smiling and shaking...

...one of my first adventures with mixed media- black and white photographs, tissue paper, a little paint, early 90's l believe. The photograph l took in calgary, was walking down ninth ave and came upon this friendly sort, "Come on, were going to sit...do some drinkin." he said. I followed him to this open tin shack, three walls and a roof, all of tin, a old couch and some upturned buckets. Three of them, all friendly with one of them silent and shaking. They proceeded to puncture a can of lysol and drain it into a gallon wine jug of water. A swig every fifteen minutes seemed to be the routine and when passed to me l politely declined.
Years later while working at a homeless shelter in Prince Albert l noticed that the lysol has been replaced with mouthwash, lysterine.
This is dave, he came into the shelter late one night, dropped off by social services. He was seventy, he was scared, he was shaking. I smiled at him and told him not to worry, l told him things would be okay. I gave him a empty room and wished him a good sleep. A couple of months later dave gave me this poem he had wrote.
"I wandered Lonely as a cloud
That floats on high over hill and dale
When all at once l saw a host
A host of golden daffodils
Beside the trees Below the lake
There l saw myself a fluttering in the breeze."

Dave ended up in a private resthome of sorts way out in the country. I don't think he liked it, couldn't get to town easily and sometimes he needed to get a drink or to talk with other people.

"So what becomes of all the little boys, who run away from home, well the
world just keeps gettin' bigger, once you get out on your own, so here's to
all the little boys, the sandman takes you where, you'll be sleepin' with a
pillowman, on the nickel over there.
-tom waits