I Grew Up Homeless and it was Awesome

Between the ages of 5 and 10 I lived in a 1991 Mazda van with my mother and sister and our two pugs. We traveled the country, stole food, met gypsies, ran from child services, egged a church, befriended bank robbers, and slept under the stars.

To sum up the reasons why I consider it the best thing to happen to me, I’ve made of list of ten reasons why growing up homeless was awesome.

1: Freedom

We would wake up every morning and the day was a new adventure. We stuck mostly to the Los Angeles area, living by the beaches, but one day we woke up and decided, “Let’s go New Mexico and live in the mountains.” And we did. A few months later we drove to Florida and lived on a beach. A few months after that, we moved to the Midwest and lived off of the farmlands. We had nothing but freedom. That feeling of being able to run away, live on the road, not worrying about school, bills, and social acceptance was a true punk way of life.

2: Survival

Being on the other side of the white picket fence, we had to be creative when it came to survival. I was the thief of the family, stealing food from grocery stores all across the states. Even to this day, I can pocket all the sandwich makings with the simple trick of hand movements and an oversized denim jacket. I don’t need to steal anymore, but if the time came and I needed to steal in order to eat, I have the skill set. Dumpster diving was another alternative, and sometimes we would get a free meal just for being conversational and explaining our journeys at restaurants and people we met a long the way. Kindness feeds the heart, soul, and stomach. 

3: The Weird and Wonderful People

When we were bumming around Las Vegas, we met a married couple who were bank robbers. We shared knowledge and advice and food until the FBI raided their apartment one day and threw them in prison. We also befriended a Vietnam vet who had a metal plate in his head. He drove to Mexico and back to get my mom her medication since the price for pills there are pennies. He was care free and compassionate to others who lived out of their cars. Can’t say that about a lot of people these days.

4: The Real World

In the most crucial time of growth in my childhood, I was exposed to elements of life that most don’t endure until their 30s, sometimes never at all. I saw how society was crumbling, since we were at the bottom, and how to avoid the flaws as we crawled our way back to the middle class. Possessions get you no where, money is nothing more than an object of survival, and to be educated with what is really happening in the world is priceless.

5: Thrift Store Pro

I was born in a thrift store. Before it became a hipster haven, thrift stores were where we got everything we needed. That did include some fashionable clothing that made us pass for the middle, even upper class, when trying to cover up that we lived out of our car and boiled water using our car battery. When consignment stores came along, we would dish out some coins (thrift stores were really cheap back in the day) and buy all the “label brands” of clothing, take them to the consignment store and sell them for triple the price. Our gas tank was never empty, bellies never grumbling, and we always looked chic.

 

6: Family

Every family endures the undulating events of life, but with my family and our situation, it brought us closer instead of tearing us apart. We didn’t have possessions to separate us. We talked to one another all day, my mother taught my sister and I using her knowledge, and we bonded like war buddies as each daily battle was overcome and then celebrated with the idea that we had one another. That was a true blessing. Thick as thieves. 

7: Books

TV and videogames were not a part of my childhood. The library was our version of going to the candy store. We spent entire days inside of the libraries we stumbled upon across the states, reading and absorbing as much as we could before sundown. They are a true place of wonderment for sponge-brained children, and came with perks of shelter from the heat or cold. Librarians gave us books and, if they caught onto our situation, food or gift cards to use. Books are magical, and so are the people who love and live for them. I can’t tell you how many levels I got to in Mario Bros, but I can recite Moby Dick without hesitation.

8: Feminism

My mother is the ultimate influence in my life. She ditched my dad and decided to raise us as tigers, not daughters (King Lear reference, anyone?) There was no princess nonsense, no baby dolls, no pink, and no dominant male influence. We were taught to be independent, open-minded female creatures that could survive on our own and didn’t care what society thought of us. Plus, Patti Smith, Janis Joplin, The Breeders, and Bikini Kill are great driving music.

9: Culture

In our travels, we experienced different cultures, which left us open-minded and understanding how America is divided by religion, race, and class. We didn’t acquire this knowledge through some dusty, out of date history book in middle school. We saw it unfolding right in front of our eyes. One day we were at an art gallery in Laguna Beach talking to elegant painters, the next day we were eating garbage-salvaged food with gypsies from the northwest. We didn’t judge people by their skin color, gender, or social class; so we were exposed to all side of the spectrum. Essentially, poor people are nicer.   

