Homeless Night Writing

A person who does not stay long in the same place; a wanderer. A digital nomad is a lifestyle, not a profession, someone who travels and makes money online.

Digital Nomad

I sit writing at Mcdonald's—my new place to eat and write. Grateful to do this, I love to eat and write or read and listen to music or drink coffee and write. Something about coffee and writing or drinking a nice glass of wine and writing just makes my early morning or my night. I miss having my regular routine of writing, but I'm getting that writing on the fly is becoming easier. It's like working out, after awhile you just do it like brushing your teeth, it just becomes a habit anywhere, anyplace, which is cool. I wish there were Tech cafes around or small-town bars, but they're all gone. A big comfy chair would be nice too, but I know that's asking for too much. Most people have homes. I read of writers writing in cafes and I use to wonder why, but lately, it's becoming kinda cool to write in places people visit. I'm finding it does something new for my creativity, but I'm still getting used to the vibe of it. I'm learning I can't eat too much and write, it gets in the way, but just a little something—learn as I go. It's hard because accepting is where you know you have gotten through so much loss, but accepting I'm a homeless person is not something that I want to accept, especially at night. I do okay now in the daytime, but nights are hard. 

I'm adopting the more hipster word of Digital Nomad, I like that better—I'm not homeless. I'm choosing to move around, write and find meaning beyond the home in suburbia and the 9 to 5. It sounds better than homeless and defining my story is better than having people define it for me. I've found allowing this to go on too long, piles up the lies and creates a prison that you really weren't aware of. Writing cuts through all that for me. I get to tell my story, my truth, and refute the lies, something I didn't do for so long even though I wrote all the time. I took the high road, but after traveling that for so long I guess I had become out of balance, it was time to travel the streets again—metaphorically. Do what you love and the money will follow, it's worked before—we shall see. Most of us are all traveling on new roads lately. I'm really not all that alone, even though late at night it seems I am, but just like before when I was writing with my journal at the lake or early mornings in my home, there was always this connection, this friend, my muse, my love, my divine. The flow of writing just like doing Art creates that flow of creativity that connects us all. The love sustains that connection, especially when looking at a blank canvas or a blank page.  

It's too cold to write outside, my fingers don't work. Nothing works when it gets cold outside. Things that are so easy when you're inside are so difficult outside in the cold, especially trying to get my fingers to move across the keyboard. It's been a bitter, cold April. I struggle with not being bitter myself. The cold does me in. I'm not good when I get cold. I can get cranky and bitchy. When I married, having heat all the time was important. I never wanted to be without heat like when I was a child. I would rather have things like a cord of wood than some jewelry. I never thought I would be left with neither, that it was part of his plan after all the years of assuring me we were so much alike. That making sure we had heat was something he valued also. As the years went by, the games with heat started ever so slowly, but I had no words for what was happening. I know now it's called gaslighting.

I'm still shivering, my fingers are slowly thawing, but still not working all that smooth. It's like once you get that cold its hard to warm back up. Sometimes a nice hot shower will do it, but like so many other things now out of the question. The thought of a nice bubble bath makes me want to cry, but I try not to think about those things too often—it's too upsetting. Simple things like a bath or using the bathroom. Having a nice private bathroom was another important consideration for me. Growing up with 6 people in the house and my mother's constant insistence that there were no locks on the doors made private time in the bathroom hard. 

I've been eating more meat lately and it's making me sick again. I can only eat it for so long. It's not that I don't like it, but that I function better as a vegetarian. I also have problems with Factory Farming and with COVID my concerns are worse. I need the protein if I can't get other kinds, but meat can turn on me after a while. I had a cheeseburger tonight and I'm starting to feel sick. I’ve been having too much. I like the McChicken, but I wish we had veggie burgers. I read McDonald’s is suppose to launch them, but like so many other things in my hometown never seem to arrive here. I like cheeseburgers, but it's like a relationship that you have these old memories, some are good, but seeing the person again is not the thing to do, it just isn't good. It's like all these relationships I have to let go of. I thought we all pretty much said goodbye at the start of my marriage. So many picked fights and just didn't visit anymore. At the time, it didn't seem like they all did it on purpose. I mean how could that be possible? I would often kinda feel that way like some dark cloud had descended on me but told often I made too much of things and think everyone is out to get me. Of course the old bogeyman that I was just too sensitive was also always inferred about me. 

It's hard to leave places now and not to go home. You go somewhere and then you go home. Going home was always something I like to do after being out somewhere. I was always a homebody, even though I was accused of being out all the time. Some kind of "party girl," but that was never true and it hurt so much when it was being done. I never knew why, but today I do. I knew it was done on purpose, but I don't have to feel so bad now knowing they all knew it was a lie. Everyone knew the truth, it's just they were involved in playing this horrible game. "Everyone can't be in on it," they would all say periodically, but in fact, they all were in on it. Telling me it was my fault everyone stayed away, "you kept his friends away," would often be hurled at me. I never understood why, I always invited everyone, especially around the holidays. I loved cooking, cleaning, and decorating for the holidays, but except for taking care of my Mother-in-law and her sister Irene and her boyfriend, everyone made excuses not to visit or picked fights, blamed me, and inferred that was the reason they wouldn't visit. 

I'm still shivering and doubt I will ever be warm again. After sleeping outside now the past month, it gets harder to believe that I will ever have another home. Destroying my credit was also another way to keep me hurting after our Divorce, they have a name for that now too—Post Separation Abuse. "You'll never have a way out this time," he would sneer at me after telling me in that icy tone he used that nothing was mine and I did nothing. 

I need my fingerless gloves another item stolen. I love them and got to wearing them all the time. So many years on the computer in cold offices probably the reason. Often new buildings had the same old issues, too cold in the Summer and too hot in the Winter. I never minded the extra heat in the Winter, but the air conditioning in the Summer was just too cold. 

I would like to do more photographing at night. It's like a whole other world in the city at night. I had spent 20yrs photographing the lake and now find I'm shooting more in the city. Back to the Urban landscape, which is probably good. After being violently removed from the Lakehouse at 8pm one night after taking a swim, my being close to the woods all the time is over. I miss the lake and the woods but photographed the lake all those years. It's time for something else. Time for a change. So many changes all at once, but I know I'm not alone; Covid, losing jobs, working remotely, homes, moving, most people are making major life changes along with me. We all seem to be like Nomads making our way in a different reality now—some more than others.

It's nice at night watching the cars go by, the lights flickering from the other stores, and comforting to know people are out and about again after so much time being locked away from Covid. People move in and out of the spaces, getting food, talking, living their life and in that process—I feel less alone and more connected myself. The rhythm of the night, life goes on, things move forward, life gives a little glimmer of hope after so much pain and loss that this too shall pass. There is silent repose, a way through the darkness after being lost in the woods for so long—things begin again. Connecting spaces in my life once more, the way through from lost to found, even it’s just for a few moments in my favorite local McDonald's.