What a Shattered Knee, a Diabetic Cat, and a Hot Mess of a Trip Will Teach You

While I loathed my time in Bakersfield, I don't regret the trip. Here's why.

Home in Los Angeles

Years ago, I was a devout Christian. I’d been saved, and in that moment I thought the world would be set to rights. I thought faith would give me clarity and calm. I found faith as an adult who nearly drowned in Mexico, a woman who wanted to believe in the larger things. A woman who wanted to be a little less selfish and a little more selfless.

But believing gave me none of these things, no matter how much I prayed, no matter how much I cleaved to my community. Faith couldn’t solve for the wreckage that was my mother, a wound I’d spend my whole life dressing. Faith didn’t have the ability to find me in the darker places I inhabited. And when I saw the politicking, the hate, the we’ll only help them if they can be saved not because it’s the right thing to do, and the money-mandering, I walked away from it altogether.

Christianity felt like any other transaction. An exchange of belief for grace. Laws for votes. A plate of food, a warm bed—only if you consent to being washed in the blood of the lamb.

---

On the ride from Bakersfield, the rain comes down in sheets. The road is sparse and clean and there are only mountains ahead. Felix sits quiet in his carrier while Gabriel and I talk about our lapse in faith. We walked away from the same reasons, but he tells me he wants to make the slow climb back. And although I no longer believe, I don’t admonish him this. If this is what nourishes and sustains you, makes you full and complete, then it’s the right things for you.

“You ever think about it, going back?” I stare out the window thinking about how faith is a country we’re desperate to return to, though we have no passport or maps or instruments of navigation. But it’s a journey if you want it. The borders are never closed, or so I’m told. “No,” I say, quietly, and Gabriel nods because he respects this too.

Headed home, to Los Angeles

What attracted us to Christianity was community. Lifting up the fallen. Holding close the people who need to be held. Gabriel tells me about a recent life of addiction. How he lost his house, his sports car, his friends, his life. Homeless, he wandered Los Angeles with only a backpack. And it was then when he wanted to get sober. So, he cleaned up, righted himself, and his life changed when a man offered him a small job. It was good money for hard work, and that job led to other jobs, which led to the business he runs on his own now.

“I don’t know what I would’ve done if he hadn’t helped me. Given me a chance.”

His words put me to thinking about this summer, how I was at a low, how I felt worthless and ashamed of the life I’d squandered. And a friend, in an unfathomable act of kindness, bailed me out. Paid my rent. Another friend texted every day and sat patient while I rambled on for an hour on a phone call. And when I fell down the stairs and fractured this and tore all of that, it was a new friend who shouldered my weight and filled out hospital forms while I sobbed in a wheelchair. A friend who would text—what can we do? What do you need?

I’m not accustomed to kindness without conditions. I live in a world of value exchange. You do something knowing there’s a reward to be reaped, a benefit to be had. We all pretend to care, but we winnow down to the people (save our family and closest friends) who are advantageous to us. We’ll never admit it, but ours is a world of a constant cost-benefit analysis. And maybe we’ll give money to a charity or help that one person in need that one time to signal our goodness, but even that action is a satiate oneself rather than fill others.

All this kindness served as a mirror for my self-absorption, my history of unkindness. The kindness was a four-alarm fire warning me of a perspective lost, a selfishness gained. And it was a glaring reminder to be grateful for every single thing you have because even the smallest, most insignificant things to you are riches to someone else.

It was as if I’d been asleep through my waking life, but then I really woke up.

I started with apologies. I wrote a few people I’d hurt and owned up to what I’d done. Apologized for the hurt without expecting forgiveness or asking for it.

A friend tells me of an off-hand opportunity to teach young, disadvantaged girls. Helping them find their voice through writing. And I won’t lie—I initially thought I should be paid for it, but then I stopped myself, and told my friend I’d do it regardless of payment. I’d do it because I know how to write well, I know trauma, and I know how to teach others how to find their voice and nurture it. This is my treasure, my bounty of riches and it’s kind to share it because it’s the right things to do. It’s selfless to share it without expecting anything in return.

I returned to what I loved about being a Christian minus the messiness of it.

---

When we arrive to my new place in Los Angeles, Gabriel looks around and says, I like this. This suits you. There’s no TV though—what about you and your true crime shows. I wave my laptop in the air in response and we laugh.

The homeless, they’re gone, I say. Shocked. He tells me about the new mayor, a Scientologist (???). They’re gone, he says. Where did they go? I ask. He doesn’t know.

We were sweaty and tired from lugging all the totes and suitcases and one frightened tabby cat. And then I said, it’s a home and I’m grateful to have one for as long as I can. Gabriel nods, knowingly. Grateful too for the thing so many of us take for granted. A home, a warm bed, food in the fridge and in the cabinets.

I tell Gabriel about a new big work project I’ve won. Finally, I can breathe though the contract hasn’t been signed and I won’t get a check for a few weeks. But it feels real, in reach. He asks me if I’m good until then and I laugh and say no, but I’m actually okay with that.

There’s a certain kind of peace. You lose, or almost, lose everything, and the little things aren’t as terrifying because you’ve seen the worst. It’s a calm, Gabriel says, and I nod because we’ve both felt this calm. We’ve both sat in disquiet. We’ve both climbed our way through and out of the dark with the knowledge that the world isn’t just about us—the world is large and cruel and scary and why not hold someone’s hand. Why not guide them through their journey out of the dark too? Like someone once did for us. Like how we can do the same thing for others.

---