I Got Shy
I started this website to share my life, my warrior work with others. Well, to share my LIFE with friends and family, both those known and those not yet met.
So I started writing posts and got very excited by the vulnerability, the truth-sharing, the reflections. It’s a mighty risk for me to write a few paragraphs and recklessly publish it - without reworking it 400 times, without carefully editing the parts that perhaps show me off in the most accomplished light.
A little over a week ago, I went back and read a post I had written called HOMELESS TOTALLY DESPERATE and felt quite chagrined (noun: a feeling of vexation marked by disappointment or humiliation. I had to look it up to make sure I was using it appropriately). Oh yes, chagrined is the perfect word.
The post came across to me as…very…middle class. Very sort of: “EEEk, I saw a homeless person and now I’m upset. Eeek - I’m suddenly aware for the first time that people exist who don’t have money.”
Well, that’s how it read to me. I was embarassed by the ‘how-can-I-fix-it’ tone, and disappointed that despite my thinking myself a liberal person, my reaction was still so…”EEEk, I saw a homeless person…”
Sigh.
The result has been that over the past few weeks I’ve had lots of stories to tell…and when I sat down to type I kept seeing that HOMELESS TOTALLY DESPERATE post in my mind and I would invent a reason to do something - anything - other than write.
Do you really wanna know what kept visual image kept popping up in my head?
A scene from Sister Act. (The first one.) Whoopi Goldberg is failing to keep a low profile at the convent where she’s hiding out, and while a news story airs praising the local convent for revitalizing the neighborhood, the mobster’s trashy wife (never to be seen after her one scene!) turns to her pool-playing husband and says, “Hey Vinnie. We should send them some money. They’re do-good’rs.”
It’s not pretty. She’s all Spandexy in her Vegas, glitzy (and trashy) living room watching nunnery virtue on a big-screen TV. The irony of her wealth, and how very little it would mean to her to send say…$1000…is a fleeting, split-second of that movie. And yet, it stayed with me, apparently. The insulated life this one-scene-character must lead, how crime and poverty are figments of TV’s imagination.
And whenever I reread that post, or just thought about it, I saw her monsterously thick, firetruck red lips parting to squirm out, “Hey Vinnie, We should send them some money.”
Ugh.
Maybe I’m as insulated as she is. Maybe poverty and crime are just as removed in my life. Granted, I don’t think I need to move into a crack-house to really get the inside scoop on crime…but the thought of really how wealthy in material goods I *am* was/is weighing on me a bit.
I don’t have bank accounts stocked with six-figure balances…I don’t have expensive hobbies or gamble or drink to the point of spending more than $40 per weekend. However, I do have plenty of food every day when people in a 1 mile radius from me do not. I buy comic books each week. If my car breaks down, well, that blows. But my life doesn’t careen out of control with each unexpected bill. It often takes a toll…and I recover.
These reflections about my relationship with money, middle-class, and the homeless guy made me shy. Afraid of posting again. A little bit vexed and ashamed. Possibly humiliated. What’s that perfect word? Oh yeah…chagrin.
And then I thought, ‘Fuck it.’
This is who I am.
I don’t have the answers to homelessness. I can’t figure out everything. And the reason why I sound like middle-class is because I AM FUCKING MIDDLE CLASS! Sheeeeesh. Get over it. The one thing I can do, is to look at my shadow around possessions and money, economics and my relationships with the have-nots…I can do that. In fact, that’s pretty much the best I can do. Look at those shadows and then let that guide my actions.
If I stop exploring these uncomfortable truths - I start to close down.
And that’s the exact opposite reason of why I created this website.
The reason why I haven’t posted much lately is because I got shy.
Then, I got over it.