Kent
Lost in my own thoughts I was waiting to catch the BART from the Civic center station to a party at the mission. Tarantino's recent piece Django Unchained did not fail to amuse me; my Viennese friend however thought otherwise. Reveling in the darkness (that is Tarantino), I bumped into a homeless dude in a blue jersey trudging along with a suitcase and peddling street spirit. Street spirit is the bay area newspaper that supports/fights for the rights of the homeless and underprivileged. Seeing how I had some time to spare, I quickly struck up a conversation with Kent. Kent did what any man presented with an opportunity to connect with another human being would. He tried to establish a connection with me. The conversation veered into religion (I suspect because he began with the question "Are you Muslim?"). Conversations on religion tend to be dicey, especially if it is the only thing that gives a man (or woman) hope. Kent, surprisingly was intrigued and curious by my agnosticism. This led me to pass up 3 trains and have a chat with this middle-aged dude in downtown SF.
Background
Kent held a job at SFO as a janitor. He worked for 10 years and reached some sort of senior janitorial position with benefits (yaay California benefits!). He said he was married and was trying to conceive a baby with his wife of seven years. On their eighth year together she had a baby. The baby sadly was not his. This clearly crushed the man. The details I received after this event are a bit sketchy because - a) it's close to midnight in a semi-deserted part of the BART station b) I am unsure as to the mental stability of the person I am speaking with and I hypothesize that there are triggers for all men and life on the street is indubitably hard.
From what I could reconstruct this is what happened. He moved out of his home and divorced his wife. After several anger outbursts at work, he began seeing a therapist and was forced on to medical leave. At the end of six months his therapist refused to sign off that he was good to go back to work and thus he ended up on the streets two years ago.
Since then, he has moved on and is now dating another woman. He seemed smitten and in love again. She had had a hard life too and the mutual understanding of hardship helped them to grow closer. As a man, he saw her to be his Brünnhilde and felt the need to save her from the perils of the street. He said, he was trying to move them both to a better place off the streets and was working earnestly towards it but it was very hard and frustrating.
I left with giving him a surprisingly log hug (he insisted, I obliged) and asking him to look after himself first which he appreciated kindly. I promised him dinner the next time to which he was quick to reply that he would do the buying and I was genuinely touched. I left to be part of the herd again, on to a party celebrating the successful investment of funds into some corporation.
A more critical analysis:
I believe Kent has still not worked out all his issues. I do not think the trajectory as is, looks great. Here are my list of reasons
Lost in my own thoughts I was waiting to catch the BART from the Civic center station to a party at the mission. Tarantino's recent piece Django Unchained did not fail to amuse me; my Viennese friend however thought otherwise. Reveling in the darkness (that is Tarantino), I bumped into a homeless dude in a blue jersey trudging along with a suitcase and peddling street spirit. Street spirit is the bay area newspaper that supports/fights for the rights of the homeless and underprivileged. Seeing how I had some time to spare, I quickly struck up a conversation with Kent. Kent did what any man presented with an opportunity to connect with another human being would. He tried to establish a connection with me. The conversation veered into religion (I suspect because he began with the question "Are you Muslim?"). Conversations on religion tend to be dicey, especially if it is the only thing that gives a man (or woman) hope. Kent, surprisingly was intrigued and curious by my agnosticism. This led me to pass up 3 trains and have a chat with this middle-aged dude in downtown SF.
Background
Kent held a job at SFO as a janitor. He worked for 10 years and reached some sort of senior janitorial position with benefits (yaay California benefits!). He said he was married and was trying to conceive a baby with his wife of seven years. On their eighth year together she had a baby. The baby sadly was not his. This clearly crushed the man. The details I received after this event are a bit sketchy because - a) it's close to midnight in a semi-deserted part of the BART station b) I am unsure as to the mental stability of the person I am speaking with and I hypothesize that there are triggers for all men and life on the street is indubitably hard.
From what I could reconstruct this is what happened. He moved out of his home and divorced his wife. After several anger outbursts at work, he began seeing a therapist and was forced on to medical leave. At the end of six months his therapist refused to sign off that he was good to go back to work and thus he ended up on the streets two years ago.
Since then, he has moved on and is now dating another woman. He seemed smitten and in love again. She had had a hard life too and the mutual understanding of hardship helped them to grow closer. As a man, he saw her to be his Brünnhilde and felt the need to save her from the perils of the street. He said, he was trying to move them both to a better place off the streets and was working earnestly towards it but it was very hard and frustrating.
I left with giving him a surprisingly log hug (he insisted, I obliged) and asking him to look after himself first which he appreciated kindly. I promised him dinner the next time to which he was quick to reply that he would do the buying and I was genuinely touched. I left to be part of the herd again, on to a party celebrating the successful investment of funds into some corporation.
A more critical analysis:
I believe Kent has still not worked out all his issues. I do not think the trajectory as is, looks great. Here are my list of reasons
- When you talk about something, it still means something to you. It is unlikely that all the anger of having been betrayed over by his wife has been dealt with. These are hard knocks in life and there are no easy ways out of it apart from acknowledging your situation(grief?), keeping a steady head and weathering the storm.
- His mental situation has been further compromised by the fact that he is in love with a very unstable person. He admitted that she has threatened him with a knife once and attempting to splash corrosive acid on his face while he was asleep. Yet, he thinks of her as his panacea. This is unsettling to me. The rational decision in this case would be to move on to steady shores and work your way up; but as is often the case, we use other people/career/events to focus on instead of dealing with emotional issues.
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