.Directions Home—An unsheltered New Year’s Greeting

Love comes first: We need unity, forgiveness and peace to find a loving solution. 

We understand we all need understanding, and we should agree to try our best to create it. Only experience and facts are the way to guide us. We know that we are different. But just because our parts are not compatible with your engine, does not mean that we cannot operate with a different motor and could even have better results if we just had the chance.

We are a community; we came from the same one as you. We understand the needs of the people in a community, and we represent the same people that make up yours. Because we are you, we just didn’t fit in the same as you. But when you can’t afford to remove your trash, you dump it by us so it can be swept away when we are. We were rejected, but we are human beings—people, like you. Our community is different, but we are capable of providing for ourselves. We share well with each other, but a growing industry sees no future in that. We can offer the general public arts and entertainment, and let them experience our culture as well as any segment of society.

Many of you are afraid you could end up in this situation. We understand your fear. We are afraid, too. Neither of us got a handbook or guide when we entered this life, we just survive. We understand our Earth, and we try our best not to hurt it. We can understand each other when we listen to each other. We live selflessly, we create, we share. Can you listen to us? We listened to you and tried your way. We are outside the box—inside it, we suffocate.

I hear the word “coexist,” as if it’s a suggestion, a choice or a concept that we should consider, something we should maybe try. It’s none of those things. Coexisting is what a society does no matter what, and it’s not an option, it’s a matter of how well or how badly we do it. Come look outside the box with us, let us enlighten you. When you see how much we have to offer, let us live, so that we can all find directions home.

One
"One” is the pen name of North Bay author and unsheltered advocate Eddie Campagnola.

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