Surviving The fall, 45

a homeless couple has momentarily squatted in the alley across from my building. I had to close the window and turn on the fan, which I am loath to have to do when it's already nearly summer, but I can't function well when I am constantly hearing other people's voices from my home. It makes it all the more difficult for me to rest, recharge and feel the illusion of safety long enough to be able to function again in the outside world today. It is too easy to blame people like that for their problems and for the problem that they are for the rest of us, and it is also very unfair. I remember a friend, I would suggest, an ex-friend now, who years ago protested loud and bitterly about how rude a homeless girl was to her a few years ago. I replied that she didn't know what she might have been going through at the time, but first of all she was homeless and not likely to be feeling her best. She didn't know the stress she was under, nor if she had been traumatized, was dealing with drug and mental health issues. Why is it that when people are already pushed beyond human endurance they are still expected to keep a stiff upper lip, smile, be polite, put on a happy face, and maybe also perform for us a little song and tap-dance too? Well, needless to say, that individual and I are no longer friends, and my little lecture to her was likely the real nail in the coffin. So be it. With friends like her I don't need enemas. (not a typo, Gentle Reader!) I know those people squatting outside my building in order to sort out their empties are not at their best this morning. They probably haven't slept all night. I suspect addiction issues and mental health problems, perhaps (maybe likely) fetal alcohol spectrum disorder as well. They are not to be blamed. ................Gentle Reader, my eggs are ready and I am hungry. We will resume after breakfast..............Well, breakfast was good, the usual, two soft-boiled eggs, three small hunks of homemade bread with peanut butter and apricot jam and a slice of extra old white Cheddar, the good stuff. Hm...not bad for someone living on a low income. And coffee from Costa Rica, which I am still drinking. I stayed in my recliner chair following breakfast for a nap as my sleep last night was a little incomplete, and now I am much better. The street couple is gone and my window is open again. Just following my nap, I heard a very loud testosterone fueled voice shout, three times, "Fuck you!" I was concerned, so instead of waiting till it's time to leave for church this morning, I just took the newspapers, cereal box, plastic strawberry container and empty orange juice can down to recycling, to see if there was anything going on. There is a man, perhaps in his fifties, sitting on the curb just outside our fenced-in parkade. I said good morning, and he sort of ignored me. After I emptied the recycling I asked if everything's good. He nodded. I wished him a happy Sunday. I don't know if he was the person shouting, but I suspect that he probably could be. It has also been quiet since I returned to my suite, so I expect that what little I could offer this man of friendly human contact might have helped. I do not know this man, nor anything about his identity or history, but I can tell when someone has been suffering a lot. We have so many people who are walking and breathing wounded. There are those who cope and fit well within their role in society and no one can usually guess who they are. Then there are those who, through little or no fault of their own, just slipped through the ever widening cracks and now there they are, populating our streets, openly suffering, showing forth the festering wounds of our shame. I alone can't really do a lot, except to show what kindness I can, and to pray for people, to find out their names, and to always see and recognized in each person the suffering face of Christ on the cross. This is how I believe in God, not as a remote CEO of the universe, but as a very human Jesus who suffers like us, with us, and through us. Happy Sunday, Gentle Reader.