Dear Readers,
I have moved three times in the last month. I spent two nights at the home of Peg and Joe Healy in Albany, settling Onyx the cat into her temporary home. Then I moved to a twenty-day house-sit on Howe Street in Oakland. And last night I settled into a three-night stay with friends in Martinez.
D&D are very kind. D.J. came and picked me up at Howe Street, waited patiently while I loaded her car with my travel backpack, my day pack, two bags of food, one bin of food, assorted shoes and a box of tea. Despite reading about how to travel light, I am finding it more difficult than expected here in my home country — I am used to having kitchen items, a certain stock of food, more choices of clothing and I am not used to carrying around a bag of files from my filing cabinet. I’m currently carrying more books than I can carry overseas — I found it hard to give up the option of reading some things, although at Howe Street I read novels that L. had recommended and didn’t crack open any of my own books.
D&D provided me with towels and a laundry hamper, showed me the pantry and the electric kettle, told me to help myself to food for breakfast. I had to ask for a step-stool to get into bed because the bed is much higher than anything I’ve ever slept in (The Victorians had stools or ladders to get into their high beds). I found a plug for my laptop and, after ransacking my just-repacked luggage, found the charger and cord — I usually leave it in a specific location in a dedicated laptop bag, but I had stuffed it elsewhere in my day pack.
I still need to lighten my load before leaving the country. I will store my files here in Martinez, mail my books to myself at my temporary forwarding address and consider jettisoning at least one pair of shoes and some clothing. Despite the fact that I am carrying more weight and bulk than I want to, I find I want more things, not less: I want things that I do not have: after several weeks in my black and blue travel clothes I am sick of my “blue period” and long for purple, red and green.
Friday I go up to Monte Rio at the Russian River for at least one night and maybe more. After Friday night I have seven more nights to sleep somewhere before I get on a series of planes to Leeds, England. Rather than finding it exciting not knowing how long I will be anywhere, reveling in open-ended possibilities, I feel anxious, wishing things were nailed down.
“Nomadic life” is a kind phrase for the life I am living now. Technically, I am transient, without a permanent home base. Also, technically, I am unhoused or homeless, although I have a few friends who like to dispute this. “You’re not homeless,” one says, “You’re buying a house.”
Not now I’m not: there is no money for a house until the family home sells and I am not in charge of the sale myself.
Another friend, a good friend, says “Homeless people don’t go to Europe.” Yes, in fact, some of them do — we have to go somewhere — and I had paid for three of these trips and most of a fourth before the latest round of trouble and financial stress started. “Homeless people” aren’t all the same. Some of them look just like you. They used to have money, secure places to live. A lot of us work — you don’t necessarily become homeless because you don’t work, can’t work, or refuse to work: I have worked for pay through the entire transition of my mother’s illness and death, sorting through her belongings, packing up my belongings for moving and storage and bouncing around from house to house. I happen to own my own business. One of my friends who is also unhoused survives by pet-sitting. Please check your assumptions about what it means to be homeless unless you are living that life yourself.
As 12-step programs like to remind people, right now I am okay. I had a bed to sleep in last night and breakfast food this morning. I am currently in a house where I can use the WiFi, take a shower, do the laundry. And I will have all of those things for two more nights. I have a place to go for the third night and, after that, I need to have conversations, make arrangements, find or pay for further temporary lodging.
thekalechronicles 
I know of the stress of not having my own place, my belongings in storage (different ones even, in different places), and the not knowing what’s ahead – the body reacts even when the mind knows there’s a safety net. I was lucky to know that sometime in the future I’d have a home again. It took 6 long months, and the kindness of friends and family helped me along. But for me – and perhaps unlike you, I don’t know your situation – I did know I’d have safety eventually, even if it meant a rented apartment for longer than I wanted. I hope you find that home once your adventures are over. I look back at my adventure 10 years ago and am glad for it.
We are learning more about the unhoused people amidst us as the laws grow more stringent and punishing. There are many types, from people who work but have met misfortune, to those who can barely get through the day without demons visiting, and everyone in between. I hope solutions can be found sooner rather than later.
Thanks, Nancy. I have reasons not to share more of my story (and I don’t know how it is going to turn out), but I am safe tonight — and for the next week at the home of friends in Monte Rio.