Constantly I’m asked why. Why radio? Why paint? Why do you hide behind music? Why so much energy in daily writing?
Does there have to be an answer?
While accidentally knocking over the cherry wood laptop writing desk, dark bluish purple ink wasted no time to dance on the unprepared cool wooden floor. Because you can’t put spilled ink back into its well my imagination instantly began to think of the words that wouldn’t make it to my daily writing. Then it occurred to me that I put too much trust and faith in tomorrow and not enough leadership in the given moment.
A trait I blame on radio. Show me an air talent that isn’t planning out a break 20 to 30 minutes or longer in advance and I’ll show you a beginner or someone on the way out. Radio jocks don’t live in the now; everything that transpires requires the same ingredients a book demands: beginning, middle and end.
Poets, writers and storytellers don’t cry over spilled ink. We find worry in the act of what could’ve been.
When it comes to writing I’m a total sick-o. I preach it like a nicely dressed well determined church going minister on call whose goal tonight is to stand on this rugged sweat stained corner and warn the masses of the second coming.
Being a writer and living the path are two different expressions. Knowing the identity of each personality becomes the depth of a page.
Although I still hold handwritten scratches dating back to the second grade, I still remember the day a purpose fell from the birds butt above and hit me in the heart. In the way an artist’s painting sits quietly on a living room wall exposing separate stories from different sides of the sofa a journey to live out the tale of a writer had no choice but to begin.
Like millions around the world, Julia Cameron helped reopened multiple paths with a language that poked through the darkness school teacher’s so often explain as being too far out there.
Mrs. E shouted out in 11th grade Billings Senior High Creative Writing, “Is that the way I showed you how to describe? It was you who elected to take my class and ultimately it’s me who’ll decide if you’re going to pass.”
I laughed out loud at the Transiberian Orchestra concert last week when a well respected radio talent peacefully said, “You wander while writing and yet I find myself following.”
That said…we now begin.
Upon your computerized canvas 2012 The Journey Back To America sits still with a hidden wish to be opened but not lived unless it becomes the case. Then, maybe the only thing owned by many who helped me share this blog can give to you a simple teaching of what schools continue to cover up because homelessness is something they do in a different class, sometimes the basement or near the end of the long hall closest to the door they arrived.
I don’t want to be a radio disc jockey sporting a writer’s jacket therefore I’ll rely on the challenger of my daily writing; a character dubbed The Interviewer. He has no face nor voice yet when asking those that volunteered their paths to be studied their words become the pick, the hammer, nails, knives and spoons designed to replant the seeds of something all too many don’t have in making choices on a trail nicknamed Horizon.
If you’re frowned upon in the avenues of life to call someone a former Marine; shouldn’t the warriors of the streets be looked upon the same?
I won’t call Scott a former homeless man because his journey back to America is vividly painted with lessons that e-books and those still baring hard or soft covers won’t print and in many cases political leaders are tired of hearing about. Backs are turned, subjects are demolished by bigger mass appeal situations and the act of understanding a self taught art of survival is the farthest from their nearest success.
The Interviewer plays by one rule to never ask more than five questions during a single meeting.
12/5/2011
Interviewer: The average household in 2011 is two to three paychecks from being homeless...when did you know your path was headed for a collision with the obvious?
Scott: When my car broke down after I got it fixed and I didn't have any more money. I had no car at that point so it was quickly coming.
Interviewer: Could you have prevented homelessness from happening in your life?
Scott: Ya know I at time could not have prevented it. It was out of my control and my mother never got it.
Interviewer: Give me three physical signs that showed the changes that lead to
Homelessness.
Scott: Not exactly sure if there are signs I think people make mistakes not knowing their road is gonna end. I think we live in an illusion that we have more support in our life's then we truly do. I hear people always say they would have the support I didn't. All I did was have a $165 car repair. No drugs no divorce no drama just a car repair.
Interviewer: In an age of families melting back together, some apartments featuring two to three different groups at one time. What could you have done with distant relations that may have prevented you from living on the street?
Scott: I assume maybe if I cried louder or kept begging I would not have been homeless but when your family says, “Son we are doing very bad ourselves.” At the time the entire country was going through hard times like we are now.
Interviewer: Before being homeless when did you feel fear for the first time of it basically being the only way to go?
Scott: Honestly the night that the shelter wouldn't take me. The next night was the scariest because the night before I slept out in the cold. With a card board box as my shelter and realizing they only had so many spots and if I didn't get in each night I'd have to spend another night sleeping in direct cold. That still scares me every day. I have never really got comfortable thinking that it can't ever happen again. I see people take relationships every day that they dissolve and people move on. Point is we all seem to think the reality we live in is some kind of fact or controllable. Like everyone would understand and help you. Fact is in this country we seem to only understand people that over come not ones that have to go through what needs to be overcome.
arroecollins@clearchannel.com
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