Monarch butterflies lit the tall grass with the heatless flames of altar candles. A choir of cicadas sang an ancient call and response. Dragonflies rested their gossamer wings, careless of my secret admiration. It was the end of August in Hiawatha, Kan., and I was fishing with my father and Uncle Malcolm. The late summer breeze rippled over the meadow and pond, setting my mind aloft and drifting, pulling me back to childhood. I was as close to home as I had ever been.
I was free. Free to recall the sun shimmering through the grass high atop a hill my family didn't own and didn't care who did. Free to remember when the horse bucked my brother over its head the first time — and the second time. Free to wonder at how that tadpole stayed alive by flicking its tail all night while the water froze around it. In that quiet moment, I was there again in the Hollow. Carved out by memories of peach cobbler and snowy gullies where we used to sled. Moments too brief to be anything but a miracle and bought at a price no credit limit can hold. Last summer, Dad and I went back to Pimbina Hollow.
We drove south past the big towns, then the small towns, then the farms. When we turned on Parchcorn Road, we passed under a golden veil into unchanged innocence. The canopy over the dirt roads of the hollow bent light and time, preserving everything better than memory.
The powder blue cottage was just as we left it. The irregular orange bricks of the fireplace and chimney stood like a stack of blocks arranged by a child. The mud room window still cradled the sun-faded, plastic Hy-Vee tubs we used to gather blackberries. I remember pitching rocks at the oak tree in the drive when I decided I wanted to be an author.
We spent my favorite Christmas in that house. Some of the power lines and trees along the creek froze and fell that winter. I read books next to the fireplace by a kerosene lamp, and Dad broke ice over the stream to get water. My step-siblings and I played board games or went sledding during the day. The cottage never held a grief it could not bear, no loss that tears and time could not mend. After losing so many years and loved ones, I felt relieved to know it remained intact.
I was 8 when I left. I am now 32 years and 1,978 miles from home. I left the woods and got trapped in straight lines, paved and plastered. Boxes, big and small, shut out the sunlight and confined my thoughts to tiny screens; pinpoints of a false day that kept me awake but dull. The only time I saw the trees I used to climb was on my way to something more important.
I went to live with my mom. I became her fellow inmate in a prison of bipolar disorder, poverty, trauma and misogyny. Mom’s mania broke my body and terrorized my heart. She threatened me with strangulation and beat me to displace her fear and anger, to justify her husband’s assaults against her. Yet, she sent me out for candy to save her life every time she had an insulin reaction. I never left her house without permission and always rode my bike alone. If I wasn’t with Mom, I was in solitary confinement in my room or on the empty streets of Dunlap. I finally escaped when I showed a social worker the cuts and bruises.
Separated from home, I drifted in a slow downward arc to addiction and homelessness. I wandered the streets of Portland, giving away a little bit of myself every day just to survive. I focused on the next dope bag or place to sleep. I became a consequence of things that happened to me.
Unhoused people face tremendous obstacles to their survival. Thinking about home and lost loved ones is too great a cost to that survival. If I stopped to ponder these losses while I was on the streets, I would have killed myself. I thought about it often enough anyway.
LIFE ON THE STREETS: Family — a subject too painful for words
The shame and pain of seeing others suffering on the streets of prosperity also create misplaced anger among businesses and residences. Housed citizens often blame the sufferer because it is easier to accept than it is to face the injustice of an unfair economy.
My history on the streets is written on cardboard and receipts saying “insufficient funds.” I want to look the other way, just like so many other housed and unhoused citizens alike. I want to wad up those years and toss them in the gutter, but they are part of who I am and who I am becoming.
For the first time in my life, I am dreaming again. I also have the resources and support to actually make my dreams into goals. Two and a half years ago, I was granted public health insurance so I could get into an addiction treatment center. While I was there, I started to just pretend I deserved happiness. That first year in recovery, I knit together a family I chose: people from the recovery community; people in my church; my childhood best friend, Schaana; and my father, the one family member who stayed in my life through it all. I had help from mental health professionals and other social justice warriors, including the hardworking people of Street Roots.
My dreams are becoming my reality. I work as a case manager. I help a number of people in recovery from addiction and other mental illnesses get what they need to be whole. Last week, I was invited to interview for a Master of Social Work program. I hope to start this fall term. Having this degree will kick down a lot of barriers for myself and my clients. I will continue to chronicle my long, winding journey home for others and their allies on the crooked path. May my story of healing be a survival guide to people still on the streets.
Home is more than housing, but housing is the first step to healing. I have pictures from my trip to Pimbina Hollow above my desk at work. Photos of the cottage, the old barn, the big hill up to the frog pond. For the first time in my wanderings, I can see home ahead of me. Someday, I am going to buy a house in the hollow. Someday, I am going home. So, the next time you see someone holding a cardboard sign, please carry with you the words of the spiritual teacher Ram Dass: “We’re all just walking each other home.” Please, help someone get home.
This series is a first-hand account of the struggles and successes of overcoming trauma, mental illness, addiction, homelessness and more.