I dropped my daughter off at school this morning, and as I headed back towards the river, I passed underneath the bridge and through a homeless encampment. It looks like all of the people there got their tents from the same place. They were different colors and slightly different sizes, but they all had the same primary color bottoms and grey swooping overhangs. They were neatly lined up in rows with an occasional shopping cart or tethered dogs to break the line.
That part of the city always makes me feel guilty. I wasn’t raised Catholic, but I’m a convert. Either I acquired the guilt as an adult, or I converted because I had inherited the guilt from distant Catholics ancestors, passed down as a genetic trait, like my brown eyes or my bendy joints.
I feel guilty because of the culture that was destroyed when the interstate was put in place. That interstate makes my life easier, and it destroyed the neighborhood. I feel guilty because I can’t feed everyone who lives there, and I can’t bring their dogs to the vet, even though they clearly need it. I wear guilt around me like a cloak; it weighs me down and makes my steps heavy. Guilt for things that I can impact and guilt for things that I will never touch.
I leave the tents behind and cross the river, still misty in the morning fog. On the Gretna side, there is a hospital, suburban and squat and plain. As hospitals go, it is small. I had a minor surgery done there last year and there was a roach in my room. It smells more like a vet clinic than a medical facility for humans, and some of the equipment is literally fastened to the wall with duct tape. The people are kind though, and efficient. My father-in-law’s needs are met and they are running the right tests.
It is amazing to me how many different blood tests can be done from just a few vials per day. I guess it doesn’t take that much blood to see a microscopic protein or count how many red blood cells are in a square inch on a smear if that’s how they do it. I’m not entirely sure, since I do money, not blood components.
He is alone when I get there — my husband left ten minutes before to catch a quick shower before work. We overlap when we can, but sometimes it is impossible. The room is quiet and the machines hooked up to every inch of his frail chest and arms are unavoidably loud. They beep, hum, vibrate, all to different rhythms, closing my chest and throat as I feel little flutters of panic to the uneven beat. I breathe in, count, breathe out, and sip my coffee. He opens his eyes and sees me, and we commune in peace, breathing gently together.
Balance 