July 28th, 2009

Day 3: Tuesday, July 14, 2009
Los Angeles, Skid Row
The Women's Ranch is two hours north of L.A., tucked between a field of solar windmills and an array of sun-parched mountains. It's not a ranch so much as a trailer with the word "Jesus" spelled out in stones in the front yard and a dumpster just slightly upwind.

The heat beats down on the tiny compound like a paper press, squeezing the energy and life out of me as I carry in a few 2-liter bottles of soda to accompany our lunch.

Inside, the trailer is small and sports several full pieces of flypaper hanging from the ceiling. Just across the hall from the kitchen is the "Grace Room" where you detox.

The room is smaller than my bedroom and is built to hold up to three women at a time. My eyes dart to the twin mattress on the floor. I picture the convulsions and cold sweats of fighting an addiction.

These women have all gone through that. I haven't. I cannot begin to understand the fear, pain, and surrender they must endure to rid themselves of the substances that took them hostage.

The courtyard of the ranch is a few covered picnic tables, and a cement patio acts as the designated smoking area in the back.

Ms. Ruthie calls to me as I'm passing out cups. She is a slight woman with skin overly tanned and wrinkled from years and years in the California sun. She is missing her four top front teeth and has a nervous voice that is somehow smooth and quivering at the same time.

She begins to share her story with me and I am immediately struck by the clarity of her eyes. Everything else on her body is in constant motion, but her eyes are locked in concentration on her testimony. She has a pure and hopeful faith and you can see it in those eyes. They are eyes that have seen horrible times, but look to a future of promise with unyielding trust.

Ms. Ruthie tells me that she was broken and is working to put all the pieces of herself back together again. The pieces that have been glued and re-glued together over the years are the same ones that always seem to wriggle themselves loose again.

As they say at Set Free, "Amen!"

For many of the women at the ranch, this is not their first rodeo. Pam is back after relapsing when she returned home to the east coast. After 60 days of sobriety, she was clean for just two days once she was back in the real world. Two days. The power of addiction terrifies me.

After a day spent in convulsions, Pam is out of the "Grace Room," but still nursing a wound on the left side of her stomach where a friend stabbed her with a Butterfly knife. She winces when she lays her hand on her side and tells me that in order to get herself back to California and the ranch, she poured Jack Daniel's in the wound, boarded a bus for three days, and fought the pain.

These women are warriors. They live with nothing but their faith and hope for a better life. It's inspiring and humbling.

Day 4: Wednesday, July 15, 2009
Los Angeles, Skid Row
How do you get from a place of sympathy to a place of empathy when you have no idea how much so many have suffered?

Today, I walk the streets of Skid Row with a sense of numb abandon. Nothing I see penetrates me. I see a man sucking on a crack pipe and stare blankly. I watch a man shoot heroin into his stomach and think about what a poignant photograph the scene would make.

I cannot bridge this gap between seeing and understanding. I wonder what it will take to get me there.

Those who know me well... Oh, let's be honest, ANYONE that knows me knows that I cry way more than is ever humanly necessary. I haven't cried about anything I've seen or heard this week. I feel like Cameron Diaz in "The Holiday."

There are so many vignettes flashing through my mind that I wish I could project them onto the wall in front of me so I could just stare and try and absorb them. The man with gray skin, shivering on an 80-degree day while he comes down off heroin. The women walking the streets with no expression on their faces. The bags of belongings lined up on the sidewalk at 11:00 a.m. to save a place in line for a bed at The Midnight Mission.

A friend in our group very accurately commented that Skid Row is in a constant state of emergency.

Ladder Company 9 is the fire station on Skid Row and they are, by far, the most active station in Los Angeles with 19 firefighters on-call at all times and seven engines in their garage. One fireman complained that they go out on many calls when the homeless are forced to disperse from an area by a mayor-appointed task force. Often someone will complain of being unable to breathe or chest pain in order to be able to stay put.

The taxpayers of L.A. are paying for a crew to scatter the homeless from one area to another. Someone explain to me how this is a good idea.

This is about as advanced as a four-year-old cleaning his room by shoving all his toys under the bed. Why not take a little more time and care to find a good spot for each toy so that it always has a place to go?

Required reading for all California state officials: The Berenstein Bears and the Very Messy Room.

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