Was just talking to a woman with a Masters in English, with teaching as her passion, who went two years unemployed, finally got to teach at two colleges - part time. She blogged for the two years she was unemployed bringing in undisclosed income writing about an undisclosed topic. This is something I've never done - make money from Blogging. Actually I think few do. I think many want to.
She and I discussed how wanting to get hits to translate into money starts to sway you. You begin to want to use those KEY WORDS to get people to your site. After a while you feel compromised if you have any conscious at all.
I didn't get to tell her that I blog, have and do so.
Or why I do it.
Mostly, self expression.
Mostly wanting to think that someone out there might something I have to say or write worth their time reading.
1/28/19
1/15/19
POURING DOWN RAIN - A RESPITE WITH FRIENDS - A WRITER RETREAT
It's pouring down rain and we do need it. The Nature Reserve that we like to walk through is greening. I believe plants love rain, that it stimulates them, that they feel joy at the rain - as opposed to the lawn sprinkler or hose.
What would I really like to do when it rains for days that I'm not?
Staying in a cabin (not too rustic), a big pot of slow-cooker/crock pot three bean chili simmering, some grilled cheese with lots of butter on the bread, a fire in the fireplace. Sleeping soundly. Writing "vigorously."
The other day two friends took me to a restaurant - a secret place - though not too much a secret - after all the place was bustling. It was a Spanish restaurant. Not a Hispanic, not a Latin, not a Mexican or Guatemalan or Peruvian - SPANISH. All products straight from Spain. All food and wine offered - SPANISH. We noshed on olives and the red wine was apparently more potent than I thought. I wasn't driving so it was OK that one glass lit the flame. An opportunity to be silly - and childlike - for a short while. The food was very good and just enough.
But since neither of them have ever seem me slightly lit, since I barely drink at all, one of them wondered if I was going to be able to walk!
In this silliness, I confessed to having OBSESSIVE COMPULSIVE PENNY PICK EM UP DISEASE. (See previous post.) I had found a shiny penny on the ground on the way in, another on the way out.
But OK. WHO PUT A PENNY ON THE SEAT for me to find when I got up?!
Gee - will they still LIKE me after this?
C 2019 All Rights Reserved Christine Trzyna
What would I really like to do when it rains for days that I'm not?
Staying in a cabin (not too rustic), a big pot of slow-cooker/crock pot three bean chili simmering, some grilled cheese with lots of butter on the bread, a fire in the fireplace. Sleeping soundly. Writing "vigorously."
The other day two friends took me to a restaurant - a secret place - though not too much a secret - after all the place was bustling. It was a Spanish restaurant. Not a Hispanic, not a Latin, not a Mexican or Guatemalan or Peruvian - SPANISH. All products straight from Spain. All food and wine offered - SPANISH. We noshed on olives and the red wine was apparently more potent than I thought. I wasn't driving so it was OK that one glass lit the flame. An opportunity to be silly - and childlike - for a short while. The food was very good and just enough.
But since neither of them have ever seem me slightly lit, since I barely drink at all, one of them wondered if I was going to be able to walk!
In this silliness, I confessed to having OBSESSIVE COMPULSIVE PENNY PICK EM UP DISEASE. (See previous post.) I had found a shiny penny on the ground on the way in, another on the way out.
But OK. WHO PUT A PENNY ON THE SEAT for me to find when I got up?!
Gee - will they still LIKE me after this?
C 2019 All Rights Reserved Christine Trzyna
1/7/19
12/30/18
OBSESSIVE COMPULSIVE PRAYING DISEASE
For about a year, just ending, I gave prayer another chance. Not only did I pray for myself and something I most certainly need, I even walked in the morning with my dog to a location of great natural beauty and said a simple prayer 40 days in row, early this past summer. Also, a whole lot of other people either prayed (or are still praying) for me /us ; I include my dog in my future life, or said they were. Catholic novenas - quickies and long drawn out ones. Protestant Prayers - several denominations from Fundamentalist to Progressive. God Knows What Prayers.
When I would explain my dilemma to people, granted these people are strangers or extremely new friends, often they would say "I'll pray for you." Well, what else could they do but invest in magic or miracle since they aren't going to roll up their sleeves or be pragmatic?
