The Experience: Beasts Of Burden; Din of Inequity

The Grind Of The Mind 

There becomes a process of routine by which one has to adapt  to psychologically maintain semblance of order and the sense of progression and sanity simultaneously: you can not continuously be reminded that, in all reality, you live on the street, even if it is inside an aluminum-sided, wooden framed living space where your heat and electricity do work, it still has 6 wheels and a license plate,its still an RV .


You still reside in a vehicle..though it has beds, a dining area, an operable stove that runs on propane and functional bathroom with a working shower stall. It still has a steering wheel connected to the motor. This is our 'home'...


But it's still a vehicle.


 We live on the streets in our vehicle. A 'motorhome', yes..but this not a vacation in the wilderness. It is a family residing in a vehicle that has to wrestle with parking safely at night, keeping fuel levels up enough to run the generator, which powers the coach  lights and water pump on the daily. Propane levels have to be monitored for the stove operation as well, so that we can actually cook food. There is even a  refrigerator on board, but works intermittently. Fresh foods bought or donated are consumed almost the same day to prevent spoilage and food poisoning


Another tenant of this reality: I am still unemployed. Joblessness happens, but an extended period of time and trying: sending, on average 2-5 resumes out per day for 4 months with no offer of work, shades your optimism, coupled with the compacted (and not entirely safe) living situation. Having to don a suit for interviews (when the opportunity actually occurs) becomes a challenge, because as one attempts presentability:  you have to carry on as though your a million bucks..when your bank account is -$75.00, and you live in a vehicle..


and you have been battling illness for a month and a half. And you still have to interview, make casual conversion with the Director of the Security department who is monitoring your every response to check for any 'chinks' in your personality that could disturb the ebb and flow of his department by hiring you. The game face has to stay intact, even though you have constant congestion, and you have been deaf in one ear for nearly 2 and a half weeks, because the intensity of the congestion , as you have discovered  from a previous visit to the clinic , has pulled down your eardrum over the bone in your left ear.


Yep, carrying on like your ready to rock, yet you have to strain just to listen and respond on cue..because your deaf in one ear: your illness is having an extended holiday using your immune system as a swimming pool and spa, largely because the weather-proofing in your RV (which you live in with your family), is about as well-insulated during cold nights as an empty soda can, Your never really 'rested' at all, just rebooted without the luxury of completely unplugging to benefit capacity to recover. Water, caffeine, nicotine, sudafed and amoxicillan become an actual augment to your diet just to function.


All this combined turned an already doggedly difficult circumstance in to a grind that at times, tested the very fibers of my own sanity. The symptoms of which where not going away quickly, and finding respite from this addled state became somewhat of a battle against a sort of mental claustrophobia: I couldn't escape my physical, and couldn't find that 'quiet spacing' mentally. 


Pushing forward became monumental. Yet, there I was in mid March conducting an interview with a hotel Director who needed someone with experience, as the plethora of applicants (totaling 75 by his account) did not possess what he was looking for in this single job opening he was seeking to fill quickly. From what I was starting to gather  over this 45 minutes of questioning and casual conversation, he had made up his mind.


But it would take nearly two more weeks, and second interview with Human Resources to find out.


There is a quiet but alarming pathos that can develop when your homeless. It can overtake you without warning, and the longer the displacement, without any concrete evidence of progression that is palpable enough which to draw hope from can occur. It can create complacency, unhealthy acceptance of kestasis, materializing itself as a sense of 'comfortable' compliance and resignation..


You become used to it.


The 'New' School: A 'Different' Corruption

The children had spent 2-3 years of their collective development being home-schooled, as the Los Angeles School system was absolutely without meaningful academic compassing, and had placed focus on numbers to retain its funding per child per school rather than render meaningful education that enhances knowledge. Since 2007, American schools have seen a rise of lay-offs, school closures, pension raiding and being a tool for both local and national political posturing by both 'parties'. this toxic cocktail had resulted in the schools themselves in L.A. turn into nothing more than wherehouses for funding: fiscal favoritism based  on how many families ask for meal assistance through school lunch programs , which for a school, turns into a sort of ancillary revenue stream to bolster funding from local, state, and federal sources. Clearing state mandated levels of academic performance through standardize testing has become the primary revenue generator. The school system has been reduced to nothing more than a self-interested institution more concerned with its survival through these means rather than maintaining focus on meaningful curriculum and enrichment.


It has literally become a factory of 'shit in, shit out' for children, a place where mounds of homework is stuffed down the throats of students; and parroting information is more the goal  for clearing yearly state mandated testing every May, rather than developing skills children need to manage their academic lives and improve their cognizance skills. 


Having to home school them in a stable environment since our displacement was no longer feasible; they had to return to a brick-and-mortar school until we could find permanent residence. My wife and I also needed time during the day where focus on elevation out of this displacement could be given more attention.


