One Foot At A Time

Sometimes I think I am just cursed with a kind and caring heart.
That my eyes and ears just open a little to much.

Then I begin to wonder am living in the same world as everyone else.

Does our government not see the despair that people are just existing in.
I say this because people who were once a upon a time living an okay life styles and were reasonable happy are now weeping in fear of their capabilities.

They are afraid of their own rage and despair.

They have been conditioned for years not to feel or deal with emotions.

I hear them sobbing as they tell me have just lost the job that they have had for the past fifteen years.
I hear them sobbing as they tell me they have just spent thousands of dollars repairing their house for the last time.

I hear them tell me about their experiences of having to apply for unemployment. Most them don't even know were the office is. Then they try and seek out a really human being to help them walk through the paper work. I hear their sobs as they come to the realization that they are being re-categorize in the state of "class-ism."In other words they have been bumped down the pecking order of a hierarchical system. This was done within their control; when they were working.

I have also heard them sobbing as they tell me that they are considering suicide. Some have succeeded.
I have also heard them tell me that they think they are going crazy, because their partner has just followed through with it and now they are considering this same escape route too.

They have lost hope, compassion, and the ability to trust themselves, their families, their community, their government. They feel that they can no longer do these things. Their coping mechanisms are depleted.

Why is it that I can see this and not our government?

I have been thinking about a conversation I had with James the other day. It was on a day that we were dragging ourselves down to the causeway for another day of foot massages. Just another day of sitting there for hours waiting someone to say that they wanted to sit for a few minutes and experience few minutes of receiving a pleasurable foot massage.

Any how some how we got around to talking about what he was going to do after the main part of the tourist season was over. He said that he really didn't know what he could do because he know that his body is total screw up after years of doing labourist work for minimum wage. I asked what he was going to do with that book that he had been diligently getting his guest to mark down the time and comments in. He said that he might one day need it to get in a course or something were he could come with a certificate.
Then with this strange look on his face he said that he really didn't know what he was going to do once the tourist season ended because he had been turned down by WCB for the back injury and was not about to humble himself and go through all the crap of trying to deal with unemployment because he didn't think that it was worth all that extra waste of time because it probable was worth a whole lot of money.

I tried to encourage him to consider following through with his dream of owning his own business in doing foot massage. But he just snarled back at me and said don't you get it? I said get what? He said " people don't want to hire Indian like me. They don't even want to acknowledge my existence. They just want to take, take and take. They want to make sure that we don't become educated and beside I don't want to become like them."

I thought about it and began to think about his words. I then began to think his right about a lot of things said that the only differences that he could see between me and the government is I see they don't, I care they don't, I do my best to help people they don't, I am one Wyman who nothing to lose they have are many and still nothing to lose(just more of it?). I have to walk with the same people that I have tried to help the government can drive away, I can't!

Any how after this rant that he was on I asked what it would take for him to go and get a certificate. He couldn't because he didn't want to go through one more rejection. He say he can't take it anymore. All he had was a grade ten and he has been with me through all the crap that I have gone through in the past eighteen months. He said that he has seen me get up in front of thousands of people and seen how compassionate I am about other people and human rights. He has also seen and heard how people have be little d me right in front of me and when they think that no one is listening. He also read a few comments in the news paper about me. He said that he could not put himself through that stuff again because it happened to him as well.

As we progressed in our conversation I also began to sense that he was planning something else. So I tried to give him some hope. It worked. He said that if he can come up with the money to pay for the rebelliously course he wants to continue on making his services affordable to everyone. He said he realized that he had literally been out in public selling his service to the entire world massaging people feet from all over the world and doing what he loved to do and supporting his family on a ten dollar foot massage. One foot at a time is the moral of this fable in accordance to him. So if we can raise eight hundred dollars to pay for the tuition fees and seven for a reflexology chair; then we are one less statistic for this dammed government incestuous need to target us simple because of race, gender, class, or age.

Quote from James Himself "Together will conquer this oppressive system one foot at a time. "