10: Non-Biased Views

Admit it, before you read this list your idea of homeless people were those crazy bums, shaking their cups for quarters, cussing to themselves and smelling worse than a rat in a sewer. I don’t blame you, those people exist, and they are the majority of what you see. But most of the homeless population are women and children who have to stay under the radar in order to protect themselves and keep their families intact. Whenever I hear someone use the term homeless as a way to characterize something as being abnormal, deviant, smelly, gross, weird, psychotic, and stupid, I shake my head in pity for them and their clichéd views of society.

In the end, I’ll always be a homeless kid at heart, and even though I went to college and have a great job in LA, I can never paint over my past. So why not embrace it?

- The Diligent Gypsy

Returning to the Gypsy Life

On the road again—

The sunrises in the desert haven’t changed in fifteen years. The way the light reverberates across the land as we race towards the sun, the east, down the highway, which glistens like a spilt stream of ink. The road is made for writers.

The symbolism of a road is that of a story arc, and the type of path – whether rocky gravel or smooth asphalt – represent the struggles of the protagonist on his or her journey to the end. All roads end somewhere, sometimes at the beginning.   

This particular road, the I-40W, manages to dress itself in various terrains. Cracked highways from desert heat to tarmac smeared with Armadillo entrails. You know what state you are in just by the road kill alone.

I break into Arizona as the day unfurls, the half eaten donut now melting on the dashboard, and my coffee remaining hot from pure sunlight. Even though my return to Chicago isn’t exactly joyful – my mother is having another heart surgery – a smile sticks to my face like the “believe in magic” bumper sticker on my car. Road trips are my happy place, the essence of my childhood, and to quote William Least Heat-Moon, “There are no yesterdays on the road.”

It was over a decade ago that my child-self ventured into Arizona, riding shotgun, keeper of the map and snacks, as my mother, Glynnis, sister, Sabrina, and I journeyed into our new life. We travelled from LA to Chicago, where my mother scored a job, completely oblivious to what the Midwest even looked like, oblivious to the idea that we would no longer be homeless.

That word, “homeless”, the ugliest word for freedom. But that’s what we were. “Glorified Gypsies” is a more colorful and realistic term. We lived in our 1991 navy blue Mazda van, coated with political and pagan bumper stickers, exploding with our possessions and thrift store Afghan blankets. The front seat was the kitchen area, middle seat was the living room/library, and back seat was the bedroom. Though in the end, we slept wherever our heads fell. Sometimes even on the roof of the car during nights that made beads of sweat feel icy.

Parking lots were our safe spots. The Albertsons in Doheny Beach still makes my heart flutter as if an imaginary white-picket fence outlined our designated spot. It was our concrete commune where other homeless – or as we eventually referred ourselves for spirituality and safety, “home free” – people gathered in the vans at night. We would exchange food, medication, knowledge, laughter, stories, and warnings. Over toasted-coconut donuts, we exchanged unfamiliar faces in the parking lot from the night before, as those without cars were a major threat. The “bums” without vehicles were a step lower on the food chain, and with a ravenous appetite for not only food, but malevolence, we had to be weary of all things that go bump in the night. Cops too, though not as harmful, and usually protected us with their presence, still brought attention to our secret community from outsiders as well as true threats, like child services. The wild, wild, west in a parking lot.  

My sister, Sabrina, and I should’ve been taken away. Not because it was the right thing to do, but because in the eyes of child services and law enforcement, my mother was endangering us and abusing us. This just goes to show how thin the sight of society is, because in reality, my mother was opening up a new world for us and exposing us to a side of life that would build courage and diligence and a tainted-free sense of what really matters in life.

After years of questioning, crying, debating, forgetting, embracing I finally figured it all out – it’s eudemonia. Now, for a quick history lesson, eudemonia is a philosophical theory that the ultimate pursuit in life is to find pure happiness, and by reaching that point, one has survived and fulfilled their destiny. Being "home free" isn’t a destiny, but I have no doubts that it is one of the many ingredients.

In my journals, and ultimately with this book I intend to explore the six different stages of eudemonia while collectively piecing them together from my years of traveling as a home free person. I implore that you escape your world, however you please, and take my hand as we journey not only into the world of being home free but the true side of America.

- The Diligent Gypsy