Greenfield

 

 

I've said that last year at this time I was living outside in Turners Falls. September 30 I slept in Pesky Park. October 1st I slept at the river. I use the word "slept" loosely. Mostly I froze. I may have slept at the river one more night, and then on the 3rd October I was given permission to sleep in the laundromat at night. I had a shopping cart, in true bag lady tradition, with my things in it. Sleeping in the laundry lasted about six nights, and then I was kicked out. Mind, I made no trouble in the laundromat, and no messes, but I was kicked out anyway. About the 10th of October I moved to the canal.

 

If one has to live outside, if one has to be left that way by a friend and by a whole townful of so-called christians, if one is forced into that kind of degradation and humiliation and has no way out, then in those circumstances the canal was a nice, if cold and damp, place to live (except for the night of the shooting, which I've written about elsewhere on this journal). I had a previous history with the canal, and loved the place already, so in my exile and hardship it was an old friend to go to. At dusk the Canadian geese did their evening conference, and at dawn the morning one. I loved lying in my sleeping bag under a birch tree and listening to them speak. I loved the water, the birds and squirrels, possums and skunks. I fed them all. The gulls. The sunsets on the water. And the memories of all the hours I'd spent there with my cats over the 5 and a half years we lived beside the canal.

 

Anyway, the exact dates for the events of my life outdoors are in a notebook that's now in someone's garage. What are the chances I'll see any of these notebooks again?