Not Without A Place to Stay

“This earthly house
is gonna soon decay,
but my soul’s gotta have
some place to stay.”

At some moment during the last week of October, Rex delivered the sad news that he would be moving to Davenport, Iowa. Rex is the caretaker of the Center, which is a two story building, the first story of which houses two adjoining apartments. Originally the only separation between him and us was the warping wooden door between our two apartments. Beginning tomorrow there will be that door, plus miles of world standing in the way of our conversations, dinners, and knocks. I’m going to miss Rex.

Staying behind is Rex’s apartment, which is more finished than ours with a kitchen, a refrigerator, a sofa and a large desk. We never hear the water pump or the street from his side. Needless to say, his apartment is a bit of an upgrade. The National Spiritual Assembly has graciously allowed us to stay in his apartment, provided new caretakers aren’t hired before May. Moving day again.

This is the fourth time we’ve moved in six months. The first time we moved from a few hotels in Trinidad to the Baha’i National Center in St. Thomas. The second time, we moved downtown to a little furnished apartment no bigger than a sneeze but about as cozy as a winter sock. Our landlady, Miss Jan, amplified the experience ten-fold with her frequent visits of which we never tired. Every Sunday morning we would hear our church-lady neighbor singing an off-key spiritual as she washed clothes. The warm smell of bread from the bakery one block over always caught me off guard. Our road was officially something I never learned to pronounce, but folks call it “Fireburn Hill.” After my walks on the waterfront, Fireburn Hill always faithfully waited, like a last fling before breakfast.

We stayed on Fireburn Hill for a month before we moved back to the National Center. That would mark the third move on this island. Well, now we’re heading into the fourth and as I lay my head on the pillow of the makeshift couch in our living room where I’ve started sleeping, I chuckle a little bit at the readjustments we’ve made. Chuckle and sigh.

I think it’s a condition amongst some young people to be restless. Maybe it’s just my own condition, but I’ve known a few more homeless-types of my kind. In the past five years since high school I’ve moved virtually every year, sometimes more, and changed plans more often. Each time I put my things in boxes and reopen them later and resettle knick-knacks and libraries in the corner of some room, on top of some counter space, lit by some track lighting or some moonlight, I always reassure myself that “one day I’ll settle.” But, who can really say?

And what is settling, anyway? Does it mean you sit your bones in a place where you die, where you keep all you stuff? Or is it a condition of the heart that makes you settled?

Our friend Kadeshia moved to Delaware last month with her children. She’s moved from her sister’s house to a shelter to a temporary apartment. What does settling mean to her?

We’ve always wondered about the names of a few men who wander the streets with some odd collection of things jumbled into grocery bags, always with a different set of shoes but the same set of feet. What does settling mean to them?

Mrs. Grace has lived in Kirwan Terrace since 1960. What does settling mean to her?

Last week I couldn’t wait to be home. I wished I was sitting on my bed looking out at our farm. Instead I was watching the fog thicken with each heavy rain that splattered the ground. As you know, rain means things slow down, and things slowing down means more time alone, which always brings on bouts of homesickness. Friday, the rain stopped and we got on that boat to St. John, determined to not be alone with our thoughts. To our weekly junior youth group, only two boys showed up with a bucket of tadpoles and no motivation. One boy and I went to call some of the others but came back disappointed. At the moment we thought to leave, in walked a crowd of people including the two girls who’ve been coming to learn how to be animators of junior youth groups. As we sat with the group to begin our meeting, three others walked in. Miraculously, our group that has suffered these past months with few participants grew from three to eight in the course of one afternoon. Not only did the quantity grow, but the group was able to finish a whole lesson from the book, Breezes of Confirmation, plan a service project, discuss the dynamics of and reason for the group, and do an improv exercise about family structures. Never has our group been able to accomplish so much in so little time.

Saturday afternoon, while Nasim took some friends to the boat dock on the other side of the island, I went to Kirwan Terrace for our regular children’s class and to meet some of the parents. Melissa pulled up a chair for me where I sat while she plucked some laundry from the line. Jameisha saw me and asked if she should get the key from Ms. Linda for class. Hesitantly (because class can be crazy enough, but with just me it might actually cross over into anarchy) I nodded and went around to collect some children. Some of the regulars weren’t home and I was a little grateful that we were only seven. When Jameisha said Reggie didn’t want to come Reggie gave her a stank look, “Why you lyin!?” At least he wants to come. You might remember from last week that the class had been improving. Well this week there were actual periods of silence during moments of the class, despite Reggie’s persistent playing of the steel pans. They all even managed to memorize their first prayer.

Afterwards, on Melissa’s stoop I met Ms. Golden, who was getting groomed by Melissa. “It’s so nice what you’re doing for those children.” She said. When I asked what we could all do for Reggie, she and Melissa said, “We gonna pray for those kids.” I told Melissa just how wonderful they’d been this time and she lit up, “It’s ‘cause I told them, ya’ know.” She smiled, “I told them since it was just you they had to pay attention and behave.”

Sunday morning we walked around the neighborhood, getting to know some of the parents of our children. One of them mentioned that she might like to check it out next week. Mrs. Grace sat with us a minute and told us she really was going to miss us when we left but she was happy to be with us now. Mr. Jamesie slid his hands across a banjo he was constructing out of a coffee can and some wood, and told me he might could teach me to play. I talked to the grandfatherly steel pan teacher who spends Sunday mornings in Kirwan Terrace. “Yeah I’ll introduce you to some of the junior youth,” he assured me, “come by on Tuesday!”

That afternoon I found myself dazzled by the insights in a meeting about implementing the Junior Youth Spiritual Empowerment Program on the island to which we’d invited some of our friends. The nine of us lit up with inspiration and passion about the program and quickly began planning sessions for our own training and also for reaching high school classes, NGOs, NPOs, and other organizations for young professionals, all of which we thought might be filled with interested people.

At the end of the day, I’m never homeless. This one glorious weekend and a bunch of love reminded me that my home is in my heart, where it always has been. No amount of scenery will ever change that truth.