AFFIRMING LIFE ON THE EDGE

How much do I like seeing people work at affirming life?

I like it a lot.

From this blog I’ve seen how important it is.

I’ve also seen the need is never ending when confronted by adversity.

A body laying in the street is just such an adversity, and I’m not in a war zone.

Two days ago a police cruiser drove down the private road on the side of my property.

It’s not the first time.

Then another parked at the curb in front of my house, followed by a fire truck, then an ambulance.

The ambulance went down the road; the fireman walked down, following the policeman.

I’m working with a new dog in the front yard, watching events unfold.

It’s different than the last time the calvary showed up.

Back then it was four-thirty in the morning, muffled voices on a radio communication system doing checks, and flash-band grenades.

It was a SWAT team doing an early morning raid on a targeted drug house, one on the radar of an on going investigation.

The multi-agency effort included city and county police, ambulances, and an Bearcat personnel carrier.

And real life police dogs doing police work.

It was an impressive force, but not one for affirming life.

That was the second time the authorities showed up in force.

Two Days Ago It Was More Low Key

What is it about a local drug house, a house described by police as ‘meth friendly,’ that feels so hopeless?

They are people who dance their dance to an internal rhythm of despair, which is lifted by a solid hit of meth.

I watched the events, then went inside and came back out with my guitar and played a yard concert for the dog. Call it the Dog Blues.

Half an hour later the ambulance left, then the police and fire engine.

My neighbor gave me the run down.

That morning they looked out their window and saw a body laying in the street in front of the neighbor on their other side. Just laying there sprawled out with a pair of crutches and a giant foot hanging out.

Being decent people, they went out to help the fallen.

However the fallen woman was comatose and unresponsive.

Next, they checked the drug house occupants. The people were dazed and confused and not showing the sort of concern I’d expect if the person laid out in the street lived there.

The ambulance took them away.

Do Bodies In The Street Work At Affirming Life

During my single man days I lived in apartments in Philadelphia, Brooklyn, and Portland.

Each city had people laying on the sidewalk.

In The Bowery men sat with their backs against a building wall, their legs stretched out, asleep.

Philadelphia had its share of downtrodden; Old Town Portland had doorways full of crumpled people.

None of it compared to documentaries I’d seen about WWII in Europe where bodies were laid out in urban center streets.

They weren’t drugged, or sleeping off a hangover. They looked dead based on their poses.

None of the down and out I’ve seen compares to Ukraine standing up to the Russian invasion where a man named Putin green-lit artillery fired at hospitals, apartment buildings, and the indiscriminate target of choice.

Putin is not some evil spirit released from the depths of hell, but a man on a mission of destruction.

What he’s destroying is the idea that civilization has advanced enough to avoid siege warfare to starve out a vulnerable population in winter weather, and turning a cold shoulder to world condemnation.

Putin’s war dead aren’t the same as the body laying in the street two house away from mine, but it’s a war and it comes with casualties.

While not a war on drugs, it’s a war with drugs where people convince themselves their lives are better when they’re high as f#ck.

My question: Is getting so totaled that you end up passed out on a suburban street living the good life?

How Does This Happen

Since this is a drug house neighborhood with night traffic, a dealer who did two years in prison and just got out, people have video set-ups.

My neighbor checked their video and saw a customer’s car pull up and a woman from the house get in.

Not long after, they saw the same car, an opened door, and the woman pushed out on the street unconscious.

The car drove away like it was nothing. Just party people getting down? Unsatisfied customers making a statement? Or was their shit laced with fentanyl?

Affirming life wants to know.

If you, or someone you know needs help, click this link:

If you’ve come across our site because you are searching for answers about your own addiction or someone you love, I hope that you find something here that helps. No one should have to feel the loneliness, isolation, and fear that accompanies addiction.