Handkerchiefs, ties, an old man
on the street selling loose
freshly roasted nuts
from a bright blue cart.
Is there anything
lovelier?
I know—now—
it is only a matter
of days (if I am lucky)
until I, too, stand somewhere hoping
another human will stop
and find what I’m offering interesting.
*a fragment from poet Robin Coste Lewis’s Archive Of Desire, about whom you can read more (she is a former Poet Laureate of Los Angeles) here: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Robin_Coste_Lewis
I once spent a good deal of my time hawking souvenirs, tee-shirts, cookbooks and other stuff on street corners and in theaters. I was in my twenties and early thirties, trying to and occasionally succeeding in getting work as an actress, and then – later on – in-between seeking, not knowing what was next, just trying to pay rent, cover my bills. I enjoyed it, as the introvert I am, being forced to interact with people but in a brief, friendly, commercial way, after the show, before the show – including, for a time, in-between tapings of The Emeril Legasse show in mid-town Manhattan. People watching in New YorkCity is a wonderful thing, and if you can get paid in the meantime, how fab!
Yesterday, while charging my car, I watched a man who looked to be in his early thirties rummage through several garbage cans, looking for deposit bottles and – perhaps – something to eat? He had a large backpack, and a bike for transport, and therefore was ‘better off’ than the homeless I often used to see in NYC. And, I don’t know that he was homeless. Still. How much could we, we the people, improve other human lives if we instituted universal basic income for all our citizens? I enjoyed my years of hawking and struggle, but I knew I had a soft place to fall, if I had to fall. Many are not so lucky, or so safe; many stand on corners looking for softness, kindness, a better place to lay their head. Many stand on corners wondering it they have any value, at all.