I'm a writer and a journalist, and I'm also an insanely curious person,
我是一个作家,一个新闻记者,我也是一位具有强烈求知欲的人,
so in 22 years as a journalist, I've learned how to do a lot of new things.
所以在做新闻记者的22年里,我知道了很多新奇的事物。
And three years ago, one of the things I learned how to do was to become invisible.
而三年前,我学会做的一件事就是变成隐形人。
I became one of the working homeless.
我成了一个无家可归的工作者。
I quit my job as a newspaper editor after my father died in February of that same year, and decided to travel.
我辞掉了报纸编辑的工作,在我父亲那年二月去世之后,我决定去旅行。
His death hit me pretty hard. And there were a lot of things that I wanted to feel and deal with while I was doing that.
他的去世对我打击非常大。当时这么做,是因为有很多我想去感知和处理的事。
I've camped my whole life. And I decided that living in a van for a year to do this would be like one long camping trip.
旅游时我天天都在露营。并且决定在休旅车里住一年,就当作是一段长期野营旅行。
So I packed my cat, my Rottweiler and my camping gear into a 1975 Chevy van,
所以,我就带上我的猫,我的罗特威尔犬和露营的装备,装载到1975产的雪佛莱旅游车上,
and drove off into the sunset, having fully failed to realize three critical things.
开车去看日落,但当时完全没想过三件严重的事。
One: that society equates living in a permanent structure, even a shack, with having value as a person.
一:社会将住房,即使是很小的房间,和人的价值等同起来。
Two: I failed to realize how quickly the negative perceptions of other people can impact our reality, if we let it.
二:我没有意识到其他人的负面言语对我们本身的影响是多么严重,假如我们放任不管。
Three: I failed to realize that homelessness is an attitude, not a lifestyle.
三:我没有意识到无家可归是一种生活态度,而不是一种生活方式。