The View from the Window

Last summer Don and I spent several nights in Santa Monica, California.  We stayed at a hotel that overlooked the bluffs with a fabulous view of the ocean beyond.  Its a lovely hotel, with a front porch that spans the entire front, where you could sit, enjoy the ocean breeze and watch the world go by.  Sitting  on that front porch with a cool glass of ice tea with your feet up relaxing and enjoying the day,  it was easy to forget all the homeless people walking the streets of Santa Monica.   The woman walking with her belongings in an old baby stroller with grossly swollen, reddened and mottled legs.  It was painful to watch her walk.  There were old men sleeping in the alcoves of stores that were closed or empty and many others sleeping on dirty blankets on the grass overlooking the sparkling Pacific Ocean.

The second night at our hotel, I couldn't sleep and got up to look out the window, in the hopes that the view and sounds of the ocean would lull me to sleep.  Instead what I saw will haunt me forever.  At least 100 people were sleeping on the bluff in a circle, with belongings piled in the center, like the hub of a wheel.  I watched the sleeping figures from the comfort of my upscale hotel rooms, tears welling, feeling so very fortunate and so very guilty.  Did they sleep that way for protection?  Were the weaker, more vulnerable members enclosed safely within the circle? Did they form the circle for warmth? I don't know and probably will never know for sure.  In the morning when I woke up after finally falling asleep, the bluff was empty, no one to to be seen.  It was if I had imagined the circle of humanity I had watched during that long night.    

I believe that the circle was for protection and warmth, but perhaps, just perhaps it was because they were a community.  A community composed of those who seemed to have lost everything, but knew how important it was to care for each other in the most basic way.  Its seems to me that there is a lesson there for all of us.