A Call Away
(From A Place To Stay)

by Kelly Robinson

Published: July 1, 2009

Me? Homeless? Really? Really

The majority of Americans only think of homelessness when someone tries to clean their windshield at an overpass intersection or holds out a cup asking for spare change. Maybe it comes to mind when they see it on television or when a mother and her child are spotted sleeping in a storefront doorway.

That is sort of how it started for me. I was in my twenties, on the trip of a lifetime in San Francisco when I was stopped short by the sight of a woman and her filthy baby sleeping away the heat of the day in a doorway. The baby opened its eyes and looked right at me. Something in that scene hit a raw nerve and I cried until the friend I was with finally was able to calm me down the next day. That vision of them huddled together stayed with me, but as things do, with time it faded away - lost to the misty memories, both good and bad, that make up a person’s past.

For the next twenty years, my life ebbed and waned, splashed like huge waves hitting the breakers and then calmed, only to start the cycle again - over and over. It is the story of many lives, especially those who have an artistic spirit and are given to following whims and dreams and ideas.

Always, though, there was the veneer of respectability. I had the right resume, pedigree and cheekbones to open all of the right doors. As with most great times in our lives, I didn’t really appreciate it while it was happening. It was like a scripted story playing out before me and then one day the plot twisted unexpectedly and it went from a fairy tale to a cautionary tale overnight. Life was pretty great and then, without warning, it wasn’t.

I was just passing forty when I woke up one morning to the incessant sound of a phone ringing. I was in a hotel room, on the move from one job to another, and the phone call was to give me the news that the job that I was to start that same day had been cancelled. I was on my own, in a strange town, a small amount of cash in the bank, but not much, and a minivan that had just gone from being my transportation to being my home. A flicker of fear started in my stomach and grew and grew until it consumed me.

I always thought that if the unthinkable happened to me that I would remain calm, cool and collected and would just handle it like I had “handled” every tsunami that had ever threatened to wash away my life. This wave, though, was too big, too unexpected and frankly, I just wasn’t in the right frame of mind to gracefully weather it. I went from employed with a place to live to unemployed with no home in the blink of an eye, and that resourceful side of me that always saw a way out was temporarily blinded. Instead of seeing the answers, all I could see were diminishing returns.

The first thing I did, after I finally put a dam on my tears and slowed the waves of fear that made my heart pound so hard I could hear my own heartbeat, was to start weighing out my options. I counted my assets, did the math and started figuring out what was best for me. For me alone. Always before I had others I had to consider. This was the first time I was completely alone, and if you have ever experienced that feeling of belonging in the company of others to being a complete outsider, you know the permanent knot it grows in the shadows and dark spots of your soul.

Later, after my life had finally landed back on high ground and I was no longer on the outside peaking in, those knots in the shadows remained. I would never again feel fully safe. I would never again be fooled into believing that homelessness happens to other people. I still feel, to this day, that I have one foot in the door and one foot just inches away from no longer having a door.

The funny thing, though, was that even as all of this was happening, even as I watched my life melting away, I knew that someday, when these floods of fears and tears were but another misty memory, I knew I would write about it. I had already been a writer for more than half of my life, so really it was just logical. What I didn’t know, though, was that even as the years put distance between me and those hard times, the desire to write about it would grow rather than fade away. The passion to make a difference, to put voices to the nameless faces would grow and become my life’s work. I didn’t see that one coming. I’m glad. Had I known, I might not have experienced everything so fully and deeply. I might not have let it make fundamental changes to my very core.

Now, I am the voice crying out in the night, keeping you aware that as you lock your doors and pull the covers up to keep you warm, there are those who have no doors, no covers and no peace of mind. I am the words that educate you about the millions of people, people just like you, that have been cast off and pushed away as just so much riff raff. I am the person sitting next to you as you dine, the neighbor who watches over you and cares about your plight. I am no longer homeless, but as America downsizes and shifts in its shoes, I am the one who is trying to tell you that it only takes one phone call to render you homeless. I am you.

Editor’s Note:   Part 2 of this series, “The First Day,” can be found here.


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