I am a caseworker for the poor and the homeless. I know things now I once did not know. Oh of course I knew that people sleep under bridges and in camps just off the beaten paths of our town. Of course I knew that people struggle, that the economy is bad, and yes that people squander the resources they’ve received. But now I know what they look like and what their names are, and how long it has been since they weren’t worried that someone would steal their shoes while they sleep. Now I know that our agency really doesn’t have enough funds to help pay every electric bill that is over due, and somehow I know that even if we did, it wouldn’t be enough.
It’s too easy and too cheap to say there is always enough for the new stadium and the new shoes in my closet. It’s too preachy to say all this, and so I start thinking: it’s just too hard to look at things without the veil and I wish someone would tell me where they put the veil and I wonder who pulled it from it’s proper place and now I’ve found it and it’s still attached to something but it’s okay because I can grasp it in my hands hold it close to my face and if I just spin around and around and around and around it will encase me and I will be safe. Safe inside the cocoon, don’t bother me.
– Charme Robarts
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