Mount Pleasant

I'm sure I post about the same things over and over, but I can't seem to help myself. Tonight . . . I'm thinking about my neighborhood.

I went out early yesterday morning to walk less than a block to vote at Grace Memorial United Church. It's so close that even I can almost throw something at it from my third floor bedroom window and hit it. Not that I would, but I almost could.

As I walked down the ramp into the fellowship hall I noticed that the door had been pushed back against someone's overnight squatting gear. There was an empty shampoo bottle, a jacket, and a yellow blanket. I was a bit surprised that the voting day volunteers hadn't moved it, but then again, this is Vancouver East and that sight is not uncommon.

This morning was another early morning as I raced out with the rising sun to make my way to a First Aid course. I drove down my street and saw a woman who had been out all night. She was dressed to impress, cheaply. She looked so tired, quite at home behind the laundromat, and numb to the cold. Though, I'm sure she wasn't. We all feel cold, right?

Tonight as I tried to walk a bit of my dinner and wine off I crossed paths with a police operation complete with three staked out cars, cops on foot, and a focused sniffer dog in search of someone in some dark hiding spot.

So what makes a pretty good girl like me feel quite at home in all of this mess? Mostly, I don't really know. I just know that the broken pieces I see around me look a bit like the broken pieces I name within me.

There is loneliness, curled up in a church's dark doorway.

There is desperation, selling herself on the busy Vancouver Street.

There is heartbreak, hiding in the bushes trying not to get caught.

There is life. And hovering over all of it, though most certainly not fully realized, is a deep and promised hope.