Acceptance and those we forget exist.

"I don't know much, I don't know where I am going or where I will end up. But, I know I have this cigarette and I know I have right now." 

-Quail (Wanderer, Austin Texas)

Dog Shit park, its a patch of grass. It might as well be home. We sit in a circle, taking long pulls from the whiskey bottle. Pull and pass. There are six others, that makes seven. Ellie sits to my left, rolling her dreadlocks between her thumb and forefinger. Quail lies in the grass beside her, propped up on his knapsack, taking long drags on his cigarette. He was raised traveling as a child and hasn't had a home for 13 years. After the whiskey bottle passes, a can of beer, Natural Light. 

Someone made extra today with a borrowed guitar, singing the blues on the corner of Guadalupe and 25th. I met them earlier in the day sitting on the corner. I knew no one in this town. I bought Ellie a beer, her in a black trench coat and overalls, me with moccasins and a sweater drinking Highlife together behind a parked car. Some things are simple. She brought me to the group and we joined in, singing like dinner depended on it. A nice man with grey hair bought us a pizza and beers wrapped in brown paper bags. We sat in the alley behind Urban Outfitters sharing the slices, sipping from cans, and laughing about traveling stories as we pull our jackets tight against the wind. Some have been out here for years. One young boy says he left home two weeks ago, he can’t be older than 16 and he passes out before I learn any more. No one speaks of the past.

Hours later, the group is quiet, an honest kind of quiet. I pull my hat low and wrap my jacket tight. Shay is round and kind with a big red beard and has a genuine joy about life. He is wearing coveralls and carries his guitar and a large canteen filled with beer. The girl to my right introduces herself as McKenzie, and she smiles through the night, her boyfriend never says a word. She is the only one with a job, walking dogs in the morning. She laughs as she packs her pipe with weed. "I found this here in the grass last week," she is thrilled. 

I remember the morning I moved into my college house years ago and found a pipe in my closet left by the tenants before. I thought it was dirty then, but now, I too pull and pass. No one cares why I am here. I look different, and they know I have a home somewhere. But tonight I am one of them any way. 

Jake has blond hair to his shoulders, a soft voice and kind eyes. He reminds me of a rugged, homeless Jesus. He tells stories of tripping acid and surfing the biggest waves you can imagine. Everyone gets fucked up as they make plans to hop a freight train in the morning. Quail has come from Eugene, Ellie from Baltimore, Jake from San Francisco others from New York, San Diego, Tampa, but that's not where they are going. 

"Home isn't a place anymore" says Ellie. It's past midnight now and the two of us walk together back to the streets. She has been gone for a long time now. "I wander, and I beg, I hitchhike, and I sleep in places people think I shouldn't. Society judges me, and I judge society. It's all the same in the end. Who’s to say what is right. I certainly can't." I find her incredible, and brave, and rare. We sit along the wall under florescent lights. "We might be able to score some drunk change" she says, and starts asking people as they walk by heading out of the bar to their cars and their warm homes. "Do you have a little change to spare?" she asks again and again with a gentleness I admire. Most people push past without a glance.  I wonder if I would have done the same. I feel embarrassed and then honored, apologetic and then strong. We make two quarters, one dime, and three pennies that a young woman throws down with disgust. To the world, in that moment, we hardly exist.

It wouldn’t be until weeks later that I realize the type of acceptance I experienced that night on the streets of Austin, in the smoke at Dog Shit Park, under the bridge with the makeshift tents. I learned to accept from those that I previously deemed to barely exist.