I am not supposed to be here. I belong in a row house in Baltimore. I should have all my belongings in that house. One clean, nice, dark grey suit. A white shirt. A black tie. One pair of black dress shoes. Two pairs of black socks. I wear this outfit on Sundays when I preach at the community gym just a few blocks down from my house. Otherwise, I have a pair of tennis shoes, a couple pairs of khaki pants, one warm sweater, and some t-shirts. I have a simple desk and a laptop, but no home internet access. To go online, I go to the coffee shop – my de facto office. I take meetings there all day and night. Rarely leaving the double table in the back corner. At home, I use the computer to write. With no distractions. I sleep maybe 4 hours a night because I have to write and I have to get ready and I have to be up and people are counting on me.
But, I’m not there now. I’m here. Here where I pass a Dollar General downtown from which emanates the soft scent of despair. Recognizable, painful, and definitely Dollar General. Even the Dollar General stores in the suburbs take you to another world. Gently hopeless. Not oppressive or angry or hungry. Just hopeless. Softly breathing the scent that says, “not today.”
A woman at the counter pays with coins. Puts an item back (a loaf of bread) because she only has $2.10 in dimes and nickels and I stand and watch; a fresh twenty dollar bill in my wallet, a pack of gum and a Big Red in my hand. And this despair seeps onto the street, announcing “not enough, but it will do.” Whispering, more than announcing. Beckoning those with a few coins or a newly won dollar bill or the remnants of their weekly check, cashed on Friday and mostly gone by Tuesday.
But I don’t live downtown. No urban life of clubs and shows and entertainment and apartments with views and pools. No, I don’t have to stay with those who put back the bread they were going to use for sustenance until Friday comes again. I live in the leafy suburbs. The land of plenty. Ugh, such a horrid cliché. But true, really. By plenty, I mean comfort. A place to hide. To pretend that your own misery isn’t that miserable and that the hungry, hurting people you see aren’t real.
But I’m not supposed to be here. Not at all. That’s not where I was heading. Not where I’m stopping. Except I have stopped. I watch, I critique, I write about the comfort that sucks you in even as I’m sucked in, ensconced, unable to escape.
And why would I leave? To go to a place with one tiny bedroom, a closet, just one suit and a few aging clothes? To be needed, desperately sought out but not really compensated. Why would I want that as my existence until I’m too old to take care of myself?
So, I am here. Lulled to sleep. Lured into a fuzzy, flexible morality. Not really certain of … anything.
There, where I am supposed to be, I know. I know who I am and what I stand for and what I’m doing. But, I’m not there.
