Sunday, December 28, 2008
Homeless-6, Pork and Rice-0
Homeless-6, Pork and Rice-0
December 18, 2008
Six times. I’ve been rejected six times. I feel pretty good despite the constant rejection, happily walking in San Francisco this cold December evening. “Cold” is a understatement. Tonight is a record breaking freeze that is gripping the City: there are reports of motorcycles slipping on black ice, sophisticated urban holiday chic is being substituted for heavy coats, gloves and pants even though it is the week before Christmas. I’ve just finished eating my fill of Vietnamese soup with some friends, and I’m carrying the remains of my companion’s pork and rice in two paper boxes in a plastic bag.
“Give it someone” she said, “I’m not going to eat it, I’m flying out tomorrow for the holidays.”
So here I am confident in my new role as dinner-provider for some lucky street person freezing his ass off. I’ve even stocked the bag with utensils and napkins. I pick the most likely route to yield a bounty of needy people, ignoring the fact that this route actually takes me away from my hotel. I’m in search of a hungry, worthy street person and I feel it’s okay if I share in the discomfort of this night, too.
I pass two men asleep in doorways, but not wanting to wake them move on. Another man is pushing a loaded shopping cart. Somehow I don’t offer my meal to him, feeling he wasn’t somehow needy enough. After all, he had a shopping cart full of stuff, right? He didn’t really look like he needed my bounty of pork and steamed rice. I needed to find someone really…lacking in resources, I told myself.
My first rejection came from a man whose legs were barely covered by cardboard and a pair of threadbare shorts. He shivered in the cold, but waved my food away.
“Really?” I said, “you’re sure?” He waved me away, but said a meekly apologetic “thanks”, too.
My second rejection came from a man rolling out his sleeping bag in a dark and wet alley, his young bearded companion in the opposite corner smelled like urine and axel grease also rejected me. They both rejected me with variations of violent hand movements that had the effect of casting me out of their sight.
The fourth rejection came from a man diving headfirst into a garbage dumpster. I had assumed that he was looking for food since he was sifting through food, but he also refused the meal.
On it went. I started feeling a little desperate….if I didn’t give this to someone, would I throw it away? Why would a dumpster diving half frozen street person turn down this food…was it pride? Did I look untrustworthy? Was there some hidden code of the street people that I didn’t know? Clearly there was something going on.
I reached Market Street and finally found someone willing to accept my gift of dinner. He was pushing a shopping cart, laden with bags full of undefined objects. He looked me in the eye and said with a crooked smile,”Yeah, I don’t care. Sure. Thanks, man”.
I felt like I should have thanked him after being refused 6 times. So it seems that my understanding of the homeless condition is rudimentary at best. Was it some idea of self reliance that kept these men from needing or wanting to accept a free meal? Were they afraid of something? Did they not like Asian food? Was it me?
It is a fine way of illustrating that we don’t really understand the world at all. We see it through the filter of our own prejudice. This skewed universe implies the type of thinking that begins with:”If I were in that situation, I would…”
But the world is far more diverse and complicated than that. We are all crazy, scary, complex agglomerations of our past mental baggage, experiences and environment. It seems that very little of this is truly shared or transferrable to another human being.
I will try to remember this the next time I want to say to my fiancée, “why don’t you just….” Because I know what it really means is “If I were you, I would ……”
December 18, 2008
Six times. I’ve been rejected six times. I feel pretty good despite the constant rejection, happily walking in San Francisco this cold December evening. “Cold” is a understatement. Tonight is a record breaking freeze that is gripping the City: there are reports of motorcycles slipping on black ice, sophisticated urban holiday chic is being substituted for heavy coats, gloves and pants even though it is the week before Christmas. I’ve just finished eating my fill of Vietnamese soup with some friends, and I’m carrying the remains of my companion’s pork and rice in two paper boxes in a plastic bag.
“Give it someone” she said, “I’m not going to eat it, I’m flying out tomorrow for the holidays.”
So here I am confident in my new role as dinner-provider for some lucky street person freezing his ass off. I’ve even stocked the bag with utensils and napkins. I pick the most likely route to yield a bounty of needy people, ignoring the fact that this route actually takes me away from my hotel. I’m in search of a hungry, worthy street person and I feel it’s okay if I share in the discomfort of this night, too.
I pass two men asleep in doorways, but not wanting to wake them move on. Another man is pushing a loaded shopping cart. Somehow I don’t offer my meal to him, feeling he wasn’t somehow needy enough. After all, he had a shopping cart full of stuff, right? He didn’t really look like he needed my bounty of pork and steamed rice. I needed to find someone really…lacking in resources, I told myself.
My first rejection came from a man whose legs were barely covered by cardboard and a pair of threadbare shorts. He shivered in the cold, but waved my food away.
“Really?” I said, “you’re sure?” He waved me away, but said a meekly apologetic “thanks”, too.
My second rejection came from a man rolling out his sleeping bag in a dark and wet alley, his young bearded companion in the opposite corner smelled like urine and axel grease also rejected me. They both rejected me with variations of violent hand movements that had the effect of casting me out of their sight.
The fourth rejection came from a man diving headfirst into a garbage dumpster. I had assumed that he was looking for food since he was sifting through food, but he also refused the meal.
On it went. I started feeling a little desperate….if I didn’t give this to someone, would I throw it away? Why would a dumpster diving half frozen street person turn down this food…was it pride? Did I look untrustworthy? Was there some hidden code of the street people that I didn’t know? Clearly there was something going on.
I reached Market Street and finally found someone willing to accept my gift of dinner. He was pushing a shopping cart, laden with bags full of undefined objects. He looked me in the eye and said with a crooked smile,”Yeah, I don’t care. Sure. Thanks, man”.
I felt like I should have thanked him after being refused 6 times. So it seems that my understanding of the homeless condition is rudimentary at best. Was it some idea of self reliance that kept these men from needing or wanting to accept a free meal? Were they afraid of something? Did they not like Asian food? Was it me?
It is a fine way of illustrating that we don’t really understand the world at all. We see it through the filter of our own prejudice. This skewed universe implies the type of thinking that begins with:”If I were in that situation, I would…”
But the world is far more diverse and complicated than that. We are all crazy, scary, complex agglomerations of our past mental baggage, experiences and environment. It seems that very little of this is truly shared or transferrable to another human being.
I will try to remember this the next time I want to say to my fiancée, “why don’t you just….” Because I know what it really means is “If I were you, I would ……”
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