Intro.; No Offense

So we’re creating this project. We, as in my creative writing class at Miami. All twenty-something of us. I want to be the introduction to the project.

 

Let me start by warning you. There’s a young man in my class who has fought this assignment since the day it was assigned. Oh, and P.S. he’ll read this and be happy that he got under my skin enough for me to write about him. Even that pisses me off. So anyways, this kid has thought it was morally wrong to be doing this – creating a final product to give to the Drop Inn ‘people.’ Why? We’re just like them, we’re dehumanizing them, and other such ideas he has about the project. Well, I’m done with his shit. This is a group project, dude. Grow a pair, write your shit, turn it in, and the people at the Drop Inn probably won’t even give a damn, it’s just something new to read.

 

Maybe they’ll find raw blog posts that explained the immediate reactions from some of my classmates. Some were shocked by the Drop Inn. The whole event, assignment, experience… Others were more passionate about the people living or just ‘dropping in’ to the Drop Inn.

 

It’s Miami University we’re talking about here…One of the most homogenous college universities (or for that matter, places) around our country. Sheltered, anyone?

 

Okay, so that was my pessimistic side.

 

I’m excited about the project. I’m ready to produce something from our collective findings as a class and not get feedback from the Drop Inn. It could be there a while, or maybe someone throws it away after a week. Why they throw it away? Maybe they’re offended. Maybe it’s a mistake. I don’t want to spend time analyzing the situation.

 

Regardless, its six of one, half a dozen of another in relation to how the people who will be reading it, see us as writers, or as self-absorbed Miami students. But, we have a chance at being people with the Drop Inn visitors. Most of the country stereotypes our University as wealthy or pompous, entitled conformists, etc. But the Drop Inn is open to anyone, and our piece that we’ll submit will be too.

 

With that said, maybe my friend who is so concerned about the final product (after reading my blog post – woops) can handle submitting our work to the Drop Inn without being judged or hated on his conscience.

Maybe There Is No "It" To Get

I’ll be frank:
I do not like what I feel.
Helpless, maybe,
The whirling wind almost knocking me to my feet
As I walk into the Drop Inn Center.
Even excellent thoughts struggle to help me now.

Smile.
Meanwhile, I am screaming inside.
“Why not me?”
Filling cups with water, scatterbrain-like,
And though I am not smart enough to leave,
I dream, higher level, to take this “thing” away.

“Hang onto this hope,” I want to say to them
And rid them of this shame obliterating
As we serve food and serve our minds,
Taking away pain by giving silent support
To those who need it.

Experiment by Emily Mouch

I.               Title: Homeless Person Observation

II.             Materials Needed

a.     Homeless people

b.     Homeless shelter

c.      Questionable beef stew

d.     Paper plates

e.     Plastic forks and spoon

f.      Watered-down punch

III.           Procedure

a.     Divide into groups of three to four students

b.     Drive to Over the Rhine located in Cincinnati, Ohio

c.      Park

d.     Serve food

e.     Clean tables

f.      Talk with homeless people

g.     Observe their interactions

IV.            Hypothesis

a.     I claim that the Drop Inn Center in Cincinnati will be an eye-opening and rewarding experiment that will allow insight into the similarities that exist between homeless people and those people with homes.  Furthermore, I expect that homeless shelter to be a sad place filled with an overwhelming feeling of hopelessness.

V.              Conclusion

a.     After careful observation at the Drop Inn center, only fifty-percent of my hypothesis remains correct. The experience was in fact eye opening and incredibly rewarding for it showed that humanity remains intact in the inhumanity of homelessness. However, the remainder portion of my hypothesis, the lack of hope within the Drop Inn Center, is far from correct. There existed an overwhelming sense of hope, family, and love.  This is far from what I expected to observe in my experiment. The walls were painted orange, blue, green, and pink – painted to cover the bleak black and grey that is associated with homeless. Yet, it was not the vibrant color of the walls that grabbed my attention, but the colorful personalities that existed on the faces of the Drop Inn residents. 

Seconds

You think I'm somebody
without a place in society;
just another statistic.
Throw me an orange
and I'll tell you about the time
I walked across the United States.

That's right,
the whole thing, straight.

Stand there for a few minutes
and study us as we converse.
Visualize our situation and
imagine how awful it must be
while I sketch your portrait
on the back of a paper menu.

It’s from a restaurant
I’ve never been to.

Please give me a bowl that’s
filled up to the top.
It’s not what I want to eat,
but it is something.
And afterward, I won’t be full,
but it helps when hunger beckons.

Can’t a guy
just have seconds?

