Ties that bind…

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Craig and Lynda are now resigned to avoiding the constant hassle of the overpass life, sharing a dead-end side street butted up against the chain link fences meant to keep people away from the freeway. This new spot is equidistant between where the others still stubbornly squat near the money-generating ramps on busy Nordhoff, and the saving grace of the old Methodist Church and community center run by the North Valley Caring Services a few blocks east. Even though Craig, Lynda, Gracie and rest are loathe to take advantage of the food pantry, breakfasts and other services, it’s not an exaggeration to say that with Manny and others so ready to come to them, their proximity to the mission is almost comforting in itself.

It wasn’t surprising to find Gracie relaxed and pleased to greet company, sitting alone in Craig’s tent, spirits buoyed by her new status as the “honorary grandmother” of a baby girl recently born to Emmy, the raw-boned gal who along with boyfriend Mike were caught up in the ultimately unhelpful New Year’s Eve crackdown that put most of the group (including Mike) in the clink. Now living close to Gracie on the sidewalks off Nordhoff, the couple are part of what Craig somewhat emotionally refers to as their family, which includes everyone mentioned so far plus Terry and Amy. “We’ve had our spirit broken,” he confesses, “but we got it back.” 

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Gracie Crilley wants to help get Emmy into a drug addiction program, so she can get off the street and care for her child herself. 


But there’s more… there’s always more…


The child’s twin did not survive until birth. This happened outside, on the ramp, though in the overall scheme of things was not overly dramatized, and everyone soldiered on. Emmy’s aunt in Santa Clarita has taken the baby in, hence the  studio portrait Gracie pulled out of her shirt to proudly share. The printed photograph stabs at the heart, a throwback to a simpler, pre-digital time It will not lose it’s preciousness even as it weathers and fades, as a possession stored in a refugee’s belongings must do, and relatively quickly. Slipping back into the first-person witness of the human condition, I feel an uncomfortable sense of awe at the resilience and capacity to endure hardship my friends often show. What I am moved so much by is not Gracie’s cracked fingernails, or the depth-of-field you can achieve with an iPhone, but her happiness while sharing the news, the photograph, the experience of being a grandmother. Don’t believe this photograph. Or at least believe that for a few minutes, Gracie was smiling.

Can somebody please get this woman (and her family) a place to live?

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