Flotsam -- Worthy Refuse

The homeless have been poetically called, "the flotsam of humanity," those who float unmoored through society. I find myself lately surrounded by these drifters, both literally and figuratively.

This morning I passed not only the man who regularly sits near the Metro station with eyes downcast, silently letting the sign proclaiming his diabetes and homelessness speak for him, but also the ragged fellow who sometimes appears near the State Department and loudly curses the world that has so keenly hurt him by shouting a blue streak of invective at passersby. I've been listening with interest to NPR's series on the changing atmosphere of L.A.'s notorious Skid Row, for so long a hangout for drug dealers, buyers and hookers as well as the homeless. Today's report included the story of Nathaniel Ayers, whose tale soon will hit movie screens when The Soloist premieres. Ads for this movie pop out at me from newspapers, magazines, the TV, and Web pages, urging me to immerse myself in the story of this gifted musician whose mental illness carried him from the lofty halls of Juilliard to the mean streets of L.A., his talents lost until a local journalist stumbles into his life.

Many people use the term flotsam to mean an accumulation of miscellaneous items, often with negligible value. "Somewhere in all the flotsam and jetsam on my desk is the contract we're supposed to sign." The term took on this meaning sometime in the 1800s, and then in the 1900s it migrated to attach like a barnacle to displaced people as well.

These figurative uses hark back to the word's original meaning in nautical legalese in which flotsam designates those goods or debris from a vessel accidentally lost overboard (e.g. items floating on the water after a shipwreck). This was to distinguish these materials from jetsam, goods that were purposefully jettisoned (e.g. to lighten a ship in distress because of storm or pursuit by pirates), and the lesser known ligan (or lagan), those items that are labeled by the owner (and perhaps attached to a buoy) before casting overboard so as to be retrieved later. In nautical law, these terms help designate whether it's finders-keepers or the item has to be returned. As such, these terms convey a sense of value to the items. Material from a shipwreck can be worth quite a lot as the rise of treasure-hunting to a profession shows.

Perhaps that part of flotsam's meaning holds true for its figurative application to displaced humanity as well. It's tough to see that, of course. I, like every other passerby I notice, frown and perhaps shake my head at the cussword spewing, rough looking man on the corner, if I bother to pay him any mind at all. And yet, I belong to a Unitarian Universalist congregation that espouses as the first of its core principles the inherent worth and dignity of every human being. It's a tough principle to live up to. It requires arresting the mind's leap to conclusions based on the scant evidence of surface appearance or audible clues. It even requires, dare I say, reaching out and making contact.

Mark helped out one night when our church temporarily served as a berth for homeless people during a cold winter week. He encountered people who'd allowed drugs or alcohol to set them adrift. He saw cases where mental illness had unraveled people's mooring lines. And he met people who were working hard at minimum wage jobs, but who just didn't have or couldn't maintain enough funds to pay rent in this pricey area. None of them appeared to be lost artistic prodigies like the extraordinary Ayers; none of their stories would likely be turned into a series of newspaper columns or a Hollywood movie. They are just so much flotsam of humanity. But flotsam is a word that that conveys value, too.

Dictionary Definition
Pronounced: [flät'-səm]
Roots: Anglo-Norman French floteson, from floter meaning "to float."
1. Such part of the wreckage of a ship or its cargo as is found floating on or washed up by the sea.
2. figurative, people or things that have been rejected or regarded as worthless.