1st Drop Inn draft

Blueberries for Sal
I found it in a box labeled lamp shades

Sal ate too many blueberries
Her mother was unquestionably genius
All the pictures are in navy blue and mellow yellow

In Leverett there were blueberries
I stuck my fingers through a hole in the screen
A splinter on the wooden floor
They tasted like the sunset

When my mom read the book I was Sal
The overalls matched the short haircut
Inquisitive children always learn more than they wish to know

Now the yellow and blue illustrations are stuffed in a box
Did you know an entire life can fit in a box?

We packed all the boxes and taped them
Packing tape screeched on the roller
The tape knew our misfortune

Blueberries collect in the bottom of the pale
The insides are really purple
I don't mind calling them blue

In an empty room I stack boxes
The leaning tower of my life
I lock the door
The dog asks where we are going but I care not to reply

This Place is Filled with Hope

A man in the corner with a bag of colored pencils and a pad of paper nodded in my direction. He took a moment to study my face like a math problem, then turned his pencil to the paper. 

I studied the place around me.  It was nothing like the Miami world I was used to. "This place is filled with hope" said the faded bumper sticker plastered to the industrial door which lead into the sleeping room.  Inside, thin green mats lined the concrete floor reacking of the bleach they had just been sprayed with.  The plain room was dimly lit with fluorescent lights and bunk beds lined the walls in an almost prison like fashion.  This place is filled with sadness, I thought.  

Yet in the room over, real life was going on.  People came in and sat down to laughed with one another, huddled under coats and tired eyes, blank stares and smiles.  These were people, just like all people, who carried stories on their backs and thoughts in their pockets.  Some turned to watch the television as Barack Obama descended a plane and shook the hands of some overly welcoming bureaucrats.   In the corner, I caught the man with the colored pencils studying my eyes.  The president was filled with hope, too.

Someone directed me to stand behind the food counter and pass out cookies. In my mind I kept comparing everything to my own situation.  Just several hours before at school I had the option of eating as many cookies as I wanted.  Here, the cookies seemed stale and pathetically small. The rule was one per person.  And who made it like that?

And who made this like this, too?  That I carefully study someone else's situation as a part of a project, as if I were studying their needs for my own personal benefit.  Here, take this cookie while I watch how you react.  Let me note your facial expression while you take it from my hand. Will you give it away?  Will you ask for a second? Sit down quickly so I can keep listening and watch you.

The man in the corner scrutanized me carefully.  I smiled awkwardly in his direction for a moment, and then resumed my own art project of observation.  Watch and listen.  See the shopping basket she carries?  See the dirty torn jeans he wears?  See the hungry eyes those two have?

The man in the corner approached me.  In his hand was the piece of art he had drawn.  A portrait of me.  He had shaded in the tired spots beneath my eyes from a night of late studying.  He had drawn almost perfectly the freckles I had about my nose and eyes from summers spent at the pool now long past.  His pencil knew my frizzy irish hair and the necklace that I loved. 

  I smiled and thanked him, and wondered in my head if there would ever be a time in my life where I could be capable of making art that pure, if I would know how to serve someone (someone who was supposed to be serving me) so selflessly with my art and passion.

They say stereotypes are broken down through art, through the sharing and exchange of human expression.  And as I stood there awkwardly watching these people, I became filled with op that with this "project" that is something I might be able to do. 

 

Talkin' Bout A Revolution

I felt the drive to the Drop Inn Center was the most important part of the adventure, because I really felt anxious about the kind of situations I was going to be in within a matter of minutes. Abbie, Molly, and Shannon and I talked about the upcoming adventure of what we were going to be involved in, and we really did not know what to expect. We took more time than usual to find a parking spot, and after noticing the people that were quite literally hanging out on the outside of the place we were going, we knew that it was going to be a different experience. After we entered the building the room had a familiar smell of men in it with a hint of Lysol. The room was probably over one hundred feet square, and everyone seemed to be minding their own business and eating quietly. It reminded me of “Talking About A Revolution” by Tracy Chapman, with many people “standing in the welfare lines.” The sadness did not hit me until the second ten minutes of the experience. There was a bustle to the place and the water jugs were carefully arranged by the volunteer staff whom were there before us. I hated what I felt when I saw the mattresses, still wet with disinfectant, laid out on the floor. The men’s corridor had a line of green mattresses while the women’s room had blankets and whatnot. I could feel the burden of a the thousands of people who walked penniless through those doorways, I could taste the anger and disappointment that they were processing. Cleaning the dinner trays helped with taking my mind off of things, and though I only talked to a few people, the collective consciousness was that of sadness.