Philip Robert

Last night I took a visit to Jackson Wellsprings to take the waters. The Wellsprings as they’re known locally is sort of a funky place. It’s an RV park/tent campground with cabins and teepees. The patrons of this little place just north of Ashland are an interesting bunch of people. Many of them would be called hippies I suppose. They’ve got the requisite dredlocks, tattoos, and piercings you would expect of today’s hippies. There are some families who come in attracted by the big swimming pool and the hot springs. There are people who are living here because at $15 a night it is a pretty cheap place to stay.

I was having a good conversation with the girl at the counter when her friend brought over a home made smoothie for her, and the girls decided to take a break. They invited me outside into the cool evening air. We sat down on the grass and the conversation drifted around a bit and we got onto the subject of people who didn’t understand why they couldn’t just camp at the wellsprings for free. The concept that it was private property and this was the owner’s business just seemed to escape their logic.

Counter girl had to go back into the office to take care of some customers. Smoothie girl and I continued talking. The subject of homelessness came up. For most people in this country the homeless are those dirty, ragged looking people pushing around an old shopping cart piled high with all the possessions they own. They live in a shadow world constantly shuffling around panhandleing, and probably wondering where they would sleep for the night. Doesn’t seem like a life one would choose, but I suppose they are reasons.

Smoothie girl and I started talking about other kinds of homelessness. She told me that for the past year her family had been living in a tent at the wellsprings, and for a long time she said that she felt like they were homeless. Then she said one night sitting out under the stars with her kids she began to take stock of how they were living. She had a large tent with electricity. She had a microwave and a television. Her and her children had access to all the amenities that the wellsprings had to offer which included the spa and the pool. It wasn’t a nice two bedroom house with a white picket fence, but she came to the realization that she was pretty far from homeless. She realized that it didn’t matter where they slept as long as it was the same place each night. Her kids were happy, well fed, and she was taking care of them the best way she could while working at the local Wal-Mart.

It’s coming up on three years since Tracy threw me out of her life, and I’ve certainly felt like I’ve been homeless ever since. I’ve managed to live in some nice places since then, but what I know for certain is that having a house or an apartment doesn’t make a home. When I was with Tracy, for the first time in my adult life I knew what having a home was like. It was her house. It was a small two bedroom one bath place in a nice little neighborhood. Being with her if felt like a palace. That break up is one of the most crushing experiences of my life. The wounds have taken a long time to heal and the scars run deep. I’ve learned from this that it’s not the bricks and mortar of a house that make a home, its the ties of the heart. Love is a powerful force, given a chance it will change the way you look at the world.