A Purposed Journey And A Test

A new 'work of art' at the first bus stop this morning.

Today I took a journey north to Studio City, west of Universal City... the epicenter of media production beyond Hollywood.

I'm looking for a temporary housing opportunity.

It's a two-hour journey via two trains and a bus to my destination.

Prior to boarding the train in downtown Long Beach, I notice an older couple having trouble putting funds onto their metro card [a debit-type card used to pay for metro trains and buses].

I can tell they speak Spanish, so I ask if they do.

They affirm.

I mention to them in Spanish that there is an office nearby where they can be assisted, knowing how the kiosk can be a bit confusing and frustrating when trying to pay with cash.

The woman is grateful and thanks me, invoking God's blessing onto me.

I return the same with a smile.

The train is running late today.

At the downtown Long Beach train platform.
Digital cameras sometimes do not capture digital outputs.
This read "this [is] a test" [sic] regarding the train delays today.

Some time later it arrives and I embark.

This same couple sit in the two seats in front of me.

In due time the woman turns around and thanks me again... and then asks me a question.

She asks if I'm Jewish.

She says from the looks of my face and how I'm dressed she thinks I must be.

Do I look Jewish?
Taken at a bus stop in Studio City on my way back... pondering today's events.

I respond that spiritually speaking I am, but according to heritage I am not.

I also elaborate a bit in my answer.

She adds that she is has Jewish heritage from a certain part of her family, and mentions other ethnic backgrounds.

I also share with her my heritage past.

Hearing my elaborations, she quotes that God commanded no graven images to be made.

I concur, clarifying that man was forbidden to make an image with their hands in attempting to 'make' something that resembled God or anything considered a 'god'.

I then added that “the Son [Messiah] is the image of the invisible God...”

She ponders this response and then asks why I am traveling that day, asking if I'm on my way to work.

I inform her that I am on my way to see about a place for rent... and elaborate a bit.

She invites me to consider moving in with her family, saying it would not be too costly.

I thank her for the offer and ask her about it.

She asks for a pen, which I hand to her, and she writes down the address and a contact number.

During our conversation she tells me about a child taken from her at birth.

I was unsure if the story was believable, but her husband was not objecting to what she was telling me [he was quiet the entire time].

She said the birth was a c-section and that she was drugged for about eight days after giving birth, her husband having arrived to be with her after the birth.

She mentioned knowing who the woman / family is who took the child.

She mentioned an interview with this child (now an adult) and that this man believes she had abandoned him.

She was very emotional while telling me the story.

I was unsure if I should inquire further, and as I began to formulate a question in consideration of her emotional state their stop came up and they had to disembark.

She was adamant about me contacting her about the space she was offering.

She told me that although the son that lives with them does not want anyone moving in, she would consider me as a son if I were to move in with them, saying that whatever food was cooked was available for me.

I felt her love, her openness, and her plight.

We one again shared blessings upon one another.

She had earlier told me her reason for visiting Long Beach: a major IRS bill due to foul play.

The regional IRS office is in downtown Long Beach, a place I once visited to recover monies my mother lost due to an ignorant tax preparer.

I pondered all these things after they left.

During our chat and at one of the stops, a man embarks and sits next to me, with his back towards me for some time [by this time, the train is very full and all the seats are taken with only standing room left].

He looks homeless or transient, a bit disheveled and dragging a single piece of luggage with wheels.

He nods off and begins to drift over towards me, leaning a bit on me.

As the train shifts and stutters and stops and goes, he is jolted awake and apologies when realizing he has been resting on me.

I say it is okay, brother.

After some time, he asks if this train goes to Santa Monica.

I say no, that he needs to connect with the Expo Line when this train stops at 7th Street downtown.

As I'm looking out the window, homeless encampments and piles of trash can be seen.

The man next to me says these streets are cleaner than those in Chicago.

I stay silent.

He says people here (Los Angeles) live like kings when compared to those in Chicago.

I stay silent, unsure how to respond or if I should.

I decide to respond, asking how cold it gets in Chicago.

30 below, he says.

He then makes a joke, saying it gets so cold that black people turn white. [he is a black / African American man]

I laugh.

He later shows me a roll of toilet paper with Trump's face on it, and infers 'you people' (white) like him.

I carefully consider my response.

I said it isn't a matter of liking the man, but realizing that nothing can be done regardless of who is in office, and that soon another president will be in office.

He puts the still wrapped in plastic roll of novelty toilet paper back into his bag.

Upon arriving at the end of the line, I again inform him that the Expo Line is the one that goes to Santa Monica.

He thanks me.

While in Studio City, I pacified my hunger at a place called Tere's Mexican Grill.

(1 of 2)
Fiat currencies (fancy paper) from around the world beneath the ordering counter at the restaurant.

(2 of 2)
Fiat currencies (fancy paper) from around the world beneath the ordering counter at the restaurant.

On the way back to Long Beach, the journey is as lively and interesting and sad and revealing as the journey was to Studio City.

Ruralites listen quietly in amazement (possibly also shock and fear) of the ways of the loud expressions of some of the urbanites.

Police presence at a major train hub has a group of free riders grumbling that they may be asked for valid fare and end up getting ticketed.

There has been an increase in police presence at certain stops due to violence, violations, and failure to pay the fare.

The piles of trash and homeless encampments along the tracks is sickening and disheartening.

I wonder what the program of billions of dollars popularly passed last year will provide... besides lots of new government jobs (and absorption) of most of it, and possibly a miss of the very issues that produce homelessness, further apathy, and the repeating of systemic poverty due to cultural indifference.

I can't help but 'hear' two women behind me talking about some drama.

One says she has to restrain herself because she has a restraining order on another woman who lives on her street.

She expresses how she desires to kill that person.

Her conversation is loud and layered with expletives.

I have learned from past experience to be careful making eye contact or even attempting to speak... such circumstances being unpredictable at times no matter one's loving intentions to reach the hostile.

I try to enjoy the sites outside the window.

Watts Towers.

A now defunct RC car race track adjacent to the Artesia rail station.

The backside of the Rancho Dominguez house.

And the always painted over, and always repeated many miles of graffiti, some artistic, most an ignorant mess similar to the popular hifalutin scribbles argued as modern art.

Every code is violated on the metro system except for the feeding of birds.

Regarding the opportunity for a place to live, a dishonorable thing happened.

The landlord ceased responding to my correspondence, and didn't notify me of the place being unavailable... so I didn't meet anyone nor saw a possible new home.

This troubled me, but I had to recognize this particular journey was not so much me finding a place to live in Studio City, but the interactions that transpired and the reflections which were written herein.

Sign at 7th Street station waiting for the Blue Line to arrive.

The test was whether or not one man's dishonorable actions would turn my day gray; whether I would allow such to dim the light from shining.