Memory
Hold...
Losing
the Fight of Recall
Memory
slips When you live on the streets, living without a home for
the
better part of your life, things start disappearing from thought
and
memory recall more and more. As your life centers more about
survival
and instinct, you lose the ability to recall what used to come so
naturally,
now no longer able to pull forth the words, thoughts, memories...
and
they become lost forever in the tidal wave of living without a home.
For
the very fact that life on the streets is wholly consuming.
And
consumes you whole, while at the same time depletes your entire being
from
the
inside out, picking apart your life and body until there is nothing
left to
pick
apart, and it has wiped out any vestiges of who you were.
You
lose yourself and your Self on the streets.
The
simplest things fall to the wayside and recall is no longer an
option.
How
to make something in the kitchen (or make-shift kitchen outside using
restroom
sinks
for clean up and the tables and rocks for cooking on) that used to
come so
naturally
is lost entirely. And not only things from the kitchen, but from
life itself.
The
very basics of living become harder to recall.... did you eat or not,
have you
cleaned
up or not, didn't I need to use the restroom, or not, or did I go.
And you
find
you can no longer easily answer these questions.
Life
becomes measured by each breath taken, and what you are looking
at
in any given moment. What that noise is around you, the scents you
detect.
The
weather. This is what your life transforms into when you have been
denied
living
in a real home for a great portion of your life. Everything that had
been
has
ceased to exist in any realm of the present.
Recall,
something that used to be no problem, has become a real problem.
Sometimes
you can feel the slip of things being removed, other times.... it
goes away
unnoticed
until you try recalling something and find it is no longer there to
recall.
Words
lose their textured meaning and become little more than sound in
spoken
language,
and marks on the page.
And
the longer you are forced to live without a home, the sooner you
cease to exit.
Becoming
nothing more than an afterthought, at best.
Living
in the streets for so long and continually denied any and all
assistance,
I
can no longer tell where I end and the streets begin, and vice versa.
As we
have
become one in the same. And really the only thing I am known for now,
or
rather
what I am known for..as nothing more than a circumstance....
an
iconic landscape for all intents and purposes.
So
does life even matter?? A resounding NO when you are viewed as
nothing
more
than a circumstance of life, not a living, breathing Human being.
Living
on the streets becomes a full time job, one that we are never paid
for
our time or services, but endure the most grueling hours. And the
only
ones
who appreciate the work, are those of us out here, living and
breathing
the
streets 24/7, every day of the year. The sacrifices we are forced to
make,
the
concessions. It never ends. We keep going until there is no more
going,
and
at that pointing, we no longer have to worry about anything; about
whether
or not we will be able to eat; what, how and where to eat. If we are
going
to be warm enough through the night, or have to deal with the
elements
of
nature and nature herself. Animals, insects, elements of weather,
finding places
to
clean up, etc. Or ever have that treasured space called a H O M E.
Because
at that point, nothing will matter anymore.
And
not only will our memories no longer be needed nor recalled,
but
our lives will not be recalled or remembered,
because
after all....
we
are only a circumstance, nothing more.
