When I meet Davey, it’s on a Sunday afternoon in February. I am sinking into a familiar net of sticky self-absorption. The day is your typical late-winter bleak in New England. Freezing rain, troubling wind, gray sky. It’s hard for me to see beauty in what’s around me. My environment is a palette of dark, wet pavement, ice, high snow banks, woods and metals. The only color comes from stray bottles and candy wrappers mashed into black-crusted snow. Parking meters, street signs, brace themselves rigidly against the wind, salt-streaked and frozen.

I sit in one of my favorite cafes and scribble notes about what I want out of life in the margins of a magazine filled with writing I admire. A recent break-up haunts me. The real terror behind it is a scrabbling need to figure myself out, to make sense of the how I’ve lived.

With the discipline of someone who drags herself out of bed to exercise in the morning, I leave the café for Harvard Square, to find someone to talk to. I don’t need to vent; I’ve already plumbed my family and friends to the max, prayed and reflected on Scripture, sat quietly, attempted to clear my mind of all. Nothing feels like it’s working. Looking for a homeless person to interview feels just as incongruous and useless as everything else in my life. The faithful part of me knows to keep looking anyway. Continue reading →