Invisibility

So despite what Kev says that one shouldn't be surprised when, after offering Horde tea and hugs they still decide to mistrust my intentions and blast me right back to the Spirit Healer....
:-)

I am still continually surprised by how much goodness I run into. Just now, Larry (Yes! Larry!) stuck his head through the door and alerted me that there is icecream in the lunch room again - after noting that I had missed out on yesterday's offering. Isn't that sweet?

Today I passed a long-coated sleeping figure stretched out on a patch of grass along the North side of 4th Avenue, right next to a shopping cart full of bulging plastic Safeway bags. I often wonder what treasures these bulging plastic bags hold. Whether there is a story for the items so tenuously attached to the constant migration of presence.

And I wondered if these peoples' stories are ever told. "Hobos", my kids have learned to say, and I discuss with them the sadness of lack of choice of such a life. Shoppers on 4th Ave stepped over the sleeper as if he was no more than a slightly misplaced pavement stone.

What are we, other than our stories? And where are we, if our stories are untold? I wondered whether I could possibly do some telling. Sandra?

The crazy guy in the alley behind the Cambie street appartment declared to the world that "the Anti-Christ is here in our midst" and that he "is ashamed of Christians chopping down trees in celebration of a pagan feast" to nobody in particular while staring sideways here and there and shaking his fists. We pretend he's not there. All these people. And we only feel safe when we pretend they aren't there. Isn't that the biggest sign of disrespect?