“What about you? What is a word you like?” I asked Sarge, who was sitting on a chair outside Street Roots playing músic from a small speaker — a calming mix of electronica from his Pandora channel. A vendor and an ambassador for Street Roots, Sarge was helping manage the ebb and flow of vendors through the Street Roots door.
“Eclectic,” because, he said, people who are eclectic “usually are less problematic.”
Anthony, another vendor, selected “grip,” looking down at his hands: “Everyone grips for a time. Your hands grip things.”
Dennis Chavez, who sells Street Roots at the Portland Art Museum, chose the word “success.” Why? “It keeps me alive.”
As with each word someone said, his take caused me to think.
Welcome to a morning at the Street Roots office. Like elsewhere in the city, much of the banter happens outside these days, and vendors have stepped into a number of leadership roles.
Char was handing out supplies — toothbrushes, hand sanitizer — and serving coffee to other vendors, another role vendors have stepped into during the pandemic as a way to carefully manage cleanliness and hygiene.
“How about ish?” she said, laughing, “Because everything is ish.”
I love how flexible the English language is, that it keeps bending.
Ish, in fact, entered the Oxford English Dictionary as an adverb in 1986, defined as “qualifying a previous statement or description, esp. as a conversational rejoinder: almost, in a way, partially, vaguely.”
It’s ours, the language, all of ours, and we add to it; we change it. It’s something that one can possess when they have nothing else. The Greek poet Odysseus Elytis collected words in his book, “The Little Mariner,” as a way to create a journey. In one recurring section, “What One Loves,” he listed words as if he were packing a suitcase:
lament
lampblack
lapping
latch
lavender
lemon tree
licorice
light-hearted
lighthouse
This book is one I keep near, reminded that words are something to savor, and, well, they are free:
In my selection for our Summer Reads issue, “Plastic: An Autobiography,” Allison Cobb pauses here and there to plumb the words she writes to consider their histories: “Concern comes from the root that means to fold or sieve …”Elsewhere, she writes that mercy “means forgiveness for offenses, but comes from the Latin word for “fee, or bribe, wages.” Early in the book she quotes the poet Annah Sobelman — “I am the no and the yes” — and explores that herself. When is she the no? When is she the yes?
In fact, that’s Jason’s word:
“No is my word because I tell my cat that all the time,” Jason said of his black and white cat, Pierre. “He’s always reaching for the blinds or trying to get out the door,” he said.
He pauses and adds,
“Have a nice day is my quote because I say it every day.”
It’s his quote, the strip of language that is consistent, one he carries with him to his vendor post, just like Elytis carries his words with him.
As we all interact more and more in public spaces, we can greet each other again. You can find Jason selling Street Roots in front of REI, where you can ask him what Pierre is up to and share your own greeting with him.
Kaia Sand is the executive director of Street Roots. You can reach her at kaia@streetroots.org. Follow her on Twitter @mkaiasand.
Street Roots is an award-winning weekly publication focusing on economic, environmental and social justice issues. The newspaper is sold in Portland, Oregon, by people experiencing homelessness and/or extreme poverty as means of earning an income with dignity. Street Roots newspaper operates independently of Street Roots advocacy and is a part of the Street Roots organization. Learn more about Street Roots. Support your community newspaper by making a one-time or recurring gift today.
