Sitting on a Sidewalk, Reminiscing on the Joys of Homelessness

Sitting on a Sidewalk, Reminiscing on the Joys of Homelessness

Commentary by Andy Pope | FāVS News

This is getting to be fun.

I recently moved into my new apartment in Moscow, Idaho, and I don’t have Internet yet. You might find me sitting on sidewalks with my laptop for a while. I thought about going into Mingles, but I just don’t go into bars. Something about them is — Just. Not. Me.

Earlier my laptop and I were working on the chained table at 6th and Main, directly in front of the Latah Recovery Center.

About five students walked by. One of them said: “Hey you! We think you’re on drugs!”

“Why is that?” I queried.

“Your typing, man. It’s the beat. You got the rhythm, man. You got the beat.”

Beginning to wonder exactly who was on drugs, I decided to play with them for a while.

“Actually, I really AM on drugs!” I said, lying.

“So are we!” another kid replied, telling the truth.

“Saturday night!” I shouted.

“All right!!” they all retorted, before jaunting farther down Main Street.

This reminded me quite a bit of a few pleasant moments in my past — when I used to be homeless — and carefree — and sat with my laptop on Telegraph Avenue — and watched the world go by.

My blood pressure was a lot lower in those days.

Right now, I’m on 3rd Street leaning against the south wall of the Artista Cafe. And like I said, it’s fun.

I had to step out of the dark apartment and log on to send some music to one of the people working on my current project.

The cops have driven by three times. (Of course they have — it’s almost closing time at all these bars I never enter.)

The first time, they waved.

I waved back.

The second time, I was lost in a gigantic ADHD deficit and talking aloud to myself with great animation. As the cops drove by and eyed me curiously, I tried to act as though I were intentionally delivering an oration onto some form of audio editing software, as though to legitimize my insanity.

Throwback to another time, another place. Nobody in Moscow needs for my insanity to be “legitimized.” Everybody already knows I’m crazy, and nobody cares.

When they drove by the third time, I half-expected them to pull over and say: “Andy? What’s gotten into you?”

But they only stopped on the other side of Main Street and parked. They seemed a lot more interested in the drunken students than they were in me.

(Sigh. It had been starting to become fun.)

Oh well. Guess this isn’t Berkeley, nor is it the year 2011, when I began to experience homelessness as a state of gigantic spiritual liberation from all the alleged evils of the American Mainstream.

I hung with people who had similar visions. We had meaningful conversations. We played guitars and sang on sidewalks. We all thought — however erroneously — we were “free.”

And my God, I was so much healthier then than I am today! But if I were to become homeless now, after nearly seven years of softly living an easy life in North Idaho, I bet I wouldn’t last five days — let alone twelve years.

C’est la vie. Here’s to dreaming.

Guess I’ll head back home and enjoy a good night’s dream on all the cardboard I have crafted for my mattress. My two comforters also bring nostalgic joy to the occasion. Only this time, I don’t have to pack them up and hide them when I wake up in the morning.

This time I don’t have to shuffle my tired bones into the Berkeley Fellowship and wait for the third cup of coffee to wake me fully.

This time my coffeemaker awaits me with morning love.

I may never be homeless again. But that doesn’t mean I have to forsake all the things that were good about homelessness — or at least about homelessness in Berkeley.

So the next move is — I get an acoustic guitar. I start strumming again. I start singing again. And my song need never stop.

People often feel sorry for me when they learn I was on the streets for as long as I was. They just don’t get it.

I wish they would feel proud of me instead. I survived all that insanity. I survived all that indignity. And I lived to write a musical about it, which as far as I know is the only full-length musical about homelessness written by someone who has actually lived it.

And embraced it, by the way.

So, before you express any concern about my well-being, please consider that I might not need your concern.

I don’t even need your compassion, nor do I require your empathy.

What I need — is your respect.

It is amazing after all I’ve been through that I am even alive today, let alone healthy. I am not a pity case, and my situation does not warrant your sorrow.

It warrants your joy.

Oh — by the way — four cops just walked past me on the sidewalk, laughing about something. The cute brunette cop turned her head back and gave me the nicest smile. Anybody know her name?

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