There's something very mysterious about a woman with her back to the rest of the world, and her eyes fixated on the ocean. Sinking her toes deep into the cool sand, and just thinking to herself...
In my case however, it was not the ocean, but the moat in the small city I lived in, and it wasn't as peaceful as the ocean. People continued to walk in front of me, blocking my view, interrupting my private time. A group of girls swearing and insulting each other, whilst pushing a stolen super market trolley, for example.
Something new had distracted them... An old man that had appeared around town last summer, who liked to make up poetry on the spot, and dictate it to the youngsters, had tried to spark up a conversation with the girls... The girls surrounded him, calling themselves rude names, referring to him as "mate", whilst a couple of much younger girls held hands with each other, and skipped past, "1,2,3,4" they chanted. The older girls stole the walking stick from the old man, and ran around with it. And then finally, decided to give it back to him, after they had finished using it, for whatever more important thing they were using it for... He then went on his way.
A blind lady perched herself and her two dogs on the wall next to me...
"There is always something going on", I thought to myself. This was a quote from the film "The Peaceful Warrior". As time flew straight past me, and my mind rushed back and forwards, I began to feel sad. Is our world being destroyed? Can we save it? Are there many people left, like me? I thought of the homeless man I had seen the day before, and I wondered if he was a fallen angel. Was he looking for the good in someone like me, who couldn't even find the good in herself to spare some change, just in case he was a fake? I wanted to, but instead I passed by, and thought, I'd do it later... A feather floated onto my finger...
I went and bought a pot of chamomile tea, from the coffee shop in town. After sitting there for a while, I saw him again. Entering through the glass doors in front of me, and carrying the blanket he usually wore around his cold shoulders for warmth, in a torn rucksack, on his back. He walked up to the counter. But still, I gave no change. He had enough for a coffee. I would feel silly giving him more money ...Although he could have used it towards an over-priced cake, that I had also bought myself 5 minutes earlier.
I sat there, in the comfy, leather chair, whilst I looked out of the window, at the rest of the world passing by, and I thought about why I was here. I wanted inspiration; towards a blog I was going to start writing again. Yet somehow, every time I thought about what I would plan to write about, I thought of him.
As the homeless man left the coffee shop, I watched his dirty, swollen feet walk in the sandals, that were only recently put there, as he was apparently not good enough to walk in shoes beforehand... He disappeared once again. I couldn’t help the feeling of wanting to cry. Were this man, and all of these people who surrounded me, here to tell me how shit life is, or to remind me of how good mine is?
There were people in purple t-shirts on the street, trying to stop others in their very busy tracks, only to be hushed away or ignored... I'll admit, I was usually one of those people, but today I stopped, and I spoke to one of them. She was working for a charity that helped to support deaf children. She told me their are roughly 45,000 deaf children in the UK... And all I could think about lately was how slow my Mac was running, and how all I wanted to do was get out of the house, who I had to share with my mum, who drank a tad too much, worked much too little, and constantly complained about not much worth complaining about. At least I can hear my own mother's voice, and at least I have a roof over my head, despite this household being a little dysfunctional...
I noticed the feather again. This time, resting on my left knee. And to my left, sat on the pavement across from me, there he was. I would give him change this time... When I left.
I discretely watched him for a while. Another man had chosen to stop in his tracks, and sit down beside him, and have, what looked like a deep conversation, with him... I took a picture, as I found it interesting.
I found myself being distracted by the sound of a laughing baby, being tickled by her mother, and smiling at me, as I smiled and waved back at her...
And I thought to myself, "there's so much beauty in the world, sometimes I can't stand it...", which is in fact another quote, and one of my favorites (to name a few!), from American Beauty... And strangely enough, for anyone who has seen the film, and will know what I am talking about, I had taken a picture of a boy the previous day, who had been chasing a plastic bag around, that had been dancing with the wind, whilst his grandmother laughed with him...
I think I'm finally beginning to see life for a hint of what it is... No matter what it is, It's certainly unique, and special, and you are incredibly lucky to have one...
I planned to leave the coffee shop, and give the homeless man the change I had left in my purse. I decided on this, after I had heard a man complaining about the speed of his laptop, who I couldn't help being slightly irritated by, before he walked outside to "slowly kill himself" as he put it, whilst he lit up a cigarette...
After they had gone, I walked across the street, and gave the homeless man the money that I had been longing to give him. He thanked me with a well-spoken accent of irony, as I smiled at him, and walked away.
I am glad to say that I didn't have a feeling of relief, from finally getting rid of the guilt; I had felt before I gave him the change. Instead I felt nothing. It wasn't a feeling of emptiness, nor was it a feeling of a hole once empty, now being filled. This nothingness instead left me with a question. A question my R.E teacher once asked the class years ago, that always stuck in my memory from school...
"Can anyone ever really commit an unselfish act?"
For example, if you were to say yes, and then give an example of a supposedly unselfish act, of how you did something for somebody, that didn't benefit you in any way, there would be an argument. The argument would be that by doing this, despite it not benefitting yourself in the obvious way, you were still benefitting from it in the way that you were being left with some sort of sense of achievement, or satisfaction, because you were happy to do the good deed. So therefore, you were getting something out of it. But as I felt nothing, had I committed a truly unselfish act? I wasn't asking myself this question to feel better about myself, I was merely curious...
But the main thing I remember thinking was how I had been inspired to write my first blog post, by a homeless man, and how I would feel almost hypocritical, if I were to ever post anything, about something less important than this subject, in the future. Such as, the clothes I like to wear, or the things I wish to have. But if blogging about something you feel passionate towards, despite the difference in importance, or relevance, is hypocritical, then so be it! This is me. These are my thoughts, my feelings, and my passions. This is my blog.
