Homelessness and the Heart (the World)

"Home is where you hang your hat" - Mike

"Home is the place where, when you need to go there - they have to take you in." - Hemmingway

"Home is where your heart is" - Charlene

How do I differ from other homeless people?
For starters - I don't. We are all the same. I've never felt that separation between me and poor people. At times there has hardly been one. My Dad used to pick up hitchhikers, and hire guys that were practically homeless for his contracting / house-painting business. Everyone talked. Those guys talked about the same things everyone else did, being all men: women, politics, money, cars/trucks, and women.
"You can't save the whole world, Pat." "they'll drain you dry in a big city like this.." That was said to me in Vancouver - no criticism, but the speaker knew I had lived in Toronto for a year as well...
I went out for coffee with a friend in Van the other day, we ended up having beers and dinner instead, and he insisted on paying - because he's employed and I'm a mendicant vagabond. I had forty bucks in my pocket for the coffee and whatever else might come up, so the next day - I still had forty bucks.
I stopped to chat with a dude outside Capers on West 4th Ave - he was around my age, said he had just gotten out of detox a few days ago - I asked for what. Heroine. I didn't blink, but I did inside.
Inside I said, "Thank fxxk, God, and everything else that I never went there, that I've never fallen down that rabbit-hole.." We chatted some more, I had given him two bucks when I came up, then he said he'd been sleeping outside since he got out. We could both tell it was gonna be a cold night.
He mentioned that the shelter he liked would cost 20 bucks. I changed the topic and thought for a minute while talking about other stuff - then switched to lawyer mode, stopped smiling, looked him in the eyes and said, "if I give you 20 bucks are you going to go there?" He said yes - that's what he wanted, a warm bed and to try to get his life on track. I heard those voices of friends and past co-workers - "They'll just spend it on drugs." "Don't give them money.." And I heard another voice - one that said, "there, but for the grace of God - go I."
He said the people coming out of Capers all ignored him - that he'd only gotten 2-3 bucks all afternoon - which pisses me off to no end. We live in such a place of privelege - to walk into this store and buy all the healthy, raw, organic, fresh, delicious food we want -to support health and happiness. Anyway - that's their path.
My path was to give that guy twenty bucks.
I remember back in those days as a kid, watching my Dad talk to people, he talked to everybody, King and pauper - the same way - open and warm - and I remember observing: that all people really wanted was human contact, to be understood.
When I don't have money I still stop and talk, when I have money I can give - I do. Being single and footloose - "I pretty much do what I want." Because internally that is what's legitimate for me - I haven't tried to enforce any rule on myself - I approach the people I meet every day as my equals and brothers/sisters. Sometimes tough love is right - sometimes people just need a hand.
Homelessness has been an interesting discussion point along this journey, and honestly - I am both homeless and with a home. As I mentioned before - I've had a lot of fun with people by saying "I'm homeless," and been surprised by people's reaction to it - as if I couldn't fit into that 'class' reserved for the poor, drug-addicted and homeless - people who beg, and steal, and would borrow too if anyone would loan them anything. My point is  - that I am part of that class - they are actually simply people who don't have homes. Other than that they are diverse, like me, and like you. Alcoholic, or bad spellers, or selfish, or self-sacrificing, hurt, hoping, somewhere between birth and death, heaven and hell.
I'm in Tofino today, not many homeless people - it's too rainy and cold at this time of year. Luckily, I have some nice couches to surf. I stayed with friends at a beautiful house on the hill overlooking Clayoquot Sound last night - we chatted this morning over breakfast about Ken Wilbur and integral theory - I am one of the luckiest homeless guys in the world, I must say.
But I'm also very lucky these days, and I appreciate it deeply - because of the home I do have, one that many people don't, whether they have a place to live or not:  my home is my Self, being with who I really am - and I can be there any time. I am there all the time, if I choose.
And - my home is also the World: this planet Earth / nature, which I love every inch of so much. And the World in the sense of 'what is outside of me' - I realized years ago that for many people what is most important for them is home; their house, family etc, and for me it's not - it's my role in the world - this is ultimately where I find redemption, expansion, answer, me.
And the World in the sense of - all the places I haven't been yet: China, Singapore, Laos, Madagsacar, Gautemala, Bolivia, Argentina, Tuktuyaktuk, the River Ob, the MacKenzie River, Japan, Mongolia, Hawaii, Philipines, Ethiopia, Lebanon, Turkey, Spain, Australia -  you get the picture..  = Travel. The World.
Home is where your heart is. A friend painted that on the back of a little gift she gave me years ago, I've mentioned it before - a prized possession. I am who I am. My heart is in myself in the world. I love being "homeless."

Home is where you hang your heart.