I came down to interview you about your life for an essay. I came to learn about you, gain insight to your reality, your America Shawna. We talked about the why of it all. You mentioned straight off that you were 24 hours outside of someone ripping off your tent, with all your clothes and supplies, so now you had to room with a buddy in his small tent. I said I’d get on trying to replace that. It was your eyes Shawna, what I saw in your eyes as you kindly asked that your face not be revealed.
”My son’s father just passed away, 43 years old, just like that. I just don’t want my son to have to see me, ya know, like this, on top of it all.”
I listened as you told me what I thought I’d hear.
”You know, I got a bachelor’s degree. I was gonna start my Masters in the medical field before it all went to shit.”
There were so many words spoken in that short sentence, I heard them all. I told you that I was honored to be working with a group of economic, development, and supportive service and housing leaders who had an idea. A stellar idea to bridge the housing gap for folks like you, right in the middle of one of this nations most prevalent economic depressions. We were in the beginning stages. Time, it all takes time. Funny how the antidote always seems a little too late sometimes. We talked about your experience, your surreal experience of being the victim of Trump’s America, a first-hand eye witness to the BLM revolution all while navigating the deadly street life. Feels like a movie, but it’s real, it’s all too real. It all seems so easy, doesn’t it? Take this step, then that step. Then you explained the nuances of always being disqualified for something. Steps.
”You’d apply for something and then find out, some other dynamic of your life disqualifies you, ya know the endless cycle of denial. Waitlists are so long.”
Yeah, steps. We talked about what it is to navigate this hardship, but also feel the pain and witness the injustice of the Black Community. What it is to suffer and watch another suffer in a terrible, unjust way. Poverty is such a torturous abuser. Imagine being its victim and black.
We talked about the future, and what it might look like for you, for me, the victims of racial violence and injustice. Streetlife was hard four years ago, but now? Now it will take nothing short of God, jumping straight into the picture and parting the red seas. You needed medical attention that went beyond my first aid. I gave you the address to CCC’s 12th Avenue clinic you were relieved to learn about that resource. We parted ways, a dismal and sinking feeling that always creeps in when you review a dark and impossible place.
I went home and rifled through my closet and medicine cabinet. A woman in between jobs myself at the moment, thanks deconstructor of all things stable, COVID-19, I’ve not much at my disposal, but I pulled together what I could.
It’s when I met back up with you Shawna, to give you the supplies, that moment will stay with me like the prevalent memory that it is. You brushed your hair back and found a bright colored hair wrap. You found some makeup and applied it. Primrose pink lipstick. I imagined it had been a while. Your eyes changed. You felt something, I wish I knew what that feeling was. That feeling that said today, I wear the Primrose Pink Lipstick.
Happy Fourth of July Shawna. Here’s to the future. Let hope right?
I swear I can hear God himself sing Hank William’s ‘Hey Good Lookin’ to you now.