I thanked them sincerely.
At first I was going to keep my needs and desires and prayers private but I got to talking to a woman who had a worse situation than me; just about everyone would agree that someone whose long time partner has physically disappeared without a trace has a worse situation than me. She was not only keeping the faith, but she went out to a bookstore on a needed day off from work and bought me a book of daily meditations and so I promised her I would read the book every day.
The "voice" of the book is of Jesus/God and he keeps encouraging me to depend on him, clear my mind for him, be full of gratitude for what I have, and so on. I just cannot do it, have that kind of trust that whatever happens in my life is His Will, not Mine, and I should be satisfied.
Recently, without asking me first, which I think is basic respect, three people put me on PRAYER LISTS. Shit, I don't want that up on the Internet, I really do not. I had to work on forgiveness about this, the "they meant well," absolution. Still I get angry and think to tell them "Take that down!"
I was told that I must "pray continuously."
That I needed to "Keep in the Word." (This means read the Bible continuously.)
That I need to trust that Jesus will provide me just what it is He Knows I Need.
The person being asked for results was mostly Jesus, though the Holy Spirit figured in there too. In fact, I always have had a difficult time with the Three Persons in One God notion, and I find myself feeling very different about prayer to The Father, the Son (Jesus), or the Holy Spirit (aka the Holy GHOST!). The Father - it always feels uncomfortable to me especially in the medieval aspect of Lord of the Manor and peasants begging (me) language. He seems to be an Old Testament character who is mean and jealous and booming his voice all over the countryside. Jesus - well, I think a person actually lived on this earth, a rebel, but I don't think he saved my soul by dying on the cross and I wish people would stop trying to make me feel guilty for that; who can argue that Christianity isn't massive in this world? I like his ideas though. Which makes me think Bernie Sanders is a rare Christian in politics. The Holy Spirit, some say was once a feminine energy, but maybe I'm most comfortable with this person because he is the least represented in art. The most mysterious.
Well, I have not gotten what I very much want and need.
And so the prayers start talking praying MORE or waiting for Grace or Miracles.
They talk "God's Time."
Can I deny that maybe if it were not for all this good wishing, all this pledging of good will and friendship, I might be completely slayed? No I cannot. The Power of Prayer; there's a book with that title that emphasizes the positive.
Right now I feel guilty for posting this agnostic post.
It's not like I should have Great Expectations when in fact I have NOT PRAYED for many years. Who am I to expect A Little Something when I have not done my part praying?
I think prayer can be relaxing. Praying can help you focus on what you want.
But I am too prone to finding a proof or an answer in something that will later prove not to be. I have done this one way or another many times in my life, probably because I was tired. Tired of waiting for things other people find easy or take for granted.
Maybe I'm just tired now.
My Christmas mail was full of religious based wishes, a certain wink-wink that we are all Christians aren't we. But we are not.
What I feel the most concern about is that some of the prayers seem to think that if you stop, you won't get what you want. It's superstitious. It's like they expect doom if they give up praying, or wanting, or needing.
C 2018 Christine Trzyna / Christine Trzyna BlogSpot All Rights Reserved.
When I would explain my dilemma to people, granted these people are strangers or extremely new friends, often they would say "I'll pray for you." Well, what else could they do but invest in magic or miracle since they aren't going to roll up their sleeves or be pragmatic?
I thanked them sincerely.
At first I was going to keep my needs and desires and prayers private but I got to talking to a woman who had a worse situation than me; just about everyone would agree that someone whose long time partner has physically disappeared without a trace has a worse situation than me. She was not only keeping the faith, but she went out to a bookstore on a needed day off from work and bought me a book of daily meditations and so I promised her I would read the book every day.
The "voice" of the book is of Jesus/God and he keeps encouraging me to depend on him, clear my mind for him, be full of gratitude for what I have, and so on. I just cannot do it, have that kind of trust that whatever happens in my life is His Will, not Mine, and I should be satisfied.
Recently, without asking me first, which I think is basic respect, three people put me on PRAYER LISTS. Shit, I don't want that up on the Internet, I really do not. I had to work on forgiveness about this, the "they meant well," absolution. Still I get angry and think to tell them "Take that down!"
