First Person is a daily personal piece submitted by readers. Have a story to tell? See our guidelines at tgam.ca/essayguide.
Illustration by Chelsea O'Byrne
My habit on work days was to park my car in the lot behind the First United Church. I would then walk half a block north and two blocks west to the Pathways Information Centre where I was an employment counsellor in the Downtown Eastside of Vancouver. Each workday morning, I would pass by people sleeping on the wide cement steps leading up to the church doors, and still others huddled alongside their shopping carts under Hastings Street doorways. As my initial three-month contract turned into four years, I did not become immune to the suffering of persons I was to serve. Instead and rather insidiously, I became less able to rally from the constant layering of loss and seemingly unmitigated challenges of the neighbourhood.
My acclimation to working within the 16 square blocks known as the DTES took place prior to the 2010 Olympics. I was not alone in questioning how we, as a city, could entertain the world when we could not feed and shelter our own citizens. I was also not alone in being bereft of answers. Walking the same path and asking the same questions before starting work each morning took their toll on me as there was so much human misery I could not unsee. About three years in, thoughts of quitting my job came to circle relentlessly in my mind. I started to believe there were no other options for my burgeoning compassion fatigue, and so I suffered in silence.
My co-worker Glenn, a computer instructor and a Buddhist, observed my gradual change in demeanour. A serious face had replaced my signature smile, and he took me aside to share his concern. As I listened to his calm and gentle voice, tears formed in the corners of my eyes. Glenn waited – silently – while I gathered the courage to share my fears with him. I was overwhelmed with dread driving to work each morning. I confessed to an ever-mounting sense of despair. Despair that was dislodging the hope usually resident in my heart as I walked by, and sometimes even stepped over the unsheltered, before seating my first client at my desk each morning. And, the undeniable fact, the humbling irony – it was my job to help those same individuals to find and keep work. I felt guilty and wasn’t sure why. I felt ineffective despite having supported many determined DTES residents to acquire and maintain jobs. I was torn and caught up in a kaleidoscope of unassigned blame and righteous anger.
Glenn did not speak at first after listening to the conflicting feelings and confusing thoughts that had tumbled out of me. He invited a sacred silence to settle between us before offering his stark response. “Why don’t you walk on the other side of the street?”
I was dismayed, thinking his comment to be glib. But I knew Glenn to be anything but glib. I had failed to glean any soothing wisdom, but I said thank you and retreated to my office. That afternoon, I turned his invitation over and over in my mind. After a few days of mulling, I decided to take his comment literally, by reversing the route I would walk the next morning.
***
I park in my usual spot, gather my briefcase, and thermos of coffee, and lock the car door behind me. I mindfully cross the street mid-block instead of habitually heading north. My feet turn me away from familiar suffering, and those bodies and souls that would be crowded on the threshold of the church doors and darkened liminal alleys.
Once across the street, faded gold Chinese lettering and the smell of roasting meat catch my attention. I pause to peek through steamy glass into a shop. I see an elderly Chinese man, in a neatly pressed white apron, tending ducks spaced evenly on rotating racks. He carefully bastes each bird with a thin reddish liquid – no spilling, no dripping. Task complete, he glances up, and offers a me a kind gaze and easy smile.
I walk on.
Next to the butcher shop I find a barbershop. I notice a traditional, but unlit, barber pole adorns the storefront. I gaze into the window and see a man in a white and black shirt making ready scissors, clippers, and assorted jars of combs resting in blue solution. The uniformed barber opens the door and begins to diligently transform the dirty street with his well-worn broom. He re-enters the shop and flicks a switch to illuminate the pole. The signature blue, white and red stripes spin and turn, spin and turn. He then bends down and places a small wedge under the door to prop it open. Before retreating into the shop, the barber pauses and stretches, arching backward with his hands on his hips. He is ready to welcome customers. He takes one last look, up and down the block. The barber catches my eye, and winks. We smile.
I walk on and reflect quietly on my elder co-worker’s wisdom. A resolute curiosity takes hold of me, and shifts any residual dread. Before I pause at the end of the block to cross Hastings Street, I begin to understand why Glenn walks lightly, without fear or hopelessness weighing him down. Like the barber and butcher, he too has a ready smile for each person that steps up to his desk. I experience the Downtown Eastside with a renewed spirit: Friendliness, joy, and peace are as constant as substance use, ill health, and poverty.
The lesson of that day sustained me for my next, and last year of working in the DTES. Fifteen years have now passed since Glenn advised me to simply change my view. I continue to carry with me the wisdom of walking on both sides of the street.
Lana Cullis lives in Powell River, qathet Region, B.C.