near my house is a park. it is an open and beautiful place. it has lots of trees, lush, thick, green grass, and plenty of parking.
the park never closes. it has no gates or cordons to restrict passage. there are playgrounds and flower gardens, a hand-built wishing well, a dirt field fit for baseball or frisbee or dog walking.
but every time i go by it, it is empty.
i’ve taken to spending time there. feels kind of fitting, if you know what i mean.
there’s a part of me that feels like i should post fliers or something. i mean, how can everyone in the area not know this is here, not want to enjoy it?
when i went last week, i met a homeless woman. she lives in the bower just behind the wishing well. i almost didn’t see her. she blends in. i think it must be deliberate, because she didn’t look very happy to see me notice her. but when i did, she shuffled out obligingly… almost as if saying, ‘yeah, well, ok, you notice i’m alive… now what?’
we exchanged hellos and i invited her to sit with me a while on the bench by the well. she nodded and shuffled over and groaned slightly as she eased down on the stone. we got to talking and she was telling me that she usually prefers just sitting on the grass or even the ground. something about achy bones. i shared with her that i’m arthritic and certainly could understand.
we agreed to move over by one of the trees where the grass seemed thick and cushiony.
i asked her about the empty park and she just shrugged, ‘reckon folks forget it’s here,’ she muttered, ‘or don’t much care. hard to say.’
i guess i’m just new enough to this area to be mildly boggled by it. she seemed to take it in stride. as she loosened up a bit, i asked her about her homelessness. she looked at me a bit sharp, but she must have noticed i was just curious and held no accusation, because she started talking about it.
she told me she’d moved here to take work and had a little apartment over near the elementary school. she said for a time, things had gone pretty well, but eventually her company shut down and she’d not had enough time with them to get unemployment. she looked at me kind of knowingly and said, “you can guess how it went from there.” i nodded understanding.
she said being homeless was hard at first, but eventually, she got used to it. she said it casual-like, you know? as if being without a place to call home was really quite normal.
she told me about how she gathered leftovers from the local bins and recycled bottles and cans for the money to shop the local thrift store for clothing. she explained the art and science of scheduling soup kitchens for dinner each week, and how to keep warm in a rainstorm or during wintertime. she talked about how nice it was sometimes to sleep there, in the open air park, under the stars in the summer time.
i asked her about her family. she just looked at me and shrugged and said, “i don’t know what that is.”
i asked her about her friends. she ducked her head and mumbled something i couldn’t make out. i said, “i’m sorry, i didn’t hear that.” she looked up at me almost defiantly and said softly, “i don’t have any.”
i thought about that a moment and decided not to pursue it. obviously she doesn’t have any, why else would she be sleeping outdoors? of course, i knew she likely did have people she called ‘friends’ in her life… but most likely they were just folks who held still long enough for her to stick the label on them; people who were static in presence, not propensity. i knew that feeling, too.
“i’m sorry to hear it,” i said, “would you like one?” but immediately felt foolish. i mean, it’s like asking a dehydrated person if they’d like a sip of water, isn’t it? i can always count on myself for the ol’ foot in mouth move, i swear.
but she nodded and looked almost shy for it, “yeah, i’d like that.” i recognized the tone. it made my heart hurt. i looked out over the green expanse of the park for a time, just thinking. she seemed content to do the same. i have no idea what she was thinking about, but i was remembering the days when i was homeless and thinking about how there’s lots of different kinds of homelessness in the world… and that i wished i could figure out why a perfectly good park is empty but for a weary, worn down homeless woman.
this is, of course, an analogy.