The fog is closing in on San Francisco, the street homeless outside huddled around a radio, the dogs even looking damp and chilled to the bone. I am grateful for the shelter tonight, I’m grateful to be inside, I’m grateful for the heater in my room. After five years on the road, five years without a shower or bathroom indoors, five years of cold, wet rainy winters, with the weather seeping in under the tarp, I feel so spoilt. The water runs hot in my room here, there is a hot meal, some kind faces, and a bed, not a sleeping roll.
Out there, in the darkness of these chill days, my old friend Billy is homeless, but thankfully in the hospital last I checked. He has had a hard old winter, full of drugs and booze and regret. My old raconteur, driver and fellow traveler on the road companion diminished beyond recognition. As Bob says, “I cant remember what it was that I came in here to get away from…I don’t even hear the murmur of a prayer, it’s not dark yet…but it’s getting there.”
See ya in the daylight, friends.