Life lessons at a Coffee shop, part two

So, a week has passed since my lucid realization of class privilege. To make this awareness even more palpable C, a homeless woman who hangs out at the coffee shop, brought me a gift the other day. C is perhaps in her mid-40s. She talks to me a lot about how hard it is to get a job without an address, but how it is impossible to live somewhere without money. She is on the waiting list for title-8 section housing, but has been for years. C is weathered beyond her years. Her neck is crooked and she walks slowly and hunched over. The other day she was going to try to get a biopsy done. She came and told me, so that I wouldn’t worry.

I thought about the fact that C felt the need to tell me about her Doctor visit. Yes, she was right, I would be worried about her if she didn’t come in for a few days. However, I realized that her need to tell me of her current life events had nothing to do with this. She simply needed someone to care about her and what is going on in her life. I am a constant presence for her. I see and talk with her daily, perhaps more than anyone else in her life (simply because she is always at the café). This experience made me realize how important it is to have people who care where you are and what you are up to. It made me realize how important it is just to have someone who will worry about you, or someone to tell your plans to. I’m not sure how I feel about being one of those people for Carrie: in a way humbled, but in a way completely and intensely sorrowful.

I mentioned that C gave me a gift. Typically I save the coupons off the receipts people don’t want and give them to Carrie to use when she buys her food. The other day she returned the favor by bringing me a ‘vegetarian starter guide’ that she had gotten from the activists on the street. I recognize that this magazine could have been in her collection of things for months and she simply felt a need to recognize our friendship on this particular day. This sentiment is itself incredibly. However, she told me that she had ‘thought of me’ and picked it up for me. I can’t explain what it felt like to be told that she thinks of me when I’m not at work.

I can’t explain how much I have learned this week. I know that the Goddess has really ‘blessed’ me (to use Tony’s words) by showing me what is really important. I don’t think that I have explained any of this very clearly, but, I’m learning more than I thought I would working at a bookstore.