I went out to pick up groceries first thing yesterday morning, and the world smelled like rain. I didn’t hear it raining the night before, which I thought was weird, because I’d been awake late; I’ve been having a hard time sleeping, which feels pretty standard, as responses go. I caught myself paying attention to the rain smell, and to the rain-dark sheen on the tarmac, and to the rain-bright green of the hedgerows lining the street. It’s spring. If anything made sense I would be using the light every evening to walk home from work.
I saw a homeless man sitting in the doorway of a closed-up craft shop, and though his dog was practically begging to be fussed, I did not pet the dog. (I let her butt her head against my leg, and I made sounds which I hope were congenial sounds for a dog to hear.) I passed him the information for the local mutual aid group, though I have no idea if he will use it, and I gave him all the money I had in my wallet, though it wasn’t particularly much. I still get strange twinges of dread whenever I do this — my dad openly disapproved whenever he saw me buy a Big Issue, when he visited me at university years ago, and I can’t imagine what he’d say if he saw me cleaning myself out of change — but lately they are easier to shut down. It is easier to feel that helping other people, regardless of your own expense in so doing, is an unambiguous good.
There used to be a different homeless man outside the grocery shop local to my house, a year ago. His name was George, and I used to stop and chat to him; he had a thick Scottish accent and a collection of faded tattoos, and he was almost always reading a book. Some months ago, from the window of a bus, I saw him in handcuffs, being searched by the local police. I think it was him, at least. I still hope it wasn’t.
I didn’t see him at all, after that, until earlier this month — a week before everything went to hell. I was meeting a friend for pizza, and he crossed my path on my way to the restaurant. It took me a second to recognise him; he looked healthier, cleaner, more awake than I’d ever seen him before. He told me he’d managed to get clean, that he had a flat and a steady job. He thanked me for all my help, though I never felt that I had done terribly much to help him. I thought about him yesterday morning, putting my empty wallet back into my bag — whether his job still exists, whether he’s coping alone in his flat. I never did ask about the handcuffs and the cops.
The cashier and I commiserated, at the till, over hay-fever season. (I never used to get it as a kid. Obviously I get it now, because why wouldn’t that happen; it just makes sense.) She mentioned her asthma, as though in passing, and my heart stopped cold in my chest. She was about my mum’s age, and my mum, thank God, is working from home at this point. “Is it safe for you to be here?” I said, and regretted the question before it was halfway asked. Even before coffee, its answer was all too obvious.
“I’m the only one in my family who’s working,” she said, and shrugged. “It’ll have to be okay.”
Reader, it should not have to be okay.
“I’m sorry,” I said, and “Take care,” and “Thank you so much for your help.” I tried so hard to savour the world on my way back home — the friendly dog, the crisp morning breeze, the lingering smell of rain on concrete. Outside is precious and unbearable; outside is a balancing act between the things I miss with all my heart and the things I still don’t know how to handle. If I am going to go then it has to be worth it. I am trying, every time, to remember and to savour what matters.
W