Homelessness Sparked My Lifelong Love of Literature
Thrift stores — and nights in my Corolla — led me to the power of books
When I was 19, I threw a mug of hot coffee at a framed wall tapestry my dad purchased when he was in Italy. The cost in damages was a few thousand for the tapestry, a couple of bucks for the mug and brew, and my ability to continue living there.
The mug exploded, the glass of the frame shattered, and the near-boiling roast spewed out over the elegant threads depicting some fanciful 18th-century scene no one in the heavy air of that living room would ever care about. My dad, ever theatrical, called the cops. They came and cuffed me, and we (the cops and I, my dad had found elsewhere to go) had a pleasant chat about the immediate future. They released me on the condition that I would leave the premises, so I took the keys to my Corolla and left.
The Corolla would be my home for a while.
Homelessness was freeing at first. The most obvious change was that the friction I had with my abusive father was gone; the pressure of our interactions was released into the ether. I found solace in my new routine…