I was told that I must "pray continuously."
That I needed to "Keep in the Word." (This means read the Bible continuously.)
That I need to trust that Jesus will provide me just what it is He Knows I Need.
The person being asked for results was mostly Jesus, though the Holy Spirit figured in there too. In fact, I always have had a difficult time with the Three Persons in One God notion, and I find myself feeling very different about prayer to The Father, the Son (Jesus), or the Holy Spirit (aka the Holy GHOST!). The Father - it always feels uncomfortable to me especially in the medieval aspect of Lord of the Manor and peasants begging (me) language. He seems to be an Old Testament character who is mean and jealous and booming his voice all over the countryside. Jesus - well, I think a person actually lived on this earth, a rebel, but I don't think he saved my soul by dying on the cross and I wish people would stop trying to make me feel guilty for that; who can argue that Christianity isn't massive in this world? I like his ideas though. Which makes me think Bernie Sanders is a rare Christian in politics. The Holy Spirit, some say was once a feminine energy, but maybe I'm most comfortable with this person because he is the least represented in art. The most mysterious.
Well, I have not gotten what I very much want and need.
And so the prayers start talking praying MORE or waiting for Grace or Miracles.
They talk "God's Time."
Can I deny that maybe if it were not for all this good wishing, all this pledging of good will and friendship, I might be completely slayed? No I cannot. The Power of Prayer; there's a book with that title that emphasizes the positive.
Right now I feel guilty for posting this agnostic post.
It's not like I should have Great Expectations when in fact I have NOT PRAYED for many years. Who am I to expect A Little Something when I have not done my part praying?
I think prayer can be relaxing. Praying can help you focus on what you want.
But I am too prone to finding a proof or an answer in something that will later prove not to be. I have done this one way or another many times in my life, probably because I was tired. Tired of waiting for things other people find easy or take for granted.
Maybe I'm just tired now.
My Christmas mail was full of religious based wishes, a certain wink-wink that we are all Christians aren't we. But we are not.
What I feel the most concern about is that some of the prayers seem to think that if you stop, you won't get what you want. It's superstitious. It's like they expect doom if they give up praying, or wanting, or needing.
C 2018 Christine Trzyna / Christine Trzyna BlogSpot All Rights Reserved.
11/28/18
THANKSGIVING TURNS OUT NOT TO BE A BUST AFTER ALL
A well, what did I hear on the radio but a program in which people were calling in to describe BAD THANKSGIVINGS. Really.
But actually mine turned out to be one in which I felt cared about and included.
Went to a potluck noonish with Gracie. She enjoyed some turkey as well.
Took her home and went back out to join some nice people at a restaurant where I ordered SOUP. All the turkey I wanted already.
Most amazing thing was that I was invited to 2 more...
But actually mine turned out to be one in which I felt cared about and included.
Went to a potluck noonish with Gracie. She enjoyed some turkey as well.
Took her home and went back out to join some nice people at a restaurant where I ordered SOUP. All the turkey I wanted already.
Most amazing thing was that I was invited to 2 more...
11/20/18
DELETING THE DAY - THANKSGIVING
Here I am thinking of Thanksgivings Past - and some of them were awful.
This one is also going to be especially awful.
What makes this one especially awful?
I'm bitten up by NoSeeUms - ie. insects I never see or feel on my skin that have left me itchy and scratching. I actually think some of these are spider bites. Others? I hear there is a tiny Chinese mosquito that likes to live indoors: people are closing their toilet seat lids and dumping their dog's water bowls more often. I have bites up and down my arms and legs, on my chest. I've been wearing pants and socks and long sleeves to bed but it seems no use. I've never been so bitten up in my life.
I have a sinus headache due to the terrible fires in Malibu/Calabassas. I used to travel out that way and go to Broad/Zuma/Point Dume so I watched news coverage to see if I recognized anything burning or burned. This devastation and that of Paradise, California has got me feeling down. And all those people waiting for End Times are including these fires as evidence.
Turkey is no big deal these days. People, including me, eat it all year around. Along with stuffing and green beans and cranberry sauce. Someone recently said to me of Thanksgiving, "I won't used canned." (How is that for status?) Anyone who is my friend and might have invited me to eat with them is leaving town.
