...the kind of change they can really use

The sign on the subway reads, Give the homeless the kind of change they can really use. Clever way  to remind us not to give our money to someone soliciting on the train, but to support programs that help homeless people move off the streets into more acceptable quarters. The economy continues to challenge all of us, but the homeless are especially hard hit because of massive budget cuts.

And on top of the economics, the weather is cold, cold, cold. Sleeping in subways, trains and any available shelter is common. Maybe beyond my border of comfort or yours, but not always a choice for the homeless. Yesterday when I entered the train, the middle seating area was open on one side, but on the other side, a man stretched out on the entire seat, sleeping. Passengers on the usually crowded car gave him space and people either stood or sat in other parts of the train. We may be trying, but we aren't reaching many of the  people who need new quarters, at least here and now.

A shopping cart?

Last week I shopped at Trader Joe's, three subway stops and another 10 blocks away from my home. I purchased more than I could comfortably carry, so with $55 worth of groceries in two bags, and my computer in a backpack, I used muscles I forgot I had. Three days of feeling like I had just started a weight training regimen helped me to rethink the pushing of a cart. Is it just for old people? How old am I anyway? Sixty years ago, my Grandma Eva always used a cart; not driving in the city, she needed a way to schlep her groceries across town. My Mother,  almost 93, still does her own shopping and often takes the bus and her cart, yes, to Trader Joe's by the beach in Southern California. So now, I follow in their footsteps, swallow my pride, reduce my carbon footprint and plan to push a cart back and forth, on the subway and to the market. At least I'll try. (and if the cart doesn't work, maybe a pedi-cab!) Cheers for the invention of the wheel!

Traveling Without a Passport

I began this blog as a travel journal and to share my adventures with friends and family. It is good fortune to travel out of the familiar, the continent of my birth, out of my comfort zone, affording me a wide-angle view of myself and the world. But there are many journeys we take in our lifetime(s) and until I venture to a far-off land again, I'll concentrate on the inner-journeys and those closer to home, the social and political boundaries and borders that define, restrict and free us as human beings.

In 2007, I participated in a Sierra College Study Abroad course, War Era Literature, spending a few weeks in Vietnam, traveling from Hanoi in the North, making our way down to the Mekong Delta and then Ho Chi Minh City (Saigon) in the South. The images above are from my collection of photographs of Children of Vietnam, (and an exhibit, "Vietnam Today: Carrying On"), which tells a story of life in another country. The photos leave out the poetry, the people's inner-most thoughts, their relationships, how basic needs are met, the possibilities in their world. Through our interaction with the picture, we write the details of those stories, using our own experiences, information we learn from news, reading, travel, and our imagination and points of view. We can only know the true details by living the life, so our imagination and empathy really come into play.   I have to ask myself how accurate are we, when we are looking through our own lens, no matter that I was really there, in person?

And how do we write the stories and poetry of our own lives? In the next entries I'll continue posting photographs and stories that illustrate how we travel beyond borders without a passport, but always with the poetry of life.