The sign said ME MAS. I suppose that message after being hung on the inside of a storefront window the day after Halloween,was pretty good having survived its original greeting of MErry ChristMAS, now that it is December 30. The storefront upon which the sign dangled with its icy red and green letters was the only business still owned by its original proprietors, I knew this because under the ME MAS sign was a notification imprinted since 1956. The stores to the left of this establishment were boarded up and a new sign hung from it stating this will soon be a condo with units starting at $750K and of course as is the norm in LA, sitting atop commercial space. The stores to the right of the ME MAS building had been renovated into a hot yoga studio, a yogurt palace, and a juice bar. Prior to these hipster businesses were a tailor shop, a Russian produce market and a clothing shop all circa the 1970’s with the names of the small business owners emblazoned upon the doors. Lots of scaffolding circled the condo unit with its usual collection of liter blown onto the sidewalks, and setting up a home for the evening under the scaffolding were a group of men with their cardboard boxes, and a woman with a large shopping cart and plenty of plastic bags. This was on Santa Monica Boulevard a major thoroughfare in West Hollywood, so traveling between here and there you either were very self absorbed ignoring all of this, blinded by all the variables in plain sight as if there was too much to witness, or just wondering as to what was really happening.
The next block the Happy Holiday signs posted must have either been placed on the windows with stronger tape, or perhaps placed on the windows a few weeks after Halloween. One man was lying on a dirty carpet in front of the Happy Holiday sign store and I suppose at one time during the night he had been covered with a another blanket, but this day if there was another blanket it disappeared along with his left shoe and sock. Two women were a bit perplexed trying to squeeze by him, the sidewalk was narrow, and the two bags each they carried from Bloomingdales made this squeeze by a bit difficult. The one woman was on her phone stopping to talk long enough to say to her friend REALLY, and the other woman a bit terrified grabbed on to her friend’s jacket whispering hurry up Arlene, hurry. There was a garbage can at the corner, West Hollywood is very trash conscience filled with Starbucks cups and lots of multi-colored poop bags. But littered around the garbage container were some actual piles of poop sans the bag, seemingly as if having your dog poops close enough to the garbage can it is as good as placing in the bag in the container. There was what looked like a fresh box of discarded pizza, still light reddish in color and although it was pretty close to the “I am just too tired to place my dog liter in a bag spot, was a young woman with a large backpack stuffed with what looked like jackets bending down to first smell the pizza, then picking a piece of it to taste it. This was on Santa Monica Boulevard, in plane sight so traveling between here and there you had to see it, or perhaps decided not to look at all.
Tis the season we say, the winter time when religions honor their God’s and religious people pray for goodness, kindness, and tons of gifts both material and emotional. Streets are draped in colorful stars, glistening trees with ornate decorations, and walking past businesses you probably can hear Bing Crosby singing some carol or two. But between here and there, there are somehow the poor, the tired, the discarded, the lonely, the anxious, the hopeless all trying to thrive, let alone survive. We can see the joy the world has to offer, but why must we continue to ignore anything else. I continued my walk and wondered what can I do, am I responsible for doing anything, and if I don’t see what is in front of me will it go away? Amazing what is found between here and there.
