I spent my first couple of weekends with the photographer and I would sleep on the futon surrounded by my paintings. I also stayed and looked after his cat while he was away. It was convenient but soon he said he needed his space. He had a new girl friend. Etc., etc., etc.... I switched from downtown Vancouver to the Strathcona neighbourhood where I found room in the home of one of the friends of the Green House. It generally went okay. I would go shopping Friday after cleaning Doreen's apartment and buy some food to help pay my way while staying with my hosts. I gave them various personal belongings since I had no confidence that I would need them again. They became the proud owners of the mock-Oriental carpet and runner that used to belong to my paternal grandmother, as well as a white cloisonné vase I bought and the cookie jar that had been from my earliest memory of childhood.
Sleeping wasn't always comfortable. For a while I had a bedroom but then a street girl they had been ministering to moved in. We also knew each other from my days of street ministry and I frequently took her out for coffee or a bite to eat. I thought, how very ironic that after years of helping and supporting her and others that now I was in the same condition of need as her. I moved to a very uncomfortable couch, then to the living room where I slept on a foamy. This was particularly uncomfortable because the married couple whose home I was staying in slept in the room just off the living room and they never closed the door. But that was also the place where they wanted me to sleep. It felt decidedly weird, even a bit creepy. Yet I wasn't sure just how to word the question: "Would you be so kind as to keep your bedroom door closed so that otherwise I don't feel like I've been made into an audience for your sex lives?" without offending, alienating or (dare I say) titillating them.
I only had one particularly bad experience while staying in this house. A young idiot of about thirty ended up staying for a week or so. I was there as well and had been asked by my hosts to extend my stay and take care of the house while they were out of town. The douchebag staying there with me proved intolerable to live with. He appeared to be gay curious, became convinced that I was gay and began to relentlessly hit on me. He was also an absolute pig in other ways. It became impossible to reason with him so I asked my friend at the Green House to stay with us to monitor things till I could leave, which he did, and oh how shocked my young homophobic Christian fundamentalist friend was to discover that his friend the gay curious douchebag had it in him to openly hit on me in his presence.
I was very glad to get back to my dad's for a few days. This was also the first of my experiences of being treated like a sexual target to confused young male idiots, made all the more appealing by my vulnerability of homelessness and complex PTSD. On the other hand, in my state of absolute passivity I had a profound sense of God's love if not necessarily his protection. Rather than protect me from falling into the labyrinth I often had a sense that Jesus was there with me, walking with me through each corridor, passageway and turn, not guiding me through the maze but walking it with me, being lost with me and never once denying me the sweet solace of his presence.
No comments:
Post a Comment