It's "hospitality day" at Trinity House and so, despite getting in late, I want to get up to witness the hospitable festivities. The frying pan gong sounds for morning prayers and I rush around trying to look semi-decent (I assume the Catholic anarchists who have taken a vow of poverty are not so much going to care if I manage to style my hair or put my make-up on). I walk into prayer a bit late and am a little surprised as I see three very young women in pjs and no one else. I hadn't expected teenagers, somehow, but M., one of the full-time Catholic workers is only 19 (and has about the coolest mohawk/semi-shaved head hair-do I've ever seen. I keep wanting to pet it as if it's some exotic animal...but I resist). I actually feel a bit put off and yet again encounter all of those -isms lurking in my soul--this time ageism. We finish prayers and a couple of others filter in. Mariah gives those of us who are volunteers and interns some jobs to do as the house prepares for hospitality day--we'll make breakfast, do laundry, and open up our bathrooms for showers for any homeless or others in need who might drop by. C., one of the guests at Trinity who lives in the backyard in a tent surrounded by lovely glass art pieces and one of the Trinity House beehives, begins cooking--eggs, potatoes, tortillas. I don't know C's story, but I am guessing that he was formerly homeless and is now living at Trinity as a guest (for up to a year) in order to try to find a way out of homelessness. He tells me he loves it here. And it's obvious. He's constantly cheerful, talkative, smiling. He seems jovial even.
The rest of us help with the food prep and cleaning, and soon our first breakfast guest arrives--S.. She's a regular and looks distraught. She doesn't want anything to eat but just drinks coffee. As cooking and cleaning is under control C. suggests I sit and chat with her. I feel nervous and self-conscious but sit down at the table with her. She tells me that she's really upset because she got drunk last night, which she's not supposed to do (she's in a rehab group at the Salvation Army) and called her "old man" who's currently in another state and left him a bunch of messages. She's worried he's mad at her for drinking. She'd been planning to go live with him but now worries that he won't have her. Her phone is out of minutes and so I let her use mine to call him. She leaves another message. She calls to check her bank balance and finds that she only has 64 cents. Though she has an apartment currently (she's been homeless on and off for about the last 30 yrs) she says it's a bad living situation and she wants out. She's also has a car but is worried it'll run out of gas if she drives. We talk for awhile and drink coffee and then I go into eat. I offer her food again and she declines. We have more guests now--J., who's charming and shaky and keeps pulling a thin robe he's wearing as a shirt tighter around his bare chest. G, J's brother and his wife L, and D. who's clearly very well-educated, and one of the only homeless or near-homeless who frequents the house who doesn't have a current addiction. L talks with me animatedly and is very polite. G. tells me through near tears about losing his father and one of his brothers when he was young. L and G and J all live in a shell of a house--they say it was burned down by a gang. M. tells me that all three of them are addicted to hard drugs and alcohol. L's arm is clearly injured and she tells me that J hit her and broke it. I later ask M. about it and she tells me that J and G and L fight constantly, but generally L and G physically abuse J who sometimes retaliates. J "turns tricks," M. tells me, saying the other two only keep him around for the money and that Trinity House tried to help him leave bcs of the abuse. He refused. M and the other long-term people in the house know all of these guests well and ask them questions about their lives, their recent hosptial stays, recent jail stints. I've seen the homeless fed and "ministered" to, but never really related to like this. The normal line of separation that keeps those who serve separate from those who receive just doesn't seem to exist here. We all eat together. We all talk. S. wanders in and out like a lost ghost and tells the group that she's sad. M. looks at her and says, "Oh, I'm sorry. Is there anything I can do to help?" S. says she doesn't think so. I notice that I'm surprised by M's response and then wonder why. I realize that it's because I'm so used to seeing the homeless and the poor treated as objects--either of contempt or of demeaning pity rather than as people who deserve to be related to just like anyone else in our communities--not as objects to be fixed or ignored. S. begs me for my phone again and leaves her "old man" another message. She sits on the couch silently while the rest of us eat. D. begins leafing through Natl. Geographics and showing the group stories and images that seem especially powerful to him. We talk about massive caves of crystals and newly discovered species, talk about what it would be like to be the photogropher who gets to go around documenting these strange, wonderful, surprising parts of our world. L. marvels at how much D. is always wanting to learn. People come in and out as they take turns in the shower. They use the house phone. They talk some more. They clearly know and respect the house rules (no one in the house's bedroom areas, you can't leave and come back--too many people getting high or drunk and then returning). I've volunteered in places where those sorts of rules seem sort of demeaning or fear-based; here they feel more like a community agreement made out of respect for all in the community, much like the expectations that the CWs and interns and volunteers all agree to abide by in order to make life good and safe for as many as possible.
As the morning goes on, a few people do the breakfast guests' laundry as the guests eat and shower. I stay and talk with people. Finally S's "old man" calls and she comes in beaming. "He called and isn't mad and now I'm happy! How co-dependent is that?" she asks. I can relate and wonder how much more my struggles with emotional dependence would intensify if I was always on the brink of homelessness. I can't really fathom any of these people's lives, any of the tragedy and disasters and human evil that went into each of them ending up in their current place. But I can still relate. We can still drink coffee together and talk. I love this model--treating the poor and homeless as guests, as community. I love that Trinity House serves breakfast right in the dining room where all of the house-members eat all of the time rather than in some sterile public building. I love that we've been here for 3 hours and talked and hung-out. I help clean up until a bit past the end of the morning shift and then tell M. I'm going to head out for my "mini-retreat" that I've scheduled for that evening as well as the next day.
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