On my off days I spent as much time as possible away from ‘home’. I immersed myself in art & photography, roaming the City for hours on end doing both. I started to feel very lost. Disconnected. Even nursing became very alien to me. As a profession, it had always helped me to belong. Caring for others took my mind off my own worries and concerns. There was always someone so much more worse off than me. I convinced myself that I was strong, independent…in need of noone. I stayed too busy to sit down and actually reflect on what was happening. Too busy to remotely consider the absence of a home (or for that matter, a family) in my life. Maybe I felt like I didn’t deserve one. For whatever strange a reason as that, I will never know.
It took hitting a wall, falling of a cliff…completely breaking down and finally finding the next stone. It was a rock and it was at the bottom. Thats when I met Vernon. Thats when we discovered that we were so alike…that homelessness had been a life long struggle fraught with people that simply did not understand. Nor did they want to…
Clawing your way back to life, to some semblance of existence and to a state of contentment is so hard. So very very hard. But we were two now. Together the impossible started to be possible. No hope gave way to endless opportunites. To a creative flow of dreams and aspirations. I could not remember when I was so inspired!
It took literally losing everything to find a home. A place so warm and inviting and so full of love. A place to look forward to going to and missing a lot when away. A place to just be. Be with my family…be with me.
Not only do we have a home but its our dear studio too. It’s still a struggle. People continue to look down their noses. There’s a certain stigma to being poor, to having nothing but the shirt on your back. You’re viewed as lazy, as though life is easy. As though its OK to give up. I learn everyday from our friends on the street. They teach me a compassion that even nursing couldn’t. They teach me an understanding that can never be learned or studied. They teach me the true value of life, of a home, of acceptance. Of what’s really important and especially of what is not…
Vernon & I have turned our experience and newly found way of life in to a ministry. A ministry of helping and caring, encouraging and inspiring. A ministry that raises the awareness of homelessness, of poverty and the need to care.
Our lifestyle is so simple, our needs are very few. Any extra’s go back in to the community…food, clothing, advice, a ride, a bus ticket, a cup of coffee, a kind listening ear.
During this season of giving thanks, please donate to our cause.
Please. Please. Please.
We offer you original art for your generosity so please visit facebook.com/BirdXRust
>>>God Bless you <<<
there’s a warm centering feeling about urban camping and life in a motorhome. its as though I have actually found my home. one I’ve never had. it counters the claustrophobia, in that being in the same place every day starts to get to me. and it doesn’t take long. house? apartment? they’re just not for me. its not for everyone and there are some challenges. butnone that I can’t handle or rapidly laugh off. I conformed to the status quo for my adult life so far. Plenty of camps dotted around our neighbourhood growing up. Secret hideways. Grass igloos after a summer mow. It was time to turn back the clock and live with what works. Welcome home. Welcome home.
So, in my dreams last night, Vern and I were walking around downtown. We had nowhere to rest our weary heads inspite of trying very very hard to be resourceful, self reliant and motivated humans. In fact, we’ve been pretty darn proud of us.
Vern carried his bulky yet precious guitar in-case and a 40lb backpack. Me, a 30lb art portfolio, a heavy purse and a big smile. It was warm with a breeze blowing in hot sticky and possibly tempestuous skies. We needed the rain. We needed shelter more right now.
My dream meanders here and there. As they do. But we wind up curling up like puppies in a small cardboard box on the toppest most steps of a downtown church. We go to sleep easily, tired from hiking around all day with our entire lives’ possessions and obsessions on our backs. As freeing as it is to have so little, it still weighs 15lbs too heavy…
A ’rap rap rap’ wakes us up…
Maybe it was a “rat rat rat’.
A policeman looms over us…
He states we were criminally trespassing and how on earth could we have missed the sign. We look up and see nothing (not even the church!) but a do not even try to sleep comfortably, safely and together out here sign. It wasn’t there when we arrived. I could have sworn my life on it!
He arrests us but doesn’t take us in. He verifies on his screen that we are very good puppies and that we always show up for animal farm, I mean court every time we’re arrested.
We packed up and head down the street.
Big fat raindrops finally start to fall.
The cop barked at us.
And rather unpleasantly told us to
‘stay out of sight, out of mind’…
heck…they probably do some good, I’ve just never seen them around except on the little white info sheets ‘where to find meals/where to find help’ in Nashville. However, I have a problem with these ‘parking meter style-lets put an end to panhandling’ and feeble, silly attempts to ‘help’. I’ve not seen one coin depositied, emptied, distributed or stolen.
A dear friend asked me earlier on this year if I could write about Vernon & myself. Kinda how did we get together…
I have thought long and hard about this one, as our friendship has surely endured tough times and since I promised to never again minimize my own discomforts or anxieties, I mean tough times. More so than most people.
It has been over a year ago that we ran off together from a crazy alcohol and violence soaked lodging house and found ourselves on the street. My arm broken. My health in a poor way. We have stuck together through it all. Joined at the hip. Siamese if you please.
