Happy Kitschmas @ Selfridges
CHRISTMAS WITH MY BEST FRIEND – A CAMERA
Click on pix to enlarge
I could start this story talking about how hard is to live on the streets - an experience I have had in my own flesh - and how it makes you feel like a second rate human. How especially hard it is at Christmas when you see people carrying big bags of presents for the Big 25th (and I know the same people probably give to charity, are generous parents and godparents, or even the sponsor of an elephant or a cow in Africa.) 
No doubt you already know how tough it must be to be homeless. So the Christmas experience I’m going to tell you about was a positive one, even though it did involve a commercial infrastructure I was excluded from at the time. It’s about how the Christmas windows of big London stores helped me escape from my reality and made me feel good.
It was on a Christmas, about three months after I was diagnosed with Asperger’s Syndrome, a life-long mental disorder on the Autism Spectrum. That news was a complete shock and it sent my self-esteem to the lowest level ever.
I believe there is always a reason for everything - always a ‘because’ in my life – and I now look back on those dark Christmas days and see what happened more clearly. And it all makes sense.
Together with alcoholism and relationship breakup, mental issues are among the top reasons people sleep in the street. Like others, I found myself homeless after I had experienced one failure after another. I had no idea that my Asperger’s was disadvantaging me; I just thought I was a total failure in life.
Now I am settled in my own home and receive mental health treatment I obviously understand my disability better and I can cope. I know I am not a hopeless failure – I’m just different.
Fortunately, after being fired from than a couple of short-lived jobs I begun an honours degree course in Digital Arts with Video Production – thanks to help from a student grant from the Government. I graduated three years later but thanks to Asperger’s Syndrome and my inability to do well in interviews, I’m still looking of my breakthrough in the profession.
I have always believed that fashion is a true art form, especially when shown is the best window displays. So I was visually struck by the Christmas display windows I was seeing night after night in the West End. I still had my good friend the camera of my mobile phone and because I always liked photography I started to shoot these beautiful windows displays at night time when the streets were quiet and the pavement became my studio.It was all so beautiful to me and I got so much pleasure out of it that I wanted to save and share the images.
So I decided to make use of my skills and the amazing online technology on offer nowadays to create a blog about Christmas shop window displays as a special present for me.
Every time I log on to look at it I can appreciate the beautiful mix of style and colour that a few years ago transported me to a happy place - like The Land of Oz I fantasized about as a child.
Strangely, the positive effect of my Christmas on the streets came about because Asperger’s Syndrome which gives me an abnormally close eye for detail. I am really bad at engaging with new people and can’t read non-verbal messages so I extra carefully observe everything around me. I’m on the edge of life looking in, so I take everything in.
A break-down followed my diagnosis and I completely fell apart. I had a short period of ‘sofa surfing’ until the kindness of my few friends ran out, before I returned to sleeping outside – an experience I’d not had for ages.
For me it meant something different and very important. As I was living on the London's street, the window experience was free and it helped me to enjoy the visual magic of Christmas – to feel the same as everyone else. It made feel like I had just had a wonderful big Christmas dinner at my Mum’s house and my Christmas presents were in my arms.
David Gomez
(told to and typed by Jane Roberts)
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