There’s a man who lives in a field just a few blocks from my apartment. I see him every day on my way to work and am always torn between feelings of joy, heartache, and a touch of envy.
I’m joyous because I find the sight so utterly beautiful. This man has turned a barren plot of land into a home simply by bringing to it his constant presence. He has embodied the true meaning of home by filling his lot with family and friends, surrounding a fire together at night, sharing stories, sharing lives, all without the modern entanglements of tv and radio, indoor plumbing and clocks.
I lived in Kenya for a year, and while there visited a friend’s home in Litein, a small, outlaying town of Kericho in the western region of the country.
In this home, dinner lasted long into the night, the whole family sitting, relaxed, in the living room on couches and on the beautiful area rug at the center of the room. Candles lit the night as our hands served for utensils: uniting each of us with one another, and uniting our bodies with their source of nourishment. Conversation was easy, free flowing; laughter was consistent and song danced on the tips our tongues.
Somehow I felt bonded to these people, as though this were my own family, as though I belonged in this foreign land with its melodic language and dark skinned people. We were one.
Upon returning to the states, I have tried for such a night, such a connection with other people, yet only experiencing glimpses of it here and there, like in Michigan one night with my American family.
We vacation together once a year at the end of the summer, the whole lot of us. We wait until the heat of august gets too impossible, ‘til the pressure of another school year is upon us, and we escape to a friends cabin on a small lake in western Michigan. It’s more of a house than a cabin really. Close family friends recently turned their three very rustic cabins into one very large house. What used to house a very tight 10 now comfortably sleeps our 25; bathrooms that once followed the “if it’s yellow let it mellow”-rule, now have multiple sinks, large mirrors, updated plumbing and 3 full showers.
This last year it rained nearly every day of our trip, causing aunts and uncles, cousins, sisters, nieces, nephews and our grandma- the matriarch of us all, to be stuck indoors for the majority of our week. On one particular night, there was a storm so powerful that it blacked out the entire town. Nothing was visible as our eyes searched the dark night for signs of power, signs of life. The silence that overtook our normally boisterous house was eerie at first as we became even more isolated in our now small shelter. We felt as though we were the last people on the planet, which for those who know my family is a scary thought.
But something happened that night, with the TV acting as nothing more than an elevated candle stand. Preexisting family patterns seemed to fade as toddlers now had no bed-time, as poker became an all-ages, all-genders game, as smokers couldn’t isolate themselves out by the fire and non-smokers had no reason to pass judgment. We stayed up late, laughing over cards, talking over glasses of wine, hovering close to candles and flashlights, all wanting the night to go on and on.
In my own imagination, the man I see living in a field experiences such beauty, peace and community each night as the sun sets and his only reminder of this modern society is the street lamp flickering a soft orange glow overhead.
But part of me knows that can’t be true. I’ve taken enough sociology classes and understand too much of urban structures and systems to see my daydreams about this man’s life as nothing more than naïve and idealistic.
I know those lots are empty from abandonment. The gentrification happening around the hospital and around the university just blocks north have pushed previous inhabitants further south.
I know the city would rather have a string of empty lots to deal with than blocks and blocks of abandoned houses and buildings, where crime can breed and taxes go unpaid.
And I know the high rate of prostitution and drug dealing that happens within my idealized field of empty lots, reminding me that the “friends and family” which surround this man’s campfire each night are probably not singing songs and playing cards.
Being reminded of the systemic injustice that plagues our cities, that’s continued to push the poor further south and further out toward the suburbs, hurts my soul. I don’t know where to put that kind of pain or how to process the knowledge that this man is probably not living outside because he wants to commune with nature and re-experience the simplistic lifestyle we humans were intended for. Bur rather, he’s living outside because he can’t afford to live inside.
No matter how intangible the concept of home may be at the intellectual level, at the material level four walls and a roof cost money, they cost a constant stream of money coming in and require a lot of social capital to obtain.
Still, I can’t help but distinguish this man from the myriad of other homeless men I encounter on the streets downtown, those that smile politely reminding little ol’ white-girl me that they’re not going to rob me but just need a buck or two- those that ask me if I want a shoe shine or if I’ve ever been a model. Those men truly seem to fit the notion of homeless to me as they walk the streets, carrying everything they own in a stolen shopping cart or bundled up in a soiled blanket.
But the man in the open field has a home, his plot of land with boxes and crates lining his boarders, cars parked in the street out front, a fire roaring in a trash can at the center of his lot.
Why hasn’t he expanded? I wonder as I view his home from the train. Why does he continue to abide by plot lines, by previous city ordinances? He could inhabit the whole block, or the whole field for that matter. He could widen his boarders and live on an acreage if he wanted, and acreage in the middle of the city. But then he’d be just like the men downtown that see the entire city streets as their domain, wandering where they will, carrying everything the own with them each day. By sticking to a few structures, this man seems to be destroying so many more. Its as though he’s saying, “screw the system.” “Screw the system that tells me land should cost money, and those who say I don’t deserve to be settled, to build a home because the minimum wage is too low for me to afford one.”
He’s reminding us, reminding me, as the train passes by his home on my way to and from work each day, what home is really about. I go to work to make money, and that money is applied directly to the apartment I live in, so that I can continue living down town and going to work each day. He reminds me daily of the dangerous cycle I’ve entered into.
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