Soulmates & Silver Linings: Zanies & Fools Edition...
Soul Mate: A person who is perfectly suited to another; Someone with whom you share a deep personal understanding...
I’ve always been the type to have a very strong affinity for my friends. Early on, my life experience has always proven itself to be a great example of the catchphrase “God gave us friends to make up for our relatives.” And I’ve always believed that if you’re able cultivate and maintain even just a handful of close, genuine friendships...then life and all its hardships will be just a little bit easier to suffer through.
Now queue, Le Coterie De Shamy; Former members of the underclass, vagrants, vagabonds, rogues, free-spirits, oddities, mavericks, young tramps. Besties and Soulmates. And I’m going to single out one EDP in particular for a moment here; Swift Wind AKA Tyga. (EDP: A term used in the medical field & law enforcement as a way to describe a mentally ill or temporarily deranged person.)
There was definitely an immediate connection between Swift Wind and I the day that we met. From what I can remember, we instantly bonded over a Spider-Man throw blanket of mine that she wanted to jack. I thought to myself, “Awww! She likes cartoons and she’s a thief like me...” And we’ve been like two dummy peas in a pod ever since. It did not take us long before we were able to develop our own, very equestrian dialect. We can be semi absent from each other lives for months at a time, barely even speaking on the phone; but when we finally do link up, it’s like we haven’t skipped a beat. We love and accept each other for who we are and our friendship enhances each other’s lives. And the catalyst for this insane pairing was none other than: homelessness.
So Boom, Check it: Roughly a year after graduating from college, I found myself smack dab in the middle of destitution; broke, a victim of familial identity theft (when a relative steals your identity for their financial gain), and homeless. Now just for clarification: A homeless person is any individual who lacks permanent housing; in all its manifestations. So this includes those living in a shelter, mission, vehicle, abandoned building, or on the street; in addition to those who are forced to crash with a series of friends or extended family members provisionally. That was my life for about 3 years. Except in my experience I’d have to substitute the “street” for those rare nights spent on a fast food restaurant bathroom; and the abandoned building for a closet sized illegal sublet, brimming with mice, Jurassic Park sized insects and dope fiends resting in the stairwell...
Shelter Process Overview:
Everyone is initially corralled at the assessment shelter for The People Under The Stairs (AKA staff) to sift through our information and categorize us as one of the following:
- A family/pregnant mom
- A victim of domestic violence
- Mentally ill/physically disabled
- Or general population
This process is supposed to take only a fortnight but you know it never does. Mine took one month & my cousin’s took about 3.5 months. Once labeled as something, you are then transferred to your permanent shelter where the buck is now passed to your new batch caseworkers to finally get you “placed.” And here is where history is made. Swift Wind and I meet for the first time; and the tomfoolery ensues.
“My Name Is Not Susan’s Cottage” was what we lovingly dubbed this hellhole. And at THAT time, it was considered to be the upper echelon of shelters. Most of the staff from the directors and caseworkers to the program aides (PAs) and security, were actually quite nice. Instead of those dry, prepackaged meals offered to clients at most other shelters, we were served cooked meals prepared everyday by the kitchen staff. There was a clinic in the front & a “living room” in the back. And the PAs took great care in making sure that the place didn’t get infested with any bedbug plagues.
Shelter Life Snapshot:
Lights on at 6am; with breakfast starting shortly after. Kicked out of the dorms by 9am; unless you were a disabled client assigned to the “medically frail wing” where you were given the full day to rest. Lunch in the mess hall at 12pm. Dinner with dorms reopened at 5pm. Curfew at 10pm with bed check shortly thereafter. And finally lights out at 11pm. This was our life for about a year and change. In the end, Swift Wind got placed around St. Patty’s Day, and I around Christmas of 2011. And we were the lucky ones, because we knew of a lot of women that were left waiting for housing for 2, sometimes up to 3 years.
It was a perfectly wretched experience and I could not have imagined going through something like that without her and the rest of our motley crew. The skylarkery we encountered during our derelict years was truly next level; what with all of the drunk apparitions, possessed hookers, bubble guppies, squirrel monkeys, Jumanji zombies, aquatic conundrums, wounded Rodeo Drive animal shenanigans and Goya’s Ghost. And in betwixt our terrible jobs, sleepless nights, hospitalizations and trifling ass housing interviews, we always found new ways to lift each other’s spirits. Because the Shamy Brigade is the silver lining. So while all of our other seasonal relationships and superficial friendships eventually fall by the wayside, the Shamy Bunch stands strong. And we take comfort in knowing that we’re all bred from the same crop of crazy.
And I know I can always count on Swift Wind in particular, to understand exactly where I’m coming from in any given situation. Swift Wind is the Amy Farrah Fowler to my Sheldon Cooper, the Jane Lane to my Daria Morgendorffer, The Lieutenant Dan To My Forrest Gump, the Khadijah James to my Maxine Shaw, the Wreck It Ralph to my Fix It Felix, the Chibi Usa to my Hotaru Tomoe, the Kim Chi to my Naomi Smalls and the Bea Arthur to my Rue McClanahan. Swift Wind likes to say in reference to our friendship “We found love in a homeless place.” Well I’m here to tell you...truer words have never been spoken...
