23 degrees,inside…

ice on the road …again

Originally uploaded by jayfherron.

I dont know how this is going to go this morning! Its one of those real deal Florida freezes-it is 23 degrees inside my house and although I am able to heat this room the rest of the house is still yet unheatable and stays wide open all year round,why bother? and although my computer is here in this room where the heater is…the trouble being the heater is not safe at night and thus the room looses tempurature quickly overnight-my pups and I sleep under several quilts and an old furniture blanket.
Its kind of odd-I have a home….and in the summer the place is great-birds fly in and out,wrens even nest in the books on my book shelf,and yet God allows me the grace to live close to the poor mark most all of the time and in the Bible it says ‘blessed are the poor for they shall inherit the kingdom of God!”….bingo!
So I think my computer got a bit chilled last night because it is acting rather sluggish-and it concerns me because I’d like to make some remarks but am always afraid to go into great detail because I fear I might loose everything!
I never want to ever loose sight of where I’ve come from-where I was when I first came to these woods with nothing but a broke down car and two kids and a wife…I always regard the fact that I hand carried most of the first dwelling we had here-hitch hiking sometimes great distances to tote old boards and tin and plywood and every provision needed to survive-I never want to loose touch with that!
My refridgerator is holding enough food to see this day through-then tomorrow opens up another day of faith that someting will come my way-I am made richer by the small things and how they are put in my way.
The other day my doctor-knowing my circumstances,gave me this slice of bread which came from one of those coffee shop type places and I asked her to wrap it in a paper towel so I could stick it in my tote,so she did. And I was spending the rest of that morning going up University Avenue posting the flyers for the art exhibit and in our city there is a large population of homeless people in Gainesville Florida and at one of the bustops where there was a public bulletin post sat these three homeless guys and they hit me up for some change-and change was all I had -all I have now,less than two bucks! And I told them I did’nt have any money and one of them noticed these new shoes I had on and said something about me being able to afford new shoes I could surely have some change for them. SoI thought about the piece of bread my doctor gave me and took it out of my tote and offered to quarter it up with them so we eachh could have a piece. One of them got snotty-but another of them defended me saying that if all I’m carrying is a slice of bread in a paper towel then I must be as bad off as they were!
But I’m not bad off because I am able to see the strength in that slice of bread to cover several needs-feed me,protect me from a bad situation,make peace!
I think about the people who dont have the way to heat a room and feel I have it pretty well with these things I’ve manged to collect over the 30 plus years I’ve lived in these woods patched together as it is it is certainly above the living standards I know others are living in.
This guy Tony I read about on the homeless man speaks blog…I think about guys like him that are out in weather like what the photograph I chose today shows, but yet you have to clear your vision sometimes and think it is the things that surround us that begin to make these things look so harsh-once upon a time before eveything got so fast and easy and centrally heated people endured and survived worse than what we know today.
But-this morning the water in my toilet tank sits with a skin of ice on it and I need to huddle under a blanket to sit my bare rump on the ice cold seat to use it-and to be honest,I’m thankful for it all.