Blu
By Paisleigh Kelley | Last updated Jan. 25, 2021
Each day that I see him at the Center, Blu greets me with a warm “Salutations!” I ask him how he slept and how he’s doing. Every day above ground is a good day, he replies. We exchange pleasantries as he brushes his teeth and packs up his assortment of necessities – a sleeping pad, blanket, plastic bags of extra clothing, and more. He has a system, securing everything in just the right way so that his towering backpack can stay balanced as he goes about the day. He calls it his mobile home.
Blu setting out from the Harry Tompson Center.
It is Blu’s way with words and his relentless positivity that piques my interest in his story. I want to understand how someone who seemingly has so little can hold such a consistently optimistic worldview. Before he leaves, I ask if I can interview him. “If it helps people, then sure, we should do it.” he replies.
On a frigid January morning, I meet Blu at the Center with coffee and a blueberry muffin. We settle in against the wind and Blu tells me about himself. He’s in his early thirties and is one of seven children. Although he didn’t live with his mother, he reveres her strength and credits her as being the source of his determination, independence, and positivity. His father and older brother were military men – a career he considered for some time, along with law and medicine.
Blu loves knowledge but is less inclined to participate in systems he feels are too rigid for his varied interests. Instead, Blu says, he makes learning a hobby, often spending hours reading and viewing videos about law, holistic medicine, religion, and philosophy. Threads of his studies and a keen sense of self-awareness weave their way into our conversation.
In 2016, Blu had a 9-5 job in sales in the Midwest. He had an apartment. A car. A normal life. But he had what he calls a Tower moment. In Tarot, the Tower card represents unforeseen change, often defined by a sense of danger, destruction, and liberation. Blu’s Tower moment arrived when he was approached by several officers while walking to turn in his rent. A murder had occurred in the area and police were on the lookout for a Black man. “That’s all it takes for people like us.” Blu says. Soon he was on the ground, several officers restraining him.
Police cuffed him and stripped his pockets, but Blu found it odd that they failed to remove his firearm, which was licensed, registered, and remained strapped in his holster. Officers stood to the side, whispering. Blu worried they might kill him. He saw blood on the ground and knew it was his but could not tell where it was coming from.
“Dude, I have a firearm. Take it!” he demanded. Only then did the officers confiscate the gun. In the end, Blu was booked on charges of carrying a concealed weapon.
“Putting people behind bars is inhumane.” Blu says, peeling back the paper skin of his muffin. “I spent nearly six weeks in jail and never committed a single crime.” We don’t talk much about his time in prison, but I can tell that it stays with him. Blu’s father hired a lawyer, but even with legal representation, the courts pushed a plea deal. Blu stood his ground, knowing he had done nothing wrong. In the end, Blu was able to prove that the arresting officer falsified his police report by showing the judge his receipt for his holster. He was free but putting his life back together after missing nearly two months of work set him back. Blu soon found himself evicted and moved in with his sister and their father.
Living with a parent who has Alzheimer's was challenging, but Blu is an optimist and a scholar. He and his sister took to researching all avenues to promote their father’s recovery. Blu waxes poetic as he talks about the importance of caring for the mind and body.
Blu talks candidly about his experiences with homelessness.
“What people don’t realize is that everything we ingest becomes part of us. That’s not just food, it’s all things spiritual, social, economic. You gotta pay attention to what you give attention to. The way I live my life is that I consume, digest, and release. It’s not a diet, it’s a live-it. And that is with everything. I try to allow the nutrients to nourish me and the rest to pass me by.” This is how Blu talks about most things, with little attachment to material items, money, and status, and high priority on lessons, memories, personal philosophy, and growth.
He and his sister had some success, and for a while, it seemed like their dad might recover. They didn’t know about the advanced lung cancer that would prove fatal in less than a year’s time, something their father kept a secret. The siblings mused about how they would travel together as they took turns caring for their father. They went to work, made sure the bills were paid, and fell into a routine. One day, Blu’s father woke up confused and disoriented. He didn’t recognize his son. He ran from the house into the rain ignoring traffic. Blu was terrified and hurt, but followed his father, keeping his distance so as not to scare him more. They ended up in a fast-food restaurant, and his father was soon transported to the hospital. That is when Blu learned of the existing cancer diagnosis. Within months, his father was gone.
