Friday, June 13, 2014

The Other Side of the City

It's amazing how quickly it can all fall apart. How easily someone can snap leaving disaster in their wake. How suddenly hopes and dreams can shatter. How fast someone can go from having it all, to having nothing. How unexpectedly someones reality can collapse around them.
I've been lucky to always have enough, but as I've looked closer at the people in the community,around me, it makes me even more grateful for the things I do have. I don't mean the people in middle class suburbia, but the lowest of the low class. The 'bums' the homeless, the people who usually don't get a second glance in the street. If you look closely, you can see traces of the lives they used to live. The gold bangle on the girl leaning up against the cheap hotel waiting for her next customer. The way she speaks with a slight east coast accent. The rare shade of dye in her hair. It suggests that she once enjoyed the luxuries of the upper class before being cast out, or running away. The dirty man sitting on the sidewalk with a guitar, busking for his next meal. At closer glance, he is holding a Gibson Les Paul, an $1,600 instrument. The only remnant of a carefree youth spent playing music before the band split up, and fame drifted away to nothing, leaving him stranded with only a guitar and a shattered dream.
Observing these people is heart wrenching, and moving. This is why I have chosen to live among them for a while. I packed a backpack and took to the streets for the summer. I am now writing this in an inner city homeless shelter. I needed a break from family, and I needed a new perspective. So I'm here. And I love it. These people are so open and so friendly know all the secrets of the city. Where to go hear the best music. To meet the coolest people. All the underground street dance clubs. Places to connect with people I would never have met had I continued to live in oblivion. And well I know that I can always go back and resume my life at any point in time, I have no desire to return any time soon. This is my life now, and I love it.

C'est La Vie.
Viva La Vida.
And Fuck the System.
Peace.
Signed, hot_tunes♪♫

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