Safe Ground and The Sidewalks of New York
(cross-posted from my MySpace blog) Denise woke from sleep this morning to tell me of a dream in which the two of us had bedded down on a sidewalk, and a Quaker friend, Judy, walked by and asked us what we were doing there. In Denise's dream, I gave a long answer about the plight of the homeless and the need to be in solidarity, but Denise answered, smiling, "I just love the sidewalks of New York".
My dear friend Kilsoquah (www.myspace.com/bluebirdsarefree ), who lives in Tucson had posted a notice that she was attending an event at The Bitter End on Bleeker Street in New York (http://event.myspace.com/index.cfm?fuseaction=events.detail&eventID=506574.35532), and it occurred to me she might visit us on our patch of sidewalk after the show, in Denise's dream-space.
I think both Denise and I had heard about the demonstrations of evicted homeless people in Sacramento yesterday (http://www.sacbee.com/content/news/story/1994529.html), where some of the demonstrators' statements indicated that Americans are beginning to question the accepted American notion that if you don't have money to buy or rent a house or apartment, you don't have a right to sleep anywhere, to stay anywhere, ultimately even to exist anywhere. We have a comparable group of homeless people in Lowell, where I work, who were driven from their long-time campground a few months ago and are not taking it "lying down".
If we had an execrable president like Mr. Bush, we'd be calling these campgrounds "Bushvilles", but I don't think the phrase "Obama-towns" is going to catch on, because what is needed to end homelessness, and all the related forms of sickness and pain is a revolution, not just a change of regime from TweedleDee to TweedleDum (especially when the "Dum" is so dumb).
Show me the alley,
Show me the train,
Show me the hob who sleeps out in the rain,
And I'll show you a young man with so many reasons why
There but for fortune go you or I
-Phil Ochs