food glorious food

The glass door slides open with my step and I move from cold to warm, Josie on my hip. Around the back of her scalp, her hair is a fuzzy blond tangle and I am too aware of her unkept look. This is my mom's thing, the hair, but I can't let go of it. Appearances.

Why should I care? I know I wash her hair, bath her, brush her teeth, read her the same story 438 times a day, sing to her, laugh at her two-year-old humor, hold her in the night when she wakes in terror. But, if I'm here then I must be failing, must not be good enough, must not be enough for my children.

The room is crowded, two-dozen people staring into any space that does not meet another's eyes. They sit on maroon vinyl chairs around formica tables wearing a singular expression. L.L. Cool J is talking to Jenny Jones on the T.V., but nobody looks at them either. Straight down, or straight ahead or straight through the faded avacado walls.

They are tight lips, streched thin and pulled down. They are weary faces, eyes blank with stress, eyes that hit the floor quickly, instantly, when they see me looking. A whole room full of people who'd rather be any where but here, who can't look.

I don't have to see their faces though, I'm wearing them.

They are a staggering statistic, a barely measurable percentage of the 200,000 Oregonians who fill their tables with food from an emergency box every month. TWO HUNDRED THOUSAND. Every month.

What the fuck? What the fuck is wrong with our society? We dump bazillions into fueling hatred and building bombs to drop on children guilty of praying to a different god, when 200,000 people in this one state, just one among 50, can't collect enough quarters for dinner. What the fuck?

You can recognize the regulars, they are tired but they don't care and their faces tell it They aren't humiliated by sitting in line for hours to get food stamps, so they can eat, just bored. So their children can go to school with full bellies, they sit and wait. And, good for them, why should they be ashamed?

Irate is what they should be. There is no dignity in this.

"Julie" a voice calls from one of the cubicles. Just a first name, like the signs on the wall say, they use first names only to protect privacy. And no one looks.

I sit at the kid's table, in a tiny chair, knees up to my chin, working through pages and pages. Do I have a 401K? How much is in it? How many hours a week do I work? How much do I make? How often am I paid? Am I married? Single? Divorced? Married but Separated? Does the father contibute? How much? Have I ever been convicted of a crime? I wonder, if I did have a criminal record, does that mean I don't deserve to eat? Do I receive other social services?

Josie matches wood peices to a cut out puzzle. "Mommy, look, a helicopter." Identifies the letters A-B-C-D on a coloring sheet and gleefully scribles purple across them.

When she tires of her sheet, she adds color to mine.

The woman across from me sits legs together to the knees, hugging a bright blue folder to her chest. Looking, but not looking.

"I'm tired as hell and a big part of it is her," a woman says to her friend, while watching her toodler scribble at the table with Josie. "It's good though. This will remind you of what you're getting into if you get pregnant.

"There's a double wide for sale for $8,000, $2,000 down." She looks around the room and back to her friend. Both women are overwieght, obeese. Easily 300 plus pounds. Jeans, Crocs, no socks, fadded t-shits, grey hoody sweatshirts. "It's sad that I recognize the ones that are always here."

The duaghter and Josie go for the same toy and the girl squaks.

"Honey," the mom says without looking "You've got to share baby. You know share, both of you have to use it." Then she dissapears past the cubicles into the back.

This is a way of life. Just something she does every month and there is no stress in her eyes.

Three people are reading and everyone else just keeps staring at nothing.

Straight ahead to nothing. Looking and waiting.