October 3, 2001

• How did I ever do this, while I was homeless? 'Course I was six years younger then, and sleeping on a mat with two blankets on an inside floor is a lot different than sleeping on a mat with two blankets on the sidewalk. It's not just the slightly increased resiliency of linoleum over concrete. I used to be grateful for street cleaning machines. They are now the Enemy.
  
  I slept better tonight than last night. I suppose over time I could learn to tune out the traffic, the security guards talking, the buses, the occasional pedestrian like the one who went by the first night dribbling a basketball, even the street cleaning machines. While I was staying in shelter back in '95, I could lay awake at night counting 30 different snores and identify each one -- but I could tune them out and go to sleep when I wanted to.
  
  Tonight the yellow "area closed" tape was stretched across the front of the Admin Building plaza, closing off all access from the sidewalk. We had to make the choice between breaking through the tape and probably getting arrested, or sleeping on the sidewalk. I recommended acting on a gradient, start low-key and work up, sleep on the sidewalk tonight and see what we have to do tomorrow. A few folks wanted to charge the barricades right now and damn the torpedoes, but everyone ended up voting for the sidewalk tonight.
  
  Another quiet night. I'm back home, it's almost 7AM, and unlike most of the rest of the folks out on the sidewalk tonight I get to take a nap in my own bed and have a shower and a hot breakfast, before I do some more work. At noon today our homeless women's group, WHEEL, is holding a vigil for a homeless man who died last week. Afterward we're going to the King County Executive's office with a plaque listing the twelve people who have died alone outside, often of violence, since our first vigil just over a year ago. Above the list is a quote from the Exec himself at a memorial service for people who have died while homeless: "In any other population, this would be considered an epidemic. Let's do everything we can to make sure the list of the dead is shorter next year."
  
  We'll ask him to help make that happen by opening the shelter tonight. Where I and the others sleep tonight -- on the sidewalk, in the Plaza, in the Admin Building, or in jail -- depends on what he says then.
  
  Are you feeling the suspense yet? I sure am!
  
  
  

  To the tune of "Hard Times Come Again No More" by Stephen Foster Let us pause in life's pleasures and count its many tears While we all struggle with our housing forms There's a song that will linger forever in our ears O, Red Tape, come again no more 'Tis the song, the sigh of the weary Red Tape, Red Tape, come again no more Many dreams you have strangled, and woven shut the door O, Red Tape, come again no more There's a pale drooping maiden who toils her life away Filling out all those governmental forms Tho' her voice would be merry, 'tis sighing all the day O, Red Tape, come again no more 'Tis a sigh that is wafted across the troubled wave 'Tis a wail that is heard upon the shore 'Tis a dirge that is murmured around the lowly grave O' Red Tape, come again no more O, Red Tape, come again no more While we seek mirth and beauty and music bright and gay There are pale forms scribbling on the floor Tho' their voices are silent, their pleading looks still say O, Red Tape, come again no more

  
  The comments on Tuesday's entries in the savageweaklink game are an interesting glimpse into how people think about writing, as well as how they write.
  
  To me, writing is a continuous balancing act between being true to what I want to say and paying enough attention to my readers so that I communicate it effectively; respecting the importance of what I have to say enough to craft it as well as I can, without editing myself silent; going deep into myself but also looking outward, listening to others.
  
  Some other folks feel that to go back and edit what they write, to try to craft it, would make it dishonest. And to some extent I think that can be true -- you can overwork what you want to say until you take all the dangerous edges off of it, leach all the fire out of it.
  
  Or they feel that dumping personal thoughts and raw emotion on the page to share with readers is enough; "Take it or leave it." It stumped me at first, and for a long time, why anyone would write in a public forum and at the same time say that they didn't give a damn what anyone thought of their writing. But trying to see from that viewpoint, I think I get a bit of it. "This is what I have to offer. If it works for you, good, but I'm not going to rework it."
  
  I have a moderate version of that attitude. I will work hard to communicate, listen to critique, rework up to a point. And then I just accept that some people aren't the audience for my particular writing.
  
  There are millions of different kinds of writers because there are millions of different kinds of readers. If everyone read the same books the bookstores and libraries couldn't keep them in stock and we'd all be fighting over the dog-eared shreds.
  
  Maybe comparing different writers will always be like comparing quilts to banana bread (at least apples and oranges are in the same food group.) Why don't you go on over to savageweaklink and leave your own opinion?

  • 10:29 am
  • 4 Comments