Worldly Goods
She appears erratically. Sometimes I do not see her for a week or ten days. Sometimes she pushes and sometimes she pulls a large cart full of bags and boxes and stuff. Sometimes there is a piece of furniture among her things. She does not pay any attention to traffic. The pavements are too narrow for her load, so she stays on the street. She weaves back and forth making diagonal cuts through intersections. Cars just have to go around her or else they wait for her to be out of their path. There are some homeless people who are local. They sleep regularly in doorways or in the shelter of shop awnings. They have dogs and they know all of the people both in the shops and the shoppers. They know the people and the people know them. There is a man who sits near to the supermarket all day and then he sleeps there at night. I bought some early daffodils from a boy one morning. He did not have change so he went to the man sitting outside the supermarket to get my ten euro note changed. The homeless in the neighbourhood sort of have their home places within the place of immediate quarter. Maybe homeless is not really the right word. There is a sense of home and there are regular places. Sadly the places are outside in the cold. I do not know where the woman pushing the large cart full of her worldly goods sleeps. She just passes through. She never seems to linger. She does not acknowledge anyone. This is not her neighbourhood. Maybe she does not even sleep on the street. Maybe she just likes to keep a lot of things with her all the time.
EVH
notes from an urban hibernation 