I went into the 99 Cent Only store and Christmas music was blasting. I hate to go shopping to the theme of yet another holiday being celebrated weeks before it should be, the music being used to create anxiety in me that I need to spend more money and shop for it.
Someone made me an extremely improbable job offer as the Next Great Thing For Me. I tried to be open minded. Do I really want to leave the county for a more rural area where there might not be anything much to do in the evenings?
C 2018 Christine Trzyna
This one is also going to be especially awful.
What makes this one especially awful?
I'm bitten up by NoSeeUms - ie. insects I never see or feel on my skin that have left me itchy and scratching. I actually think some of these are spider bites. Others? I hear there is a tiny Chinese mosquito that likes to live indoors: people are closing their toilet seat lids and dumping their dog's water bowls more often. I have bites up and down my arms and legs, on my chest. I've been wearing pants and socks and long sleeves to bed but it seems no use. I've never been so bitten up in my life.
I have a sinus headache due to the terrible fires in Malibu/Calabassas. I used to travel out that way and go to Broad/Zuma/Point Dume so I watched news coverage to see if I recognized anything burning or burned. This devastation and that of Paradise, California has got me feeling down. And all those people waiting for End Times are including these fires as evidence.
Turkey is no big deal these days. People, including me, eat it all year around. Along with stuffing and green beans and cranberry sauce. Someone recently said to me of Thanksgiving, "I won't used canned." (How is that for status?) Anyone who is my friend and might have invited me to eat with them is leaving town.
I went into the 99 Cent Only store and Christmas music was blasting. I hate to go shopping to the theme of yet another holiday being celebrated weeks before it should be, the music being used to create anxiety in me that I need to spend more money and shop for it.
Someone made me an extremely improbable job offer as the Next Great Thing For Me. I tried to be open minded. Do I really want to leave the county for a more rural area where there might not be anything much to do in the evenings?
C 2018 Christine Trzyna
11/18/18
LOTTERY : EXPERIENCE TEN : CHRISTINE TRZYNA WRITING WORKSHOP
LOTTERY
One million tax free dollars and you have to spend it in 90 days.
Christine Trzyna
C 2018 - 2025 Christine Trzyna
All Rights Reserved including Internet and International Rights
OK to use in not for profit situations. Please credit me. It's karma.
Christine Trzyna
C 2018 - 2025 Christine Trzyna
All Rights Reserved including Internet and International Rights
OK to use in not for profit situations. Please credit me. It's karma.
11/11/18
DIFFERENT: EXPERIENCE NINE : CHRISTINE TRZYNA WRITING WORKSHOP
Write about your first experience of encountering someone of a drastically DIFFERENT view point about religion, politics, or some other controversy.
Christine Trzyna
This exercise is part of a series of writing exercises and to bring up the whole series use the tag Christine Trzyna Writing Workshop.
C 2018-2025 Christine Trzyna
All Rights Reserved including Internet and International Rights
OK to use in not for profit situations. Please credit me. It's karma.
C 2018-2025 Christine Trzyna
All Rights Reserved including Internet and International Rights
OK to use in not for profit situations. Please credit me. It's karma.
11/9/18
PAINTED OVER - A MEMORY OF BEING AN ARTIST
I was known as "the artist" when I was a teenager, maybe the best artist in my small high school at the time. I became part of the art world early.
One time we had a substitute teacher in the art room. She took herself seriously as an artist - beatnik. She showed up wearing a black felt tammy over her hair and a long white shirt. She took her brush out and started painting over my painting of an imaginary landscape. Apparently my face fell. Though she probably meant to show me a technique, with one of her own brushes, rather than the ratty old brushes my football obsessed high school managed to budget for, when my face fell other students noticed. They corralled me to tell me they saw my face and that it fell and commiserated. How I must have felt.
So this was a small canvas that I was working on. The school budget was so dishonoring of artists that teachers had to go to thrift stores and buy used canvases they thought could be reused.
