No one can deny the pain occurring in Japan at this moment. Everyone was stunned by the visions of the tsunami surges sweeping across the land. And I鈥檓 sure many imagined the horror if that were to happen to our beachside communities. Fortunately we as a whole were spared the worst of possibilities last Friday.

I count myself lucky as not only am I mobile, but my work place is a mile from the evacuation zone and has a second story. So I was pretty ok with camping out the night. Of course I didn鈥檛 get a lot of sleep with the sirens going off and the inevitable 3 a.m. wait for what may or may not be hitting our shores. However, the next day was business as usual for me and pretty much all of my patients had the same lack of sleep.

I鈥檓 sure all my fellow un-homey鈥檚 who are mobile were likewise just fine. We鈥檙e all like hermit crabs carrying our homes along with us from tidal pool to tidal pool. And there are the ones who have small tents, who have their lives packed into large backpacks, and some even have bicycles. They鈥檙e generally used to being kicked out of places anyway so why not by Mother Nature as well.

But there are all the ones who have a whole host of other problems. Some have families alongside them: kids, animals, possessions, and more. Some aren鈥檛 mobile in the best of circumstances much less under duress in the middle of the night. I know the Kapiolani Park group of homeless is fairly small although there were people who couldn鈥檛 get out of harm鈥檚 way even as their lives depended on it. But I also wondered about the communities out on the West side. I did read that they were offered buses to take them to shelters. Many were reported to have gone, but some didn鈥檛.

I don鈥檛 know if that refusal represents stupidity, stubbornness, resignation and hopelessness, or simple fear. As I鈥檝e said there are so many of us in this state of living and for so many reasons that drawing conclusions is a recipe for misrepresentation. But it does raise the continuing issue of how the community deals with the marginalized. I don鈥檛 know if there is an official policy for what they do in those cases of refusal. But I personally have a diminished faith in the bureaucracy to handle things efficiently. I鈥檝e heard to many horror stories where the cracks swallow up common sense.

But again I ponder the internal dialogue that may be going on inside those people out there, just as I know it goes on in my head. If you鈥檙e not already hopelessly lost, you find yourself measuring your contingencies right away. In my case what would I have done if the Natatorium were wiped out? I鈥檓 sure the crumbling open-aired structure would be vulnerable and displace all of us who rely on it for showers, shaving, tooth-brushing and more. It would be another rhythm thrown off in a life already interrupted.

But in truth I think the un-homed population probably dealt with it more in stride than the usual population. It鈥檚 generalizing on my part, but let鈥檚 face it, the general population takes hot showers and kitchens for granted. I know I did. So the prospect of being displaced for a time, or worse yet being wiped out, is a huge notion to grapple with. Un-homed people have already faced that and probably worse. Many face it on a daily basis.

In the meantime we all wait and pray for the people in Japan who continue to face extraordinary struggles. Wherever it is that you are currently showering, with hot or cold running water, take a moment to pause and offer a simple wish that those people may find health and safety quickly. Then I hope you鈥檒l take a second pause to be grateful for taking the next breath after reading this. Aloha.

Previous posts in this series:

• Neglect
• Small Measures of Success
• The Interior Life
• I Miss My Bed
• My Closet Has a Flat Tire
• Hopes and Dreams
• Homeless Are People, Too
• Full Monty or Not?
• Back Seat Office
• Staying Connected
• Those Small Indignities
• Putting Your Life in Storage
• One Step Forward, One Step Back
• Exciting New Career Opportunities
• End of the Day
• Solutions Wanted
• When to Hold On, Let Go?
• Location, location, location
• Range of Motion
• Food More Than Sustenance
• Figuring It All Out Someday
• Solitude
• The Good, The Bad
• From The Heart
• Does Anyone Really See Me?
• Keeping Perspective
• Showers at the Natatorium
• Achieving Homelessness