The guiltiest day of the year

Yes­ter­day was the guilti­est day of the year– the first freez­ing & below, bit­terly cold, windy day of the win­ter.  My guilt started early, and kept going.  First, the cof­fee shop around the cor­ner, where I stopped for my morn­ing cof­fee and break­fast sand­wich to eat in my safe, warm car as I drove across the state to a safe, warm, con­fer­ence room to argue about money with peo­ple who already had it. The cof­fee shop was full at 8 in the morn­ing with the local tran­sients– it will be all win­ter, week­day and week­end.  There won’t be room for me to work at my lap­top in there if I want to, and even if I get there early enough to snag a table, it will soon be too loud as the home­less with their lack of inside voices rejoice in the warmth.  The servers and own­ers only throw them out rarely.  It will be the same at the local library branch, the heat from the radi­a­tors exac­er­bat­ing the odor of peo­ple with no place to wash except pub­lic sinks in pub­lic bathrooms.

Sec­ond, when I returned to the park­ing garage near my office, then walked by the VA Cen­ter walk in clinic, a half-dozen guys stand­ing out­side smok­ing cig­a­r­rettes, hud­dled in the door­way, gloves and hats and thin leather jack­ets their shield against the wind howl­ing out of the cold blue sky.

Third, when I passed the next three clus­ters of home­less, less well-clad than even the vet­er­ans rely­ing on the free care clinic.  I did see the food truck.  They did have some blankets.

Fourth, that same clus­ter on the way back to the car, after dark now, the wind drop­ping off, but the tem­per­a­ture, too.

Fifth, the clus­ter of four of them under the over­pass, the acute angle mak­ing a shel­ter from the wind, and a tan­gle of blan­kets, plas­tic bags, a mat­tress or two mak­ing a nest.

I give money to the food bank.  Give clothes to the local char­i­ties.  Give money to local home­less shel­ters.  Give the change from my morn­ing cof­fee to the guy stand­ing out­side with a cup.  And feel guilty for not giv­ing more, and for feel­ing annoyed when I can’t enjoy my bour­geois gath­er­ing places with­out loud encroach­ers.  They’re invis­i­ble the rest of the year.  I feel less guilty that way.