i live in a working class neighborhood where most everyone works two jobs, mows the yard as quickly as possible after sunset, in the near-dark, because that is the only time available to mow the yard between two jobs, fixes the truck parked on the street at 11pm with the help of a friend whose truck is shining its headlights into the open hood of the truck that needs fixing while drinking beer and trying to solve a problem there isn’t enough light to see. i live in this neighborhood on purpose. i can afford to live almost anywhere, but i live among working class people with two jobs and tall grass and trucks that need fixing because i disappear here, no one notices me here, i can run at midnight and no one admonishes me about running alone late at night because our neighborhood is safe, i am safe, no one wants to hurt me, everyone is too tired inside their own lives to think about me, and besides, i am never alone while the trucks parked on the street with other trucks facing their headlights into open hoods and men drinking beer are doing their best to fix things all night long.
i like where i live. i belong here.
a long time ago i worked three jobs and was always tired and didn’t have a yard to mow because my yard was a carpet of dirt sprinkled with a few patches of weeds and i couldn’t afford to have a cat because i couldn’t afford to feed myself, so i got friendly with all the neighborhood cats and petted them late at night while their owners slept and their cats prowled and i couldn’t sleep because i didn’t sleep in those years or the years before or most of the years that followed. back then i lived in a neighborhood that was poor, not working class, and we didn’t have cars, and we kept to ourselves, but in a frightened way, not in a safely respecting another’s privacy way. we didn’t trust each other because we didn’t trust anyone, because trust ain’t coming on strong while you are hungry poor and everyone around you is hungry poor, too.
i’m rich now, but i still have habits of a poor girl, and mostly those habits serve me well, but sometimes those habits prevent me from having what i want. i give money away because that’s the only reason i ever had for getting rich in the first place, but i’m choosy about who and how and when and where i give money, because some people, causes, and organizations need more money for important things at different times. i give where my heart goes. i give where my time goes. and if i’ve given to you, it’s because you matter to me, you’re important to me, and what you do makes a difference to me.
when i was hungry poor, i was ashamed of being poor. sometimes i have to guard against or defend against being ashamed of being rich now. i have to remind myself i’m not rich because of money, that money doesn’t make a person rich, that my richness is sourced in my strong and generous heart, and the richness of my heart grew from growing up poor.
angel joy's musings 