When the homeless share their cake.
Despite my aspirations, I’m quite often a bit crap at housewifery. Yesterday evening I ran out of milk so took a stroll down the Boots alley to go to the little grocery shop that used to be a pet shop and aquarium. Joanne who sold the fish has long left and now there are equally pleasant people trying to earn a living selling small scale grocery stuff in a rapacious world and doing so with grace. I’m always just a bit more pleased with myself when I buy from local business....got to keep an eye on the smugness though 😉
As I walked along the alley, I noticed first the beautiful Passion flowers that Dennis has always kept. He is now very frail but I think of him every time I walk by his house.....years ago he gave me two clippings and they have grown beautifully in my own sweet sanctuary. Neighbourly exchanges from ten years ago still blooming. Makes my heart happy. 💖💫
Less happy making for me is the new mural that has been painted, presumably to make it more welcoming. Three huge squirrels have been painted on the wall and quite frankly, one of them looks terrifying. Two look weird but one of them is straightforward psycho squirrel...if I were a child walking through the alley, with or without an adult, I’d be seriously scared. Apparently Haringey Council commissioned the artist....🤔who knew squirrels would make Wood Green more welcoming? I’ll have to think more on that.
At the end of the alley are the people that adults often find scary. The homeless drinkers. There is a concrete bench outside the flats, next to the Mall and it is a perfect sun spot. If you have no where else to go, what do you do? Where do you meet your friends and pass your time? Of course, I haven’t a clue and most of us don’t. In Wood Green, some of our homeless are outside the Library but the Boots alley is a quieter, cosier spot where three or four friends might meet and chat about whatever people with a shared spot might chat about. Tonight there were three and it was still warm as the sun was setting.
I got my milk and then got talking to the folk on the bench. They were warm and friendly and coherent and kind. A woman from Wood Green ( we shared a memory of the Shopping City being built in 1981 when the Queen came) who is long term homeless..proudly holding her cup of tea, she declared that she is teetotal...a Falklands vet from west London who drinks straight cider and is appalled that someone has already graffitied the mural....and a tiny woman who was so clearly the long term target of other people’s horridness. She didn’t say much.
We chatted a while, the tiny woman left and the other two spoke of how the people in her building take her money and treat her wrong. My heart broke for a moment because as she took her tiny self off to be amongst the cruelties, I felt an overwhelmingly sense of uselessness. So many people living awful lives and what are any of us with all of our privileges really doing? Whilst there is talk of tactical voting and the opinions keep on rolling on social media, there are tiny people forging their way through the morass of madnesses and cruelties that people are really facing. Big heartaches. Big need for changes.
As I was leaving after quite a long chat, the chap, Keith, looked down into his big Pret bag....full of the days unsold cakes and sandwiches, he gets given a stash in keeping with Pret’s no waste policy. The homeless man handed me a lemon drizzle cake, all wrapped and brand new and said, “would you like a cake?” Of course, instinct had me hesitate about taking food from a homeless person.....for a moment, I almost got caught up in the superiority of my privilege and was almost patronising in a refusal...but Keith noticed my hesitation and said simply, “go on, take it, it’s nice to be nice.” Can’t argue with that so I took the cake, shook their hands and left. My heart warmed by the simple kindnesses whilst struck by the irony of being fed by hungry people. Hahalalamoments are not always clear.
Home at last to my beloved, she asked, “where have you been? You’ve been aaaages?”
”I’ve been chatting to Keith and Sharon on the bench by Boots and I’ve got some gluten free lemon drizzle cake. Do you want some? I felt really bad at first about taking it but the man was so delighted to be sharing so here it is. It’s gluten free and tastes awful but at least we’ve got milk for tea.”
Thats how it is some days isn’t it? Moments amongst the mayhem....tea and cake always a feature 💖💫