Blu and his sister had intended to move together, but circumstances kept them apart. Instead, he travelled, sleeping on various friends’ couches. It was a time of self-discovery and reflection. Eventually, his sister made good on their promise to live together, allowing Blu to move in with her and her boyfriend who had settled in New Orleans. Blu found work and ways to contribute to the household. Things held steady for some time, but eventually the landlord found out that there was an extra tenant and Blu was kicked out.
This marked his introduction to living on the streets.
Blu didn’t have a lot of personal belongings, but he packed two bags of necessities and searched for a place to go. He ended up sleeping behind the dumpster at his job in Metairie. The first few nights were rough. I ask him what it was like to adjust to sleeping outside.
“Survival instinct kicks in. You learn that food, water, clothing, and shelter are vital, and you figure it out. What is more important than dealing with the elements is taking care of your mind. The truth is that for anyone to grasp what it’s like, you either have to go through it yourself or know someone who has.”
Blu rarely asks for money, but at the gas station where he sits in the morning to charge his phone before work, strangers gave him cash. Many of them tell him that they’ve been where he is. They tell him it will get better.
To make sense of his situation and of himself, Blu turned to scripture, citing Psalm 23:2 “He makes me to lie down in green pastures; He leads me beside the still waters.” He interpreted this text to mean that people were made to sleep outside. He acknowledges that this was somehow always the path he was meant to take, and he remained determined to get through it.
Blu made a habit of walking to and from his job, which he was able to keep until the pandemic hit. In the early aftermath of COVID-19, he like so many others, found himself unemployed and unable to find work. He began walking from Metairie to the nearest bus stop and making his way downtown to navigate resources available to people who are unhoused. Now, he sleeps at various spots in the city. I ask if he’s ever stayed at an overnight shelter, and he says that he would if the weather got really bad, but he says that as beneficial as these spaces are for some, he prefers to keep to himself.
Blu recently found a cooler someone had discarded. It’s become a staple of his mobile home.
For a few months after COVID-19 hit, Blu spent his days desperately filling out applications, trying to get hired, but at some point, this process became fatiguing. Libraries and community centers that used to supply access to computers remain limited if accessible at all, and Blu only has so much data he can use on his phone each month. Sometimes, he patronizes local coffee shops to use the WIFI and check in on applications. Blu always looks nicely put together. He keeps his clothing in decent shape and tries his best to blend in, but often, his mobile home (backpack) gives him away and authorities ask him to leave. This is particularly hard on Blu, who has precious little to spend and believes that if you arein a place of business, you must do business to reap the benefits. He feels that he is doing his end of that exchange and being unfairly discriminated against. He challenges those who tell him to leave, asking how he’s different than any other customer, but often his questions are left unanswered, and he is escorted off the premises.
These days, Blu wakes up before the sunrise. He meditates and hydrates before packing his bags and making his way to the Harry Tompson Center for his daily shower. He grabs a snack from our partner agency, Lantern Light Ministry, and starts walking, looking for spaces where he might be allowed to stay and listen to music or watch inspirational videos on YouTube. He loves Tony Robbins, Zig Ziglar, and Les Brown among others. He listens to a lot of Native American chants and tries to keep his mind calm and open. He believes in manifesting his destiny and he is ready to do the work to get there. He believes that the experience of homelessness is testing him, strengthening him, and preparing him for the next step.
I ask him where he’d like to be in a year’s time and he replies that he would love to have a homestead somewhere, a safe space, but he doesn’t think he’s done traveling. “I’d like to go somewhere abroad. See the world beyond what I know.” He is on a quest to heal his mind, body, soul, and spirit and feels that this endeavor is a daily practice. I ask what he wants people to take away from this story, and he simply replies, “I’d ask that people try to have compassion and empathy for people who are going through trials. This is not all that I am, but it is where I am now. Having some understanding that most people aren’t out here by choice but because we’ve lost something would go a long way in how people view us.”
Throughout the weekend following our interview, I find myself thinking about Blu and wondering what wisdoms he would offer up as they relate to my personal challenges, which I can’t help but see as miniscule in relation to his experience. I wonder how similar our personal live-its are despite the disparate lives that we have. I think about how Blu is only a year or so older than I am, and how scared I would be in his shoes. I admire him more for this – for his ability to stay present, positive, and patient, and for his willingness to share his story. I make it part of my practice to envision him where he wants to be – traveling – and keep him in my heart as I move about the world. I make it my goal to promote the take-away Blu wants from our readers: we could all have a little more empathy. A simple salutation could make all the difference.
