When I was in college “research” meant hitting the stacks at the library and poring through books for hours and hours. Later, as a journalist, research meant calling “experts” and talking to a lot of people. But for this book I’m writing and for this blog, “research” means living and doing and experiencing a lot of what I’m writing about. That’s partly why I’m in the van again – what I remembered and what is real, are different.

I stayed with an old friend a week or so ago and watched a video she and her partner had made of a vacation in India. They showed the photos of the garbage on the streets, of people defecating in public, and talked about the stench. I could see it, imagine it, but didn’t have the visceral knowledge of it myself. I could imagine it well – having had to use a bucket as a toilet myself when I’ve been that sick and unable to get to a bathroom. But it’s not really the same.

Last night I had dinner with a couple of friends – along with a vegetable appetizer (much like the one in this photo). The veggies were rescued, intact in their plastic container, safety seal secure, from a grocery store dumpster, by one of the dinner guests – who is unemployed and who has a lengthy history of homelessness. He was once married to a neurosurgeon, has an MBA, is intelligent, talented, a great pianist, healthy and a hard worker. But he can’t find a job. Fast food places and minimum wage gigs don’t hire you if you’re too smart or talented. So, he lives on what he gets out of the dumpsters. He sells some, gives away more to those he knows are shut-ins and homeless or on fixed incomes.

The pork roast, potatoes, garlic bread had been purchased from the store. All the food was fine. What bothered me was not that the veggies came out of the trash, but that there wasn’t a program in place where the company could allow organizations to pick up the food and distribute it so people didn’t have to get it out of the trash.

Do I need to eat dumpster food to do the research? I would have said “No,” before last night. But after actually eating it and watching my reaction to learning/knowing where it came from, I admit – my “research” would have been incomplete. The food was fine, my mental block about it was not. Yet, while I was in ROTC I ate raw fish, watched men tear the head off of a chicken, ate that and snake, and munched on bugs as part of survival training. People will do what they need to do to survive.

What amazes me about this whole journey is the people I meet. They have nothing, or close to it, and yet they are so creative, so upbeat, so focused on possibility. The other thing that struck me as we swapped stories about where to find food, or showers, or a safe bed for the night – was how creative one had to be to survive. If you can’t figure out how to get, make, sell, survive – you simply don’t survive.

I like testing myself – seeing how creative I can be. It’s fun. It’s research. But it’s more than that. It’s finding the nugget of knowledge that I really CAN do anything. It’s all possible.