That whole daffodil situation was disturbing and distressing. The volume, the sharpness, the dirtiness, the squishiness of the lugey he was hocking. My disgust over his public display of phlegm. My disgust over my judgment. My compassion for someone who sleeps outside during a blizzard. You can't get rid of a chest cold if you sleep outside in weather this cold and wet. My surprise seeing that his grocery cart was not a grocery cart, rather a handtruck carrying a dozen snow-sprinkled daffodils. Poor cold freezing flowers wheeled around by the poor cold freezing man. He sees me pouting over the flowers and says, "Do you wanna buy a plant?" I say no, but approach and get that flutter in my belly that asks, "Are you sure you wanna do this?" every time i decide to stretch past my shyness and talk to another human being i do not know. "I was just thinking how cold they must be with the snow." They? He said, "Yeah, i don't know what i was thinking." He shakes his head at his decision. He reminds me of The Old Man from The Old Man and The Sea. "I think they'll be okay, though. Just cold."
"Yeah," i say, rubbing a snowy petal in between my fingers and thinking that one of us must not know very much about horticulture.
"Can you help me out? $5?" I want to help him and what's more i have the cash on me. And what's more i want a daffodil plant all of a sudden. But Paul is picking me up in his new car and Jerzy is gonna be there and sometimes he's kind of hard-hearted. I'd be ashamed to show him that i had bought a cold dead plant from some cold dying man, as if that would actually help. "They're daffodils," he tells me. "I know," i say. Jerzy calls me from the car. "They're beautiful. I'm sorry."
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2 comments:
How hard would it have been to give him the $5.00? You didn't have to take the flowers..
Since i can't hear your voice as you answer the question, i'm not sure about this, but it sounds like you're criticizing me. Which seems redundant considering the post is a critique of my attempts at generosity and compassion. It's quite easy to look back and say, "I should have done this," or ask, "why didn't you just do this?" But, in the moment, there's a million ways to feel shitty and confused with the options you're presented with. Of course, after the fact, i thought giving him the $5 might have been nice, but i think that would have been more like pity, than compassion.
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