The Big Landing Part 2

I am thinking a lot about process today. How I learn by doing, how my best lessons and most insightful creations come from the pits of failure. How sometimes I make the same mistake again and again before hearing the message. How my creative comic journey has been much like my life - all about just effing around and finding out. Yet none of the growth happens from thinking about something, it happens when I put myself out there and building and rebuilding as I go.

I started this comic making journey through six panel micro comics, this was by 8.5 × 11 page design. It was the most panels I could carve out of a page. When I first wrote The Big Landing (orginally named “I Ate the Free Food” it was too big for six panels. So I made it a 12 panel comic, but Instagram at the time only allowed 10 images per post. So, I let Instagram, my primary means of getting my stories out into the world, shape how I shared this comic. Now I am more motivated to share my work through a one 8.5 × 11 foldable zine which is 8 panels. I am going through my old comics, digitally reworking them into an 8 panel zine that I print and tuck into the real world. All that being said, I could have easily shared this story as a whole, here on Substack and on my website. I may do that for my website, but as far as Substack, I am taking the wisdom with me for future posts.

In close of Part 1, I have two months to find a job and housing. I thought this would be easy. I had worked my entire legal working life. I got my first job at 14 working my maximum allowed hours at a historic movie theater, the Emmaus Movie Theater. As soon as I turned 16 I accepted a job offer from Burger King, and quit less than two weeks later for the PIzza Hut step-up. I worked there on and off for four years. I juggled multiple jobs at times working a childcare facilities, diners, grocery stores. While attending Kutztown University I was a Resident Assistant for a dormitory and worked in the Careers Services office. My volunteer list - even longer.

Housing, I assumed the right thing would present itself in time. Daily I would make a list of available apartments, roommate situations and start calling. I visited a single dad and his 7 year-old daughter, he had a room for a steal - $200/month. I just had to be his on call childcare provider for at least 20 hours a week! What? Where was I? I visited a cooperative house, in my budget - but the room just got filled. There were no 1BR in my price range - $300 max. And I couldn’t find a roommate situation without indentured servitude.

During the afternoons I would bike around town and drop off my resume to every restaurant job that would take it. I got a job “promise” from a newly opened local vegan restaurant. Vegan at the time, I was super excited to work for an eatery with shared values. I trained with them for two weeks with a verbal promise to be hired and paid upon hiring for my training. I had never heard of such compensation agreements, but I wanted that job so much more than what Pizza Pipeline may or may not have to offer. Two weeks into my training, I was informed the person I was training to replace decided not to leave and that they were sorry. They never paid me. I called and emailed them, but they never responded. I started eating cheese.

The hour class was on its last few grains when I found a situation where I received housing “rent-free” in exchange for providing house presence for a neurodivergent young adult. Specifically, I was asked to help model and encourage a cleanly living arrangement and - it sounded odd at the time and it definitely was - make sure no “bad guys” come around and take advantage of my roommate. At this point - it was free rent and I didn’t have any other options so I took it. I still didn’t have a job and my savings were meager and dwindling - I didn’t feel like it was an option.

Someone told me about the bread bins behind the local bread shop. Bins full of day-old sourdough rounds! For free! Get out of town!! Late one night I biked to the alley lined with bins and I started to make my move. I was scared. What if someone comes out and yells at me. What if someone else is wanting some bread and I am threatening their haul? My heart pounded as swiftly padded my messenger bag with Pan Marino rounds. The local co-op offered a low-income discount card for 5% off and every time I biked to the co-op I got a stamp and those stamps over time turned into a $5 credit. At the time they had a tomato hummus pita for $2 - the most healthy affordable food in town, sure beat the $1 slices from Pizza Pipeline - but I ate those too. When I couldn’t afford a meal, I always knew where I could find one.

This town took care of me when I needed it, hell it stills does. But for some reason I deserve it and some folks don’t? I don’t understand why it is perfectly acceptable for me to come here from somewhere else and make this town my home and it isn’t acceptable for others? “Some people just come to take advantage of the resources..” I hear. I came to take advantage of the resources and I am better for having done so. As it is said “From each according to their ability, to each according to their needs”. Imagine a place where everyone shared what they could and received what they needed. Just imagine.