I was dating someone who had a car. Maybe one of the few who had a car of his own and an allowance to put gas in it. Apparently a lot of people called him for transportation. One woman in particular. When she heard he was dating me, she wasn't pleased. He wasn't on call for rides anymore. So one day she went into the art room and gessoed over my almost complete landscape. I got there just in time to identify this canvas as mine and to wash the gesso off before it dried. Painting saved.
So the painting was then exhibited in one of those glassed-in cases down the hall from the art room. A student one year ahead of me apparently felt competitive. He went in there and without permission took my painting down and put his up. He was caught.
A teacher took his down and put mine back up. (He would also compete with me to design his senior class play set. Actually his set was much better because the play he was working on was far more interesting than my senior class play. He went on to be the set designer for a city theater. He managed to give me a dirty look or act haughty when we passed each other in the halls for a year. Rarely was anyone so jealous of me.
My landscape I gifted to my boyfriend with the car. His mother was proud of the painting or maybe even me. I watched as she got a nail and hammered it into the plaster. She hung the painting up above the entrance to his bedroom door. This was a very big deal. His father had designed the house to have perfect thick plaster.
We broke up. I don't know what happened to the painting after that. I have a vague memory of the size and composition of the landscape. I recall that I put a sun in it. There were long grasses.
I suspect that one day my painting was thrown in the trash or maybe donated. But you never know. It might still hang on a wall somewhere with my painterly name in the corner using a very fine brush.
C Christine Trzyna 2018
One time we had a substitute teacher in the art room. She took herself seriously as an artist - beatnik. She showed up wearing a black felt tammy over her hair and a long white shirt. She took her brush out and started painting over my painting of an imaginary landscape. Apparently my face fell. Though she probably meant to show me a technique, with one of her own brushes, rather than the ratty old brushes my football obsessed high school managed to budget for, when my face fell other students noticed. They corralled me to tell me they saw my face and that it fell and commiserated. How I must have felt.
So this was a small canvas that I was working on. The school budget was so dishonoring of artists that teachers had to go to thrift stores and buy used canvases they thought could be reused.
I was dating someone who had a car. Maybe one of the few who had a car of his own and an allowance to put gas in it. Apparently a lot of people called him for transportation. One woman in particular. When she heard he was dating me, she wasn't pleased. He wasn't on call for rides anymore. So one day she went into the art room and gessoed over my almost complete landscape. I got there just in time to identify this canvas as mine and to wash the gesso off before it dried. Painting saved.
So the painting was then exhibited in one of those glassed-in cases down the hall from the art room. A student one year ahead of me apparently felt competitive. He went in there and without permission took my painting down and put his up. He was caught.
A teacher took his down and put mine back up. (He would also compete with me to design his senior class play set. Actually his set was much better because the play he was working on was far more interesting than my senior class play. He went on to be the set designer for a city theater. He managed to give me a dirty look or act haughty when we passed each other in the halls for a year. Rarely was anyone so jealous of me.
My landscape I gifted to my boyfriend with the car. His mother was proud of the painting or maybe even me. I watched as she got a nail and hammered it into the plaster. She hung the painting up above the entrance to his bedroom door. This was a very big deal. His father had designed the house to have perfect thick plaster.
We broke up. I don't know what happened to the painting after that. I have a vague memory of the size and composition of the landscape. I recall that I put a sun in it. There were long grasses.
I suspect that one day my painting was thrown in the trash or maybe donated. But you never know. It might still hang on a wall somewhere with my painterly name in the corner using a very fine brush.
C Christine Trzyna 2018
11/4/18
HOUSE : EXPERIENCE EIGHT : CHRISTINE TRZYNA WRITING WORKSHOP
Design your HOUSE in heaven ; the architecture - interior design - landscaping.
Christine Trzyna
This exercise is part of a series of writing exercises and to bring up the whole series use the tag Christine Trzyna Writing Workshop.
C 2018-2025 Christine Trzyna
All Rights Reserved including Internet and International Rights
OK to use this post in not for profit situations. Please credit me. Send me love. It's karma.
10/28/18
ADVICE : EXPERIENCE SEVEN : CHRISTINE TRZYNA WRITING WORKSHOP
What ADVICE have you given someone else that you yourself would never take?
