6
I Want to Change
the World
By Heather
This relentless thought swims through
my head; banging
back and forth; up and down.
Oh my tired head.
Another day is bitter, unrelenting.
Eyes opening think of God, staring up,
brown dull ceiling,
A slight whisper, a fan circling around-
and-around.
I hear metal with wheels.
Wondering who they are, who am I,
driving by; do they ever wonder, who is in
that box, Antenna hanging outside.
Mustered up courage, I step outside,
pavement filled, broken shadows, dreams
nonetheless, piece by piece, just all at
once, I throw a smile or just hejlo,
loose change.
“How do I say I want to change the
world?”
good, local, food.
ALBERTA
COOPERATIVE
GROCERY
1500 NE Alberta St. j
Portland, GR:/9724V?‘
503 . W . 4333
Affirming
patience,
one day at
a time
BY KAISA MCCROW
C O N T R IB U T IN G W R IT E R
etween the rush of car traffic and
building construction on 26th and
Hawthorne, Robert Millhouse sells
Street Roots. The corner is near a bank
parking lot, not a coffee shop, or a grocery i
or bookstore, as is typical for most vendors.
It is hard to capture the demographic that
traverses this part of the well-known
Portland street, not quite far enough up the
numbered streets to be hipster hangout, not
close enough to the river for cross
neighborhood bike traffic. Instead; there is
the bustle of bank goers and the noise of
the nearby Safeway reconstruction. Maybe
not the stereotypical Portland street corner,
yet it suits Robert. He doesn’t consider
himself a true “Portlander” anyway. Robert
was born in Alabama, but moved to Oregon
with his mother and father at age six. He
was raised in Pentecostal home, and his
parents were strict; if he wasn’t at school he
was at Church, and he went to both five
times a week.
We talked a lot about his parents. He is
describes mentally just trying to get through
the first four years, halfway. If he could
make it to the middle, everything else would
flWBOit tR O F im
be easy. And he was determined from day
onei he would finish, he would move on, and
B
Robert Millhouse
he would certainly never go back. ■
open to everyone 9 -W ^ a ily
CENTRAL CITY
concern
Changing Lives
Building Communities
Creating Opportunities
www.centralcilYConcern.org
503-294-1681
close with them now, especially his mother,
a relationship he describes as “best friends,
real tight.” Although they were strict on him
as a child, and he definitely went through a
period of rebellion against the rigid
structure of his upbringing, he expresses a
faith in the support of his family that has
withstood his 36 years. Robert stays with
his parents now. It was his mother who gave
him the Rose City Resource guide, where
he first found Street Roots in March. He had
just come home after eight years in prison.
With those years now behind him, Robert
is looking forward and working hard to get
his life started again. He describes spending
eight years thinking on and resolving how
he would live his life when he got out, and
he' has wasted no time getting started. With
firmness, he explains the way his mind
wrapped around that time and chipped away
at i t Although he was never more than a
few hours away from his family, he made a
deliberate decision to isolate himself from
his loved ones. Too much contact with his
family, he believed, would be a painful
distraction to what he needed to do. He
Robert is striking in his earnestness. For
him, it is time to grow up, to leave behind
the naive notions that fast money or quick
fixes to problems will make life better. He
values the more sustainable result of taking
life slowly, deliberately. His reflections are
akin to affirmations, “to walk in a straight
line is going to take patience,” he says.
“Don’t expect anything to happen overnight.
When you walk in a straight line and do
everything the right way, you keep going
forward.” He reminds himself of this every
day.
•
An affirmation of patience is essential
finding jobs, getting back into school, all of
the more obvious steps that need to take
place. It also serves the smaller goals:
finding time to work out again, to play
basketball. But his paramount goal, the one
that will likely take the most time and
patience, is to find his daughter, who was
just a baby when he left eight years ago.
Now almost nine years old, it is Robert
wants to be reunited with her. He says it is
not a matter of “if” he gets her back in his
life, but when and how. Like anything else,
it won’t happen overnight.
“You have to learn to take responsibility
so you can put those mistakes behind you,”
he says. “Its nobody’s fault hut your own.
You’ve got to want to change, to do the right
tiling.”
Robert says he sees too many young
people without role models and too many *
older people stuck on a path where they
refuse to grow up and make the right
choices. He doesn’t believe that a younger
generation of men can learn to be the right
kind of hardworking adults if their role
models are stuck in the same patterns and
negative cycles of their youth. He won’t be
one of those men. Being a role model is
' another goal of Robert’s. As a young
teenager he was mentored by a former Trail
Blazer, and could see himself getting
involved in a similar capacity.
He is also a poet, although reluctant to
admit i t He shared some titles of his poems
with a little prodding, “Daily Struggles” and
“Never Give Up,” among others. Asked
whether he intends to submit them to
Street Roots, he pauses and muses for a
while. He appreciates Street Roofs for the
opportunity it is providing to get his goals
jump-started, but it doesn’t seem as if he
has yet considered it as a space for poetry
and expression. Or maybe he has not fully
considered the value of his own artistic and
emotional expression. He looks at the paper
he is holding for a moment, “Submit poetry?
Yea, you know, I think I will.”
VENDOR WORK ADS
X
! I 1 L
LOOKING FOR AN
AFFORDABLE PLACE TO RENT?
Your online housing search just g o t easier.
xat 971-255-0440 to speak with Chelsea
Cassidy Morse: Looking for work. Will do
Benedict. Two-person team also available
most anything, light and heavy. $10 an
for hire for general labor (moving, house
hour, four hour minimum. References
supplied. Please call 503-224-5398 or Street cleaning, yardwork, small home repairs).
Ready to work immediately.
Roots at 503-228-5657.
Chelsea Benedict: Painting service, interior/
exterior house painting. Also specializing in
custom mural artwork. Please e-mail at
crbenedictmurals@gmail.com or by phone
Laura Owens: Dog walker, $5 per half-hour
walk. Downtown and Northeast area.
Olease call Street Roots, 503-228-5657 and
leave a message for Laura.
Want to know a little more about your vendor? Check out www.streetroots.wordpress.com
for past articles about the men and women selling Street Roots!