Grenoble, Revisited

It's been over ten years now, since I first moved away from home. Eighteen years and on my way to France, I had no idea what life had in store or what it meant to make plans. I listened to my sister's tales of good times, I heard the fervor in Peter's voice as he spoke of the Road, and I went.

When we reached the town, we were homeless. Another lost soul joined; I still remember her black hair and broken dancer's body at the train station, and the day her hair turned white and nearly all fell out. We were young, we were lost, we went ahead anyway; what choice did we have?

Here's the point: in the many weeks we drifted around before finding our little apartment on Rue Revol, not once did we sleep in the streets. I still remember the feeling of immense gratitude towards these strangers, friends of friends of friends who took us in and lent us their spare mattresses, the Italians who only asked that we water their marijuana plants while they were away, the hair dresser who eventually saved the dancer's hair by an inch and let us stay in his loft and listen to his records. None of them had to bother, really, who were we to them? But they let us in to their homes, and I lay there on their mattresses, thinking If ever I get the opportunity to do this for someone else, I hope I will.

Ten years later, twenty-eight years and I still haven't a clue what life has in store. I am still homeless. And somehow, somehow I sleep in a bed tonight because the dear angels around me take me in and give me a piece of their home. Night after night, asking nothing in return, here they are, saving my life. Year after year. I do not deserve them. I accept their keys, their couches, their securities gratefully. I don't know how I got so lucky.