I am on the West Coast for the Russell Simmons Def Poetry Jam on stage production. The two coasts are as different as they say it is. Life is slower on this end. People smile more, they take longer to serve you, to walk in the streets-they take longer to do everything.

San Francisco is beautiful. But ah don't understan' why such a wonderful place have so much people living on the streets! Every couple of steps there is a bundle of homeless men and women smelling of alcohol and looking like they are not all here. They stumble and they fall and they beg and they stare at you with vacant eyes and unless you want to be penniless in no time, you have to pick and choose who to give and who to wrap your heart in steel and walk away from.

I had thought New York was bad. No sah! San Francisco win the race gone long time ahead. In all my travels, I have never seen so many homeless people in one place. It is summer here, but it feels like late fall. The cold wind is knife sharp, and the air is dry. Most people wear sweaters everyday. Most days we are covered in thick jackets and scarves. This just makes the begging faces more pitiful. I am told that this is the weather they endure all year round. I am steady counting my blessing every time I see them.

I remember the homeless in Jamaica. The mad woman with the red floor polish on her face was the sister of a woman I knew. My own cousin walked the streets cursing anyone who took the time to listen. The dark-skinned girl who spoke English with the queen's precision and wandered the Hope Road stretch was once in England. She was once a teacher there. The crazy, the homeless, the strange in Jamaica belonged somewhere. People told stories of who they were and what caused their demise. Some of the stories were more fable than fact, but it gave the drawn frames history and context. They existed.

Not here. There is something even more haunting than madness in the gaze of these without homes here in America. It seems that their stories have been taken away by their misfortune. They come with no history. Nobody knows them. They know no one but the pack with which they sleep, if they choose to share their sorrow. People pass them everyday and in time we all begin to think little of their torture. In the three weeks I have been in San Francisco, I have begun to NOT see them when it is very late or when I am tired or when I am rushing to get to rehearsal. I imagine that in the next two months I won't see them at all.

If you live in a house and you have heat when it is cold, give thanks. Life on the Big Ranch is certainly not easy. May the break of every dawn find you in a place of compassion. May your joy find its way into the hand of someone who needs you.

Till next time,

Staceyann