Frozen precipitation is a rare phenomenon in Seattle. Because of the infrequency of snow, the city does not invest in appropriate equipment and supplies to ensure that the city shall continue to function despite the weather.
Practically, this means that the roads and sidewalks are not scraped or salted after a snowstorm. For a city that boasts many hills, this means that much of Seattle shuts down while everyone waits for the ice to melt.
There are homeless men who insist on sleeping outside, regardless of the weather. For those that do not sleep under freeway overpasses, inside abandoned buildings, or under the eaves of a storefront, they sleep in the woods. Sometimes they sleep under the trees; sometimes they sleep in the trees. Most of the time, I’m not really sure where they sleep.
When the sun finally peeks through the winter grey pall, the black ice transforms into sparkling water that trickles down the hills and into the rusting storm drains. The city emerges from its hibernation and soon, people are out and about, their hands shoved into the pockets of their puffy jackets and a few wild locks of hair sticking out from underneath woolen caps.
There are homeless men who navigate their way from the woods onto buses into the city. Though they do not own watches or other keepers of time, they somehow know when and where to appear for their appointments. They arrive willingly, cheerfully, often for nothing more than conversation and discussion about current events.
I’m not sure how these homeless men protect themselves from the frozen precipitation. Winter strips the trees of their leafy apparel and their naked branches offer little protection from the slushy snow and pebbles of hail. I’ve never asked them.
So when these men who regularly attend their appointments do not appear after a night of snow, I wonder. And then I begin to worry.
Should I blame myself for not previously offering to them the warmth and safety of my residence?*
Is my penance to take them home with me now, even if only in my mind?
* Not that I would actually take patients home with me—boundaries and limits and whatnot—this is more of a philosophical musing than anything else. It’s easy for those of us who Have to luxuriously indulge in the self-righteousness of worrying about the Have Nots.
16 Jan 2008 |
The contrast between our very real luxury, no matter how meager by society’s standards, and the stark lack of the homeless seems impossible to deal with. For me, worry, etc., provides little or nothing in the way of self-righteousness, unfortunately. It is the boundaries and limits which are the problem; there is no other way to look at it, honestly. Of course, boundaries and limits are essential, not just for doctors. It is the totally WRONGNESS of the actual limits and boundaries that we have created as a culture and society, which we TOTALLY AND UNQUESTIONINGLY accept that makes thinking about this almost impossible. We don’t even realize that there are “realities” that we could make different (not the obvious ones which can so easily be dismissed from withing the existing cultural boundaries). To create change, it seems we would need to first step totally out of one reality into another.
Comment by Don | 17 Jan 2008 @ 6:46am
“There are homeless men who insist on sleeping outside”
You are not living in the same world as Tim Harris of Apesma’s Lament.
apesmaslament.blogspot.com/2008/01/stop-sweeps-stop-lies-fight-back.html
The shelters are full: Seattle’s emergency shelters are crowded past reasonable capacity and turn people away more or less nightly. The existence of a handful of open beds on some nights doesn’t alter this. One measure of an overloaded system is a noticeable increase in the turn-aways of women and families.
Comment by mark p.s. | 20 Jan 2008 @ 5:34pm
[…] winter chill had not affected the good humor of the homeless man who was old enough to be my father. A bit perplexed, he looked at me and an asymmetrical smile […]
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