This was my Macpac, before I stupidly sold it some months ago. I was having a serious cull before moving out. In the high stakes game of moving, I erroneously thought my travel days were over. Dumb! The backpack is synonymous with travel, freedom and adventure. In an era of the political, climate and capitalism refugee however, the humble backpack has adopted a new profile. The Backpack Bed© has arrived, a waterproof, fire retardant, environmentally friendly home away from home. For the homeless.
This makes me angry, and sad. I’ve been both these things a lot lately. Because I too am now homeless. Is a Backpack Bed the best society can do?
Being homeless could be the new black, especially in Melbourne where I'm currently located, but it’s most definitely the new norm. It barely raises an eyebrow. It’s a global crisis, women of my age its main target. It’s an utter disgrace. Fortunately, there are philanthropists out there, changing the face of the diabolical housing emergency, one dollar at a time. There are also new laws creeping into town planning departments in local governments that are giving green lights to tiny houses and eco-villages and multiple occupancy land-sharing arrangements. This may be good for the future, but in the meantime? I recall feminists in the 70s advocating for and building refuges for women escaping domestic abuse so they didn’t end up on the streets. Father Bob Maguire, bless the depth of his now deceased soul, also cared, and acted. Stirred by his distress at witnessing his father’s violence towards his mother in his early life, he spent his life supporting street kids, the disadvantaged and the homeless. If you don’t know somebody who’s experiencing housing stress, you’re either not asking the right questions or living with your head in the sand. We can’t leave this whole sorry mess to the government. They're suffering blind paralysis. We need to do something but I feel powerless to know what, save for promoting organisations campaigning on behalf of the needy. Like Womens Village Collective. We need to rally together to make a difference. I need hope!
So, Melbourne! City of my birth, culturally and artistically rich one minute, cold and bleak the next. Over the years I've loved Melbourne from a distance; a two week stay is generally my limit. Too much concrete, too smelly, too busy, too noisy. I miss the green curves of home. It's now three months, but feels like six. Housesitting, minding other people’s pets, camping, and wearing out my welcome at the homes of family and friends, wearing down their moods and wearing myself thin with anxiety. Every day I scan the rentals and sub-lets on social media and community pages. I’m competing with thousands. You have to be quick; they’re gone in a flash. My impulses have slowed. I read, write, walk, cook, try to be helpful and attempt to invoke the voice of my higher self. I’m doing my best.
Not having a home isn’t easy to talk about. Too much awfulness inside bamboozles the mind and strangles rationality. Hungry ghosts descend, whirling through your energy field, driving the intense emotional needs further down, strangling insight and calm. Attachments to early trauma and dysfunctional adult behavioural patterns re-emerge. I unconsciously become seriously judgy - of myself, and others. Unkind thoughts surface, run laps around my consciousness as though there’s some grand prize on offer at the end. Thoughts like well, if you hadn’t travelled overseas last year, and done that big road trip around Australia the year before, perhaps you wouldn’t be in the situation you’re in now. Perhaps if you’d bought a house years ago when they were more affordable you wouldn’t be in this position today. Look at the lifestyle you’ve led! (fuck off Tony Abbott). Maybe if you’d looked after your declining mental health decades ago, you’d be more secure now. I’ve even fallen into the trap of believing it’s all my fault. I have to remind myself it’s not. I’m not sure if I believe this narrative, or not. It’s the fault of a sick system, I know this. A system (see government) that fails to invest adequately in social housing, fails to support women fleeing family violence, fails to pay the underclass sufficient to live on.
See what I mean? Judgy as fuck, an inheritance from my folks, the original judge and jury. It’s a difficult mantle to throw off, and in times of need, my neuroses step up like obedient little soldiers, conditioned to attack. They don’t wait for a second invite. Let’s go ride the Shame and Loathing Wheel. But the humiliation of not having a safe place to lay your head at night is real. I’ve been very unsocial, preoccupied and irritable. The day in and day outness of having to rely on others for support and there being no light at the end of the tunnel is tough to live with. An itch that doesn’t go away. The worst sort of homesickness.
I drive into the rain, my metaphorical backpack bed's contents strewn untidily across the back of my car.
It feels like 8 pm but it’s only 4.00. I have no idea where I’m heading. But I have my fleecy boots, my feathered sleeping bag, and my intuition is on high alert, scoping out the coastal road and its parks, one semi-arc of the wiper blades after another.
