Liking the D.I.Y. approach to life

I walked in the door tonight more grateful than usual to be letting myself into my warm little studio after a long day at work.

This evening I spent an hour outside in less-than-desirable weather conditions, covering a vigil for homelessness awareness week. I was so moved by the story of a local woman who endured a childhood of abuse, spent a winter homeless on the streets of Saratoga as an adult and is now earning her degree to be a social worker at age 49. 

That kind of determination makes me feel like a chump for ever complaining about my sky-high student loans and pitiful paychecks. At least I'm working at something I care about and have a safe place to sleep.

As someone who spent her first few months of life sleeping in a tiny blue red trailer in the middle of the woods, surrounded by five-foot piles of snow, with a father who worked nights loading trucks in a warehouse and a mother who taught school to students from poverty-stricken families, the issue of homelessness resonates with me. 

In the spring, with the help of friends and neighbors, they finished hand-building the two-story log cabin that would be my beloved home for the next 16 years.  

Of course, I wasn't fully cognizant at the time, but I don't think there was much separating us three from destitution during that first long, cold winter in the trailer -- not much except an unflappable commitment to hard work and a steady resolution to maintain one's self-sufficiency at all costs.

My parents have long ago gone their separate ways and the log cabin is now someone else's home, but those values have stuck with me, and they flood my one-room apartment with hope.