Well, after arriving at the Miller oasis on Saturday, and having a couple of days to feel safe, sleep, and enjoy the reverie of my courtship with Nancy – reality reached out and smacked me in the face again yesterday.
It all started when I decided to go out and run some errands. As I picked up my key ring, I saw the house key was still there. Whack! What’s the point in carrying around a key that fits a lock on a non-existent door that led into a home that’s no longer there? Almost cried just looking at that stupid key.
Then as I went out to run the errands, get a pair of shoes, pick up some new glasses that had been ordered after a trip to the optometrist a couple of weeks ago, and get a P.O. Box so that we could have an address for mail (after all, are you a real person if you don’t have an address?) – errands that two weeks ago would have taken about and hour and half – now take six. One of the things you quickly learn in the School of Refugee is that there are always lines, nothing happens quickly. Whack!
But the coup de gras came after I arrived back at the Miller oasis. Opened up my laptop to check on things and derive some soothing balm for my awfully inconvenient day. What I wanted was encouragement of friends and family, to be told what a good and holy man I am. What I got was reality hitting me upside the head again. After wading through the obscene volume of spam from people trying to sell me walk-in-tubs, new gutters and windows, insurance, and untold other useless offers for an illusory “better life,” there was a post forwarded from a friend about the plight of my Latino / Latina neighbors who were going through the same experience of fire, smoke, and evacuation as me – only their plight is so much worse. Whack!
Yes, this is the most difficult experience of my life. But being a documented white man with good insurance and a wonderful employer (Providence Health System) going over and above in ensuring my family’s needs are met – I have a wonderful and deeply appreciated safety net, my dear Brown-skinned undocumented neighbors don’t. Whack!
While I can escape the worst air quality on the planet by entering a clean, quiet, air-conditioned, atmosphere – they do not have that option. No government aid is available to them. Many can’t even access the free food and clothing available at the many distribution centers because when you don’t have a car, or gas to put in it, you just can’t get there.
These are my neighbors. Human beings that work and live in the same valley I do. Mothers and fathers who love their kids as much as I love Nancy and Elijah. Yet our experience is worlds apart. How can this be? How can this be a just a fair society?
I know these are complex issues, with layers of difficulties and a long history of failed attempts to rectify. But when you’re in the same cauldron and you can see the disparity of suffering up close and personal the sheer absurdity of it all is overwhelming. Whack!
I remembered a line from Anne Lamott that, “becoming a writer is about becoming conscious.”
I didn’t want to be conscious. I wanted to be comatose. I felt so many things I didn’t want to feel. The intense poverty of my Latino / Latina neighbors was maddening, Whack! My own sense of entitlement and privilege was embarrassing, Whack! The ineptitude of our culture to let this reality exist was infuriating, Whack!
It was all too much for me, so I just went to bed.
Now it’s 1:30 in the morning again, and I’m awake, and I hope to God I come out of this experience with more compassion, understanding, and an ability to actually ease the way of my neighbors who are not nearly as fortunate or documented as I am. Please pray for me.