DAWN OF THE DEAD
Monday, June 16th, 2008“It’s time to move out! Breakfast will be served in the square across the street,” the Latino man sang out. It felt really early. It seemed like a church with the altar vacated and the worshippers stretched out on the floor and in the wooden pews, left behind like lost souls stirring and squirming under blankets hiding from God. And I was among them, just as lost, just as confused, looking for salvation—or a meal. The woman next to me rolled out of her blanket and still had on several layers of multi colored fabrics including stocking cap. The feet in the pew above me reached for the floor and stumbled; a man grunted and moaned. As the announcement was repeated many of the clumps of blankets didn’t budge. I got up quickly and found my way to the front door where I thanked the Latino man and walked out the door to try to blend in to the dawn of the living. The Square across the way was a gathering place for a few other early risers but I just kept walking away with a bit of shame and disappointment and a misplaced sense of adventure. A bus took me to Santa Monica where I slept in the park and then walked on the beach and washed my feet in the cold ocean under the warming sun before finally catching a bus back to downtown where a blanket and a space on the floor was granted for the night’s sleep in the hallway at the City Hall Annex in a room filled with people of all sizes shapes, flavors and ages until the next morning when it began again. I joined others in the square across from City Hall for a breakfast of scrambled eggs and toast and coffee before I rode the bus to Santa Monica and walked for miles before finding a safe place in a mall to sit and write and nurse a cup of coffee.