A Week in Humble Homelessness or Minding the Gap

There is a period of time in Provo, Utah where a large portion of Brigham Young University's students become homeless wandering vagabonds.

It is a brief period of about one and a half to two weeks where students find themselves living between apartment contracts, although to those who experience homelessness during this week, it is an arduous marathon of sleeplessness and deficient hygiene. This foreboding time has been given the title "The Gap".

Most students reluctantly agree to pay an egregious fee to be able to have a home in either their old apartments or new apartments. The remaining number have willing grandparents or friends from whose homes they move aimlessly from day to day. But there is a sparse number of students who without friend or family are turned away into the cold of night with no where to go. Until their new apartment contracts are available, they live in the parks, under the bridges of Provo River, or in abandoned train cars. They store their priceless possessions on various places on campus or in their cars.

Let me share with you the experiences of a Miss M.A. Boman. Miss Boman is a dear friend of mine who is one of the unfortunate ones to have found herself utterly homeless during The Gap. She now lives from her car. All her earthly possessions are crammed into every inch of space available.

By day Miss Boman is an office specialist. By night she is a hobo.

After her regular shift from eight to five, Miss Boman leaves the office, packs herself into her now mobile home and purchases food from Pita Pit. After absorbing her dinner of turkey and wheat goodness, her mobile storage unit is transformed into her bedroom.

Miss Boman arises early every morning to do baptisms for the dead in the Provo Temple. A model of righteousness. But the Temple has become a matter of necessity for Miss Boman during this week of hard knocks. While Miss Boman is conscious of the spiritual reason she is in the temple, in true hobo fashion her trips to the Temple have become the times in which she is able to shower.

Miss Boman has survived this entire week living out of her car, sleeping in empty church parking lots, and showering at the Temple. Bless her beautiful hide.

I only wonder what other students are resorting to during The Gap.

With What Remains

Oh sweet summer. You are blessed.

I have awkward tans in the most obvious places. Ice cream and fruit are summer staples. I am nearly always in some form of perspiration. Sometimes I have to drive my car with one finger on my steering wheel and another finger on my stick shift. I haven't worn socks since early May. Rain in the summer is better than anything else. People don't look down on you if you come home from work/school and put on workout clothes just because its more comfortable. There is a strange itchiness to to everything and nothing all at once.

But summer is coming to a close now. I can feel it in my bones. And I am avoiding doing anything responsible if I can help it.

Sometimes I don't wash my face before bed. For a solid month, I haven't been able to coax my body out of bed before 7:00am. I have been cooking my oatmeal in the office because I am always running late. I never want to sleep, as if staying up until all indecent hours of the morning will make the summer last longer. I want to hike any mountainous surface and yet I just want to stay home and fall asleep on the couch every afternoon. I want to be social but I also want everyone to leave me alone so that I may have some solitude.

I struggle with my summer shoulder angels, one quietly suggests responsibility and the other battles for lackadaisicalness. The shoulder angel I know I should listen to wants me to go to bed early, to rise early to run and to study my scriptures, but the other angel is so loud in his mediocre slothfulness. He revels in the fact that I have done NOTHING this summer. The 10K that was never run, the things that were never written, the clothes that never got sewed, the hikes that didn't happen, the books that didn't get read, and the dates that were never even an option. He has very nearly convinced me that I don't need to trouble myself with doing anything worthwhile until school starts on August 29th. Two more weeks of nothingness cannot be horrible when I am staring into the face of the everythingness that is about to commence.

And I haven't yet made up my mind as to which shoulder angel will determine this impasse with the minuscule remaining dregs of my summer.

Obsession and Addiction

I, my friends, have a strange addiction. A very strange addiction indeed. I'm addicted to buying books. I may or may not have the right to blame this addiction on genetics.

I went to the BYU Bookstore this afternoon during my lunch break, searching for a little something for a friend's bridal shower. I spent the whole hour wandering around the store wondering what in the world I would get for her. After giving up on the knick-knack section several times over, I headed to the book section to see if maybe, just maybe there was something I could think of to give to her.

I found a cute book that suited my purpose just fine. And then I spotted it. The very section of the store I do not let myself wander into unattended. The area filled with shelves of the most precious little versions of all classic books any self-respecting English major {or any other major for that matter} should own. Jane Eyre. Peter Pan. The Scarlet Letter. The Picture of Dorian Gray. David Copperfield. Shakespeare's Sonnets.

The works.

I picked up a copy of Shakespeare's Sonnets, thinking to myself how perfectly precious it was. How I needed to own it. How wonderfully it would look tucked into my now overflowing bookshelf. Then I grabbed Peter Pan. "Oh, how I love this story!" I exclaimed to myself. {Inside my head naturally}. Then Jane Eyre caught my eye and found its way into my hands.

"I can't buy all these," I thought. "My money must be saved! I need to buy groceries and new shoes. The books can wait." I put Jane Eyre down. "Well maybe I can just buy one. They're not expensive. But just one of them." I held Peter Pan in one hand and Shakespeare's Sonnets in the other. My hands began to shake and my breath came in short bursts as I struggled to choose which precious treasure to leave behind; debating which book's feelings would be hurt worse if I left it there. I decided to spare both books' feelings and bought them both.

And that ladies and gentlemen is how my addiction works.

A Quick Succession of Busy Nothings

It's August, and yet I feel as though I've done nothing with my summer. I feel that I've accomplished nothing. Nothing consequential or important anyways.

I've gone to temple trips, stake activities, ward activities, 80's dance parties, wedding receptions, garden parties, swimming parties, zumba classes, work, work, work, concerts, home evenings, firesides, reunions, farewells, homecomings, bridal showers, etcetera, etcetera, etcetera.

And still I feel unaccomplished, as though everything I do really isn't that important. Perhaps it's just a slump. Perhaps I'm just wishing summer would last longer. But perhaps it's a sign that it's time for school to start again.