Reality Limbo

"On Saturday I had to retake part of the CSET exam and ventured out into the real world to do so. The testing site was all the way in Clovis. For those of you not familiar with Fresno think of nice rich suburb right next to a bigger city, the Sierra Madre to Pasadena if you will. While I took a break from FUI activities to review and prepare for my test, I noticed a few things.

I remember re-entry being difficult the first I participated in FUI. I remember being angry about any injustice I saw in my city. I was infuriated with the apathy I thought I saw in everyone around me. I was very prideful, but I meant well. I also heard continued stories of people having the same reactions – hatred toward the rich and the indifferent. But this time, it was different.

After spending about three weeks living in intense community where the plumbing doesn’t always work and fridges break and you get paid very little and everyone is around you all the time – I was so thankful to be away from it all. In fact I was not repulsed by any of the wealth I saw parading around me. The better stores, the bigger malls, cleaner streets, and all apparent lack of diversity in the richer part of Fresno did not disturb me, but allowed me to forget about the realities that lived downtown. I forgot about the fatherlessness, the homelessness, the brokenness, and whatever else seemed to plague the inner city. I was comfortable, and I hadn’t felt that in a long time. I could blend back in with the landscape. I could drive my car wherever I wanted because I wasn’t worried about gas. I could eat wherever I wanted because I wasn’t worried about money. I could drive by myself because it was a “safer” part of town. In short I was relaxed.

Apparently being in the city had really broken me down. I was tired of having to care so much about the people around me. In a place where I see a lot of brokenness – I had to care. The poor aren’t hidden behind gated walls, they are right there in street for you to see and for them to be seen. When I went to North Fresno, it was all hidden beneath flowerpots and paved streets, behind large gated communities and inside mansions. I didn’t have to face anything I didn’t want to because everyone was hiding from each other.

I was tired of having to constantly be present in community. When you live with seven people and are around thirty others constantly, you are always on display. Your faults are magnified to extreme degrees because they just come out in this type of environment. But on Saturday I could blend in. I could sit in a restaurant or a coffee shop and have no one talk to me if I didn’t want to talk to them. I could drive in my car with the windows up and the air conditioner blasting, all the while ignoring people walking on the street, if I actually saw any. I could basically be whoever I wanted to be – hip, cool, trendy, studious, silent, funny, or anything else. I wasn’t forced to deal with the negative aspects of who I was that come out in living with so many people.

In North Fresno my fridge wasn’t broken, my toilet wasn’t clogged, my laundry didn’t cost money, my car wasn’t teetering on empty, my air conditioner blasted, and I sat alone to drink my coffee. I don’t know what scared me more. Was it spending a whole day in North Fresno where I blended in, became invisible, and forgot all about the poverty less that twenty minutes away? Or that I liked it?

If you asked me a month ago, I would have told you that relocating was exactly my plan. I would either go into ministry or go into education – but I knew I would live in an inner city. But now, I am questioning that. And I don't know what I will choose. I know deeply that living in the inner city will not be glamours (as it appeared to me three years ago) nor will it always be fun. And God temporarily brought me out of this city and into North Fresno to show me some very harsh realities. Choosing to relocate to the inner city is a big deal. This is not a decision that can be taken lightly or that I should do because it seems cool. This is a not just a decision of where to live but how to live."

by Melissa Montecuollo, a Cal Poly Grad