Christine Trzyna
This exercise is part of a series of writing exercises and to bring up the whole series use the tag Christine Trzyna Writing Workshop.
C 2018-2025 Christine Trzyna
All Rights Reserved including Internet and International Rights
OK to use in not for profit situations. Please credit me. It's karma.
C 2018-2025 Christine Trzyna
All Rights Reserved including Internet and International Rights
OK to use in not for profit situations. Please credit me. It's karma.
10/21/18
THE ONE WHO GOT AWAY : EXPERIENCE SIX : CHRISTINE TRZYNA WRITING WORKSHOP
Write a letter to THE ONE WHO GOT AWAY
Christine Trzyna
This exercise is part of a series of writing exercises and to bring up the whole series use the tag Christine Trzyna Writing Workshop.
C 2018-2025 Christine Trzyna
All Rights Reserved including Internet and International Rights
OK to use this post in not for profit situations. Please credit me. Send me love. It's karma.
10/14/18
FIVE YEAR OLD SELF : EXPERIENCE FIVE : CHRISTINE TRZYNA WRITING WORKSHOP
What were you like when you were FIVE YEARS OLD?
Christine Trzyna
This exercise is part of a series of writing exercises and to bring up the whole series use the tag Christine Trzyna Writing Workshop.
C 2018-2025 Christine Trzyna
All Rights Reserved including Internet and International Rights
OK to use in not for profit situations. Please credit me. It's karma.
C 2018-2025 Christine Trzyna
All Rights Reserved including Internet and International Rights
OK to use in not for profit situations. Please credit me. It's karma.
10/10/18
EMPLOYED - HOMELESS - HUNGRY : TALKING TO STRANGERS
I remet him on a tourist tram. He was using the free tram to get to free showers.
His story several weeks ago ignited my desire to write to Bernie Sanders. So I did. A few days after Bernie announced his ideas about going after the richest of the rich, such as Jeff Bezos of Amazon.
The man - 40 something - had been working for an Amazon warehouse, he said. He had not made enough to rent in the area - not yet. He was doing a good job. He was neat and clean. He looked fit. His hair was short. He's a WASP. Then they found out he was sleeping outdoors, which is called sleeping rough. They called him a bum and told him to get out of there. OK, maybe there is more to the story, such as differing opinions. But I believed him.
I wish Bernie had not used the term Socialist Democrat when he was running for President of the United States because we Americans are afraid of anything Socialist. Is it Socialism or is it Judaic-Christianity? The real thing - not the greedy, materialistic, the hell with you, I got mine, that some of us now associate with both groups because of our personal experiences with them - is what Sanders endorses, even if he never set foot in a church or temple.
Someone once told me it says in the Bible that there will always be poor people. The Bible again... as a Big Excuse. If you want this country to be "one nation under God" (i.e. God first, country second) if you want this to be a "Christian country" think about it. What would the Jewish radical Jesus do? What would a genuine human do?
Where are the psychologists on the front lines of social change? I learned in Psych 101 that one of the goals of the profession was to make the world a better place. I also learned about the needs pyramid. Basically, it is not true that poverty makes you a better artist (or a better anything). Actually, you produce best when your basic needs are met. Only then can you go beyond survival. Being an artist is often like being a surfer; it helps if you grew up with wealth, this I learned to be true through the years. You only have the audacity to be an artist when you're poor - and then you're usually exhausted from working for a living - too exhausted to paint. Asking someone who does not know where they will sleep safely or who does not have enough to eat and is stuck in survival scrounging for their basic needs to be met to also work full time is asking a lot - too much. All their resources are to stay alive.
Is there enough? Are we really the "richest country?"
The man who got fired by an Amazon warehouse left the county where he was working and homeless to come back to LA to be homeless and find warehouse work, which there is plenty of, especially in the business of shipping packages from Amazon or forwarding them. He's got the skill of a fork lift driver, that helps. Will he ever make enough to afford to rent?
Ask yourself when you order from Amazon how you are complicit in this scenario.
