Los Angeles: The Beginning (2) SKID ROW

Riding in a hot and uncomfortable bus for a bunch of hours is one of the best quickest ways to find yourself.  There is something about being forced to sit up straight around a bunch of people who haven’t showered in days that makes you very aware of who you are.  I knew who I was and I was about to get dropped off in a place where I never wanted to end up.  It wasn’t long before  I was walking down the steps of that old Greyhound Bus into the jam packed Los Angeles station, there were wall to wall people of every ethnicity staring at me it seemed, so I hurried out and began my walk into the dark City of Angels.

If you have never been to Skid Row I suggest you add it to your list of places to see, TV doesn’t do it justice.  Every night around dark the shops and businesses which are in this area close down and homeless people from all over the giant city arrive and begin to pitch tents, boxes and shopping carts anywhere that they can find a spot and set camp for the night.  The city has zoned this area as a place where the homeless are welcome and for a mini city of the downtrodden is erected at dusk and tore down at dawn 7 days a week, not the most positive place for someone to be not matter what the circumstance. 

This fine July evening I found myself amongst the vagabonds of the world, nowhere to go and unsettled.  I had little money in my pocket, so reluctantly I travelled down the urine riddled streets alongside America’s finest junkies and throw away War Veterans. This is not where I was supposed to be, I hailed a cab to a hotel Downtown and spent $100 of my dwindling bank roll. I will worry about what’s next in the morning.  I was about to embark on an epic and life changing summer on the streets and beaches of Southern California.

This is the beginning of a series of short entries about my Los Angeles adventures.  If you read back it this blog there are actual entries when I was there.  I have decided to tell my story in a more detailed way, to fill in the blanks.  I hope that you come back and read more as I continue my story with daily posts.

`tillyz

Los Angeles- The Beginning

Sometimes you just have to take a leap of faith.  That’s pretty much what I did that Summer morning, took a leap of faith, out of desperation.  It was a perfect California day when I awoke feeling just plain dirty.  My body ached from all of the abuse that my self- destructive ways had inflicted upon it and it was time to make a choice once again, I could spiral down another rigid spiral or I could jump into the abyss of the unknown.  I walked out of my front door looked up towards the peaks of the mammoth Redwood trees and decided if  I jumped, there wasn't much further that I could go down, so I packed my bags.

Armed with a cellular phone, a laptop and a bunch of stickers I wandered down the mountain and into the village of Felton, California to catch a bus to nowhere, I had about 300 bucks in my pocket.  As I sat on the wooden benches and watched the cars pass I saw a friend, I told him I was going to Los Angeles and hopped the bus down into Santa Cruz.  I sat silently on that bus for a while rolling down the winding hilly roads of Nor Cal fearful and anxious, what did I have to lose really?  I had hitchhiked here and if I had to, I would hitch away.  When we reached the bottom of the hill, a woman touched my shoulder and grabbed my attention, she told me that it would be OK, that it would ALWAYS be ok and told me to jump.  People like that have always popped into my life at the perfect moment, so eerie, destiny.  

When I arrived at the Bus Depot in Santa Cruz, I bought my ticket to L.A. I didn't think twice, I was afraid and I was going to do it.

I have to be honest there was not much excitement on my trip to Los Angeles.  I remember stopping in a few towns and loading up on some supplies, a calling card, some trail mix.  Unlike most of my adventures there were no friends to be made, it was just me in isolation I had to learn to be me again, just me and God, a common theme of most of my adventures.  Fear and anxiety crept in once again, “what the hell am I doing? I am going to one of the most violent and populous cities in the country with nothing” I had already taken the dive.  As we pulled up into Skid Row I thought to myself “I survived New Orleans right after Katrina, I will also survive this”.

This is the beginning of a series of short entries about my Los Angeles adventures.  If you read back it this blog there are actual entries when I was there.  I have decided to tell my story in a more detailed way, to fill in the blanks.  I hope that you come back and read more as I continue my story with daily posts.

`tilly

The Pride

Together waiting to shed your skin,

And feast upon the things within.

They wait to pounce and take your life

Devoured from the inside out and shared amongst them.

They cannot avoid nature’s way

Hunters by night they stalk their prey.

They feed upon the things that are close,

in packs they destroy to further their cause.

The way of the world  

It’s natural selection.

Their only combatant is love and affection.

~1 Love

~tilly