Walking and the Unhoused

This man, tired but satisfied, with his head on his desk and his eyes closed at the end of a long day facilitating meetings and workshops on the subject of a Homeless Bill of Rights, is Michael Moore. (Fitter and healthier than the famous Michael Moore.) He's an advocate for unhoused people and works at Sisters of the Road.

Moore explains that the real enemy of unhoused people is the class structure, and more specifically business owners who want poverty shoved out of sight and mind. Police are the front lines of that struggle, as they enforce laws that deny unhoused people the right to conduct their lives in the only space they have. A Homeless Bill of Rights would guarantee unhoused people the "right to sleep, stand, sit, possess personal property, and eat" on public property. It could also mandate health and hygiene centers including toilets and showers.

I spent today learning about action plans for unhoused people, and I found the perfect niche for me. Of eight campaign goals, the third is "Change public perceptions of the unhoused," and the first item under that goal is "Story collection." I'm on it.

Another remarkable thing happened today. I received a gift copy of a beautiful book, Robert Macfarlane's The Old Ways,  sent to me by a Blipper in Essex whose work I very much admire. In gratitude, I'd like to share a paragraph from that book that fits right in with today's theme.

"Americans have long envied the British system of footpaths and the freedoms it offers, as I in turn envy the Scandinavian customary right of Allemansratten ('Everyman's right'). This convention--born of a region that did not pass through centuries of feudalism, and therefore has no inherited deference to a landowning class--allows a citizen to walk anywhere on uncultivated land provided that he or she cause no harm; to light fires; to sleep anywhere beyond the curtilage of a dwelling; to gather flowers, nuts, and berries; and to swim in any watercourse...." --Robert Macfarlane.

When I was six years old I got rheumatic fever. It affected the cartilage in my knees, and I was told I would never walk again. I tried to kill myself when I was seven. I spent a year and a half in bed and in a wheel chair, and at the age of eight I began slowly and hesitantly to learn to walk again, and so far I haven't stopped. But I learned not to take walking for granted.

I am deeply grateful to have been chosen a second time for a Staff Pick, and for your many congratulations, comments, and subscriptions. Some of you have scrolled all the way down a path of comments that seems as endless as corn fields in Kansas. I'm planning not to comment any more today, and not to blip tomorrow. I want to read Macfarlane's beautiful book and to walk, unplugged. I'm going to take a comment break for a day or two.