Our lives have followed such similar paths. We have endured the same bumps in life’s road. We have made the same mistakes. Share identical neuroses. A double bipolarity.
I left the library in tears the other day. I had been looking at my huge catalogue of photography that really took off when I moved to San Francisco and filed for a divorce from my ex husband.
The photos of me don’t lie. I am now a mere shadow of the confident vibrant chick roaming the planet happily armed with a camera at all times. I’m amazed at myself. I was everywhere! There wasn’t one graffed wall that I missed.
I had so much energy. I ran up the Pacific Heights hill from the Marina TWICE a day! I wanted to be the best and greatest artist and photographer in the world.
I couldn’t sleep. I needed to self medicate to even get a nap. I started to burn out, screw up at work. Argue with people.
I have since realized with the help of a couple of caring and dedicated professionals (and the wonderful Paul E Jones author and fellow bipolar of ’the up & down life’) that this was indeed a manic phase that lasted a year or more.
It’s so hard to remember when the tide turned.
But I hit a depression.
Not just a ‘I feel blue day’ but a whole body lethargy, an unbelievable feeling of complete & utter worthlessness and hopelessness.
Every day I thought of suicide. And I thought this was normal! Doesn’t everyone feel this way going through a divorce?
When life gets a wee bit hard ?
When things don’t work out right? I didn’t know what was wrong! And I’m a medical professional! A nurse for God’s sake! I had truly worn myself out trying to figure myself out.
Thats the problem.
Always overly analyzing my thoughts, actions and reactions. Its something I simply can’t turn off.
Except with drugs.
The divorce was an incredibly painful drawn out experience, as I was looking at paying him alimony for 10 years.
10 years! It seemed like a prison sentence!
I fired my lawyer, emptied my accounts, defaulted on bills and spent like crazy. I indulged myself in a million things that I hadn’t had during my marriage to an emotionally abusive control freak.
I tanked. So bad I wound up addicted to heroin and coke for 2 years. It could have been longer, I really can’t remember. But the physical scars are there to remind me…day in, day out.
The emotional scars a constant regretful companion along for the ride. For the rest of my life. I was fired from my job. Alienated myself from my family and friends.
I have been around and around the mental health care revolving doors. detox. counselling. crisis stabilization units…
I wound up quitting by myself and I have done well. It would be a lie if I said I had been totally clean for the past 18 months, but there is no way in hell, heaven or earth that I could go back to that kind of misery.
Barely existing from one fix to the next. Sticking myself for a vein 20, 30, 50 times. Eternally circling the drain…
I have called myself many things over the years. Stupid. Idiot. Addict. Junkie. Fool…
The gangly happy kid loped across the plaza towards me.
“Heyyyyy…”
“How ya doin’?”
“I’m good, almost left for Cali last night but got to Clarksville and decided to come back.”
“Wow, I’m sorry that didn’t work out…”
“Yeah, we left at 10:00 pm and I got back, to the tent and was asleep by 03:30!”
Unsure as to why the times were of importance he readily answered my un-asked question…
“We hiked.”
I met the young man only a couple of days before. We were waiting in line under the Jefferson street bridge, the midday sun already beating down on our heads. It was a long, long line standing in the dust, the Lord’s Chuck wagon fixin’ to pull up any minute.
He was standing with a much older man. A seasoned camper and traveller. He sucked nervously on a cigarette.
I’m not sure what we initially talked about or what it was that struck up our conversation. I have met many from all walks of life at the homeless feeds around town. Some not wanting to talk. Some rambling incoherently, racked with paranoia and delusional voices chattering constantly in their ears. Some just plain old drunk.
But our dialogue immediately flowed. I found him to be a very old soul in baby pyjamas. Rompers, we call them in England…
He talks a lot with his hands. Some might even say he waves them far too much, totally violating the other’s personal space.
I found it all terribly endearing. To me, he’s beautifully exuberant about life. Joyously animated with a childlike gleam across his face.
We talked at length. We had plenty of time for we were at the back of the line.
He told me all about where he was from, his family, the adventures he’s had on the road, legal issues and previous relationships. He amazed me so much with his knowledge of the law that I could not help but encourage him to get himself to a community college and study. I wanted him to turn it all around, instead of running from the law, make a living at it!
He tells me and he is, flamboyantly and wonderfully gay. In fact, he refreshingly makes no bones about it…
I immediately worry about his safety in the South. He’s a street kid though and we are all toughened by the harsh realities of an unjust world. We are all itinerant survivors, always have been…always will.
While we talked, he returns again and again to the same subject…
and even though he has called the streets his home for ten or so years,
it became glaringly apparent that he still looked for one…
hell is real!
@ jefferson street bridge with our friends and Pastor Bob ministries. God Bless these awesome people, I cannot say it enough. there’s this guy who goes to the dollar store after work and buys socks for everyone and a hair stylist that donates his sundays to the mission and our bridge bunch.