My wife and I had enrolled at them Monarch Academy: a school directly serving the need of San Diego area homeless children in March. The school was a gold mine, as it not only provided a proper school structure for our children, but also three meals a day for students, and meals to homeless parents twice a week. They also provided 'shopping days ' assigned to each class every six weeks, where the children 'shop' for clothes (all new, unsold inventory donated by local business and individuals). Provided, also, was the option for children to shower at school as well. Toiletries and towels were regularly donated for their use.


The day before my children were to start, my son had expressed excitement about returning to school, in the hopes making new friends, and my daughter was extremely anxietal: worried she would not make any. It appeared, at first glance, that my son seem to also be given a sort of 'reward' for all the challenges he had faced  being patient and strong: he had been enrolled just in time for an opportunity a curious-minded lover of the outdoors could only possibly dream of:


An all-expenses paid field trip with his new class to a wildlife research facility stationed on Catalina Island. All his outdoor explorations and exploits seemingly to culminate at this well-suited apex...


My son had never been away from 'home'; from us. There were controversial feelings that resided within my wife and I. For two months, it had been just the 4 of us, which had brought a closeness that still resides to this day, and suddenly, there was this spectacular thing my son was being given. My wife was not comfortable with setting him out under these unusual cirmstances. I had reservations, so I asked him what he thought. His answer?


"I want to go!"


And off he went: his first day of school he was on a bus bound for Long Beach: himself and about 20 other homeless children from his class all crowding into the chartered bus in the evaporating night sky giving way to early morning; chattering loudly as kids do knowing a repreive from the mundanity of scholastic routine was upon them. To honor this auspicious occasion, we elected to bring the 'home' with us to give him a proper send-off. We pulled the 25-foot beast around the corner to an adjacent parking lot, opened the side door , handed him his back which was meticulous put together for him the night before and walked him to the loading area in front of the school.


As my son took his seat in the middle of the bus, I remember the promise I made to him: that I would land this job I was currently interviewing for.


'Dad..get that job..get us a home..I want to come back to that. I think you're going to get it.' 


While this was going through my mind, and my wife's emotions began to overtake her seeing her only son leave the sanctity of family for the first time, the celebratory air of pre-dawn was ripped by an obnoxious voice belonging to a frail and obtuse looking young lad wide-striding toward the bus as if to announce his presence to all within earshot..


'I'm sexy and I know it!', his lanky, spastic frame bouncing nervously by us, then  disappearing into the bus itself. He then suddenly stopped at the presence of my son's new  teacher, Dana Harwood, whom was standing mid isle, and I studied passively for a minute. She then directed him to take charge of the other students. The boy then turned around and stared at my son with an odd look of immediate disdain.


As the bus departed in that moment, my wife turn toward me asking "Do you think that kid is going to be a problem for our son?." It was a question that would unveil itself in the coming months, and expose yet another force of corruption: that being one of the psychopathy of 'celebrity'.


A very complex relationship in regards to Monarch Academy and its charity-based status.


This relationship, as  I would soon witness directly , compromises  the safety and welfare of these students for the sake of such 'public relations'. The evil being the allowance of violent behavior of a few students that damages the majority, who are already damaged, to continue.. so that certain senior administartors can have the opportunity to be portrayed as heros on talk shows and cry accordingly ..all for dramatic effect, and shameless self-promotion and advancement. This is the dark side of a 501(c) school which draws 45% to 60% of its operating costs from public and private donations; dependent on its public persona as a safe haven for families displaced. The nuance being between that of  the most unique sanctuary for at-risk children in the U.S. who have the genuine need so that their education is not completely compromised, yet being a repository for ego and manipulation through certain 'poster' children who are exploited for the goal of profit in the form of donations...


An April 2012 episode of Ellen Degeneres featuring Joel Garcia, Monarch Academy Principal, whom is being awarded for his 'heroic efforts'. It is unfortunate his 'heroism' did not lend itself to providing my son a safe environment to attend this school, and was more focused in preserving certain 'poster children' to continue this type of public relations and adulation  unabated.  Amazing how even the slightest bit of celebrity can corrupt one. But , at least the 'crying' is convincing..perchance Mr. Garcia should've been an actor..


As in all adversity, the weight of the emotional  outcome is decided by the parents. I would see in these controversial and strange three months a strength emanate from both my children that will shape thier very character for years to come. The return to public school life would be a hard transition for both, in particular my son, beyond the expected 'norm' of pre-adolescence.


These are 'the days', spectacular in the unbelievable harshness and bare exposure to elements both in the physical and the mental ; the reality of being 'in  battle', as we are still ultimately 'alone'..it was redifining all of us. Quietly.