No. For me, the most shocking sights were the passers-by, lost in their cellphones conversations as they strolled past people laying face down on the sidewalk, people who could have been dead for all anyone knew. I guess it wasn't the walkers problem so everyone just kept passing by.
When I went into San Francisco, I saw the effects of Silicon Valley's economic boom, where hospitals, arenas, and other new buildings seemed to shoot up almost right before your very eyes. The rich were getting richer while others, entire families, were getting poorer. Rents sky-rocked and landlords cashed in. (Not all. Mine was the exception, a man who rented to people struggling to avoid homelessness and offering them rent based on ability to pay. But he was rare, I'm sure.)
I started to notice how many people in San Francisco were pulling a suitcase behind them. Though most were probably not homeless, too many of them probably were.
Most people are aware of the mentally ill who are inhumanely released on city streets to fend for themselves, but then here I met middle class homeless. I saw a family of five, holding up posters asking for help to pay their rent. I witnessed a woman in business clothes, sleeping in a doorway in the afternoon. A mother and child walking down the streets of the city, pulling their belongings behind them in suitcases. A woman in business attire, putting her stroller inside her tent before she zipped it up and took her child to daycare.
The most common homeless people appeared disheveled, hair a mess, teeth missing, a belt holding up pants drooping against gravity and an unhealthy body weight. Judge not, though, because many of these people are quite articulate.
I met a poet one time, as I was walking down the street in San Jose. This young man asked me to buy him a sandwich. Of course, I said. He was so excited he wrote me a poem. As we were talking, a well dressed woman in full make-up asked me directions. Being new to the area, I didn't know, but I suggested my new friend, who truly looked as if he had been sleeping outside for weeks, might know.
She could not talk to him or so much as look in his eyes. She kept addressing me and I kept referring her back to him. In the end, he announced the directions and off she went without a thank you.
The homeless in California, because there are so many of them, became a class, and perhaps the lowest class imaginable for this country. They have become America's Untouchables and their camps have become tented "shanty towns," as we have seen in movies about other countries, but never imagine here.
In any case, the American Dream lets too many people down. It doesn't take the variety of cultures and classes into consideration. I spent fifteen years going back and forth to Native American reservations where poverty causes a deep well of problems, and yet the people who live there are so full of wisdom, their collective wealth of understanding could change the world quickly and easily. *Sigh* If only America valued wisdom, particularly the wisdom of ancient cultures that exist here and around the world, America could grow and change like the adolescent culture that it is.
The American Dream —the one family house with a mother, father, two kids and a dog, the vision of "Leave It To Beaver" and "Donna Reed" and even "The Jeffersons" and "The Fresh Prince of BelAir," provided the entire country with only one image of success, that which was attainable only through capitalistic ventures. Work hard, get rich; you, too, can pull yourself up by the bootstraps and be a strong and powerful individual, in your home and in the world. And if that's your thing, go for it. But know that there are indeed other ways of living in which happiness, not material wealth, is the goal.
In my world, the one I have seen with my own eyes and hope to show you, massive amounts of compassion, happiness, and love between friends, families, neighbors and entire communities are possible. I have seen firsthand how living in such a way brings a peace and happiness perhaps not attainable if financial wealth is your goal. One man said to me, "I didn't know people who are poor could be happy."
If being poor means lacking a home, healthcare, a decent education, and being subjected to hatred, then yes, he is probably right. However, the lack of money is not necessarily synonymous with being poor.
Across this country and the world, there are many other ways to live a happy and fulfilling life while avoiding the system that may be leaving you hungry for more experiences, thirsty for the wisdom of the ages, and the longing to be a person who feels grounded and purposeful in the love within their community.
I have been living my own version for decades, and I have glided through some hard times with a lot of faith in the universe, which has never let me down. (I have let myself down, but that's another story. :-)
Keep reading. Down To Earth will be published every Saturday.
I'll be bringing in some really wondrous people to help you see the world in a whole new way.
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