On the tourist tram he had good news: the local Work Source had sent him on some interviews and he'd been hired to start in a few days. The bad news? He had already used his EBT benefit (turned on as a restaurant benefit - i.e. fast food - due to his homelessness) for the month. He also had no money for bus fare to get to the job in three days. It would then be the middle of next month before he saw either GR or a paycheck. I wanted to give him the bus fare but didn't have any money on me to do that. I was able to direct him to a local place that has a community meal outdoors.
Gracie and I decided to go by there at the end of our afternoon. We saw him sitting alone - with a pile of food in front of him - a few extra sandwiches on the side.
He put a forkful of pasta in his mouth and grunted. He speared another forkful. He was eating fast - like someone who hadn't in days. A tear sprung from his eye. He lifted his head up to look at the sky - or maybe Jesus or God - and said, whispering, Thank You!
C 2018 Christine Trzyna All Rights Reserved
His story several weeks ago ignited my desire to write to Bernie Sanders. So I did. A few days after Bernie announced his ideas about going after the richest of the rich, such as Jeff Bezos of Amazon.
The man - 40 something - had been working for an Amazon warehouse, he said. He had not made enough to rent in the area - not yet. He was doing a good job. He was neat and clean. He looked fit. His hair was short. He's a WASP. Then they found out he was sleeping outdoors, which is called sleeping rough. They called him a bum and told him to get out of there. OK, maybe there is more to the story, such as differing opinions. But I believed him.
I wish Bernie had not used the term Socialist Democrat when he was running for President of the United States because we Americans are afraid of anything Socialist. Is it Socialism or is it Judaic-Christianity? The real thing - not the greedy, materialistic, the hell with you, I got mine, that some of us now associate with both groups because of our personal experiences with them - is what Sanders endorses, even if he never set foot in a church or temple.
Someone once told me it says in the Bible that there will always be poor people. The Bible again... as a Big Excuse. If you want this country to be "one nation under God" (i.e. God first, country second) if you want this to be a "Christian country" think about it. What would the Jewish radical Jesus do? What would a genuine human do?
Where are the psychologists on the front lines of social change? I learned in Psych 101 that one of the goals of the profession was to make the world a better place. I also learned about the needs pyramid. Basically, it is not true that poverty makes you a better artist (or a better anything). Actually, you produce best when your basic needs are met. Only then can you go beyond survival. Being an artist is often like being a surfer; it helps if you grew up with wealth, this I learned to be true through the years. You only have the audacity to be an artist when you're poor - and then you're usually exhausted from working for a living - too exhausted to paint. Asking someone who does not know where they will sleep safely or who does not have enough to eat and is stuck in survival scrounging for their basic needs to be met to also work full time is asking a lot - too much. All their resources are to stay alive.
Is there enough? Are we really the "richest country?"
The man who got fired by an Amazon warehouse left the county where he was working and homeless to come back to LA to be homeless and find warehouse work, which there is plenty of, especially in the business of shipping packages from Amazon or forwarding them. He's got the skill of a fork lift driver, that helps. Will he ever make enough to afford to rent?
Ask yourself when you order from Amazon how you are complicit in this scenario.
On the tourist tram he had good news: the local Work Source had sent him on some interviews and he'd been hired to start in a few days. The bad news? He had already used his EBT benefit (turned on as a restaurant benefit - i.e. fast food - due to his homelessness) for the month. He also had no money for bus fare to get to the job in three days. It would then be the middle of next month before he saw either GR or a paycheck. I wanted to give him the bus fare but didn't have any money on me to do that. I was able to direct him to a local place that has a community meal outdoors.
Gracie and I decided to go by there at the end of our afternoon. We saw him sitting alone - with a pile of food in front of him - a few extra sandwiches on the side.
He put a forkful of pasta in his mouth and grunted. He speared another forkful. He was eating fast - like someone who hadn't in days. A tear sprung from his eye. He lifted his head up to look at the sky - or maybe Jesus or God - and said, whispering, Thank You!
C 2018 Christine Trzyna All Rights Reserved
10/7/18
ANOTHER VOICE : EXPERIENCE FOUR : CHRISTINE TRZYNA WRITING WORKSHOP
ANOTHER VOICE
Christine Trzyna
This exercise is part of a series of writing exercises and to bring up the whole series use the tag Christine Trzyna Writing Workshop.
C 2018-2025 Christine Trzyna
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