Today I was waiting for a bus after having gone up to Spitalfields Market to battle through the cooler-than-cool crowds, in search of shoes to wear with wedding dress number one (one of the benefits of getting married concurrently with getting a visa is that I get to have 2 weddings - one very small informal one at a city hall in the US, in order to get wed within the visa stipulated 3-months and one large slightly more formal one in August 2010 after the visa dust has settled).
It had been busy and stressful and my Leon soup, usually unbelievably delicious, was not up to par. Also, I was suffering from my own stupidity because I'd once again decided to pretend it wasn't December in England and had worn ballet pumps out and, naturally, it had rained.
The bus was late and I was starting to doubt its existence. I was feeling particularly misanthropic -the effect cold wet stupid feet tend to inspire. Then I turned and saw that a not-particularly-clean-probably-homeless man had fallen on the escalator. He was lying at the top and people were just stepping over and around him.
Like any good Samaritan, I looked around to see if there was anyone else who was going to help. Then internally sighed when I saw there wasn't.
So I swallowed down my various contagion fears, felt thankful I had gloves on, checked my bag was closed and went over to help. I wasn't very helpful - mostly because I didn't want to get too close and also because I'm ridiculously weak - but once I'd gone over another girl stopped to help and between us we managed to get him on his feet, at which point Police officers came over and I gratefully ducked back to waiting for the bus.
So, not a particularly eventful story. And I'm not telling it to look good because to be honest I don't think me partially suppressing my fear of smelly dirty people in order to rather ineffectively help someone who's just collapsed makes me look particularly good. I'm telling it because afterwards I wanted to cry.
What sort of a world is it where a person looks 'good' for stopping to help someone who has fallen over and isn't getting up? I'm tired of this London-life, scared that for a moment there today I debated whether to help or not and hoped I wouldn't have to, ashamed that after helping all I could think of until I got home was washing my hands.
But it's not really a London thing - I'm fairly confident the same scenario would happen in Boston, except there fallen-over-homeless-people have a much higher chance of freezing to death. Something about cities turns people into zombies as they march between home and office, office and bar. Maybe it's the sheer volume of people we pass every day, it makes us forget each other's humanity. I frequently find myself walking behind slightly-too-slow people, mentally hurling insults at them in my frustration, glaring at tourists who inexplicably stop in the middle of pavements, swearing under my breath at people who get on the tube before I've got off.
I need to step off this particular escalator.
But how? I'm currently just swapping one city life for another. But moving away to the country isn't really the answer. Just because I wouldn't have to walk past homeless people every day would not mean they didn't exist elsewhere.
So what is the answer? How do I silence this irritating conscience of mine? I think my master plan of leaving the voluntary sector and making a ton of money may have just come to a grinding halt...although I'm not convinced that working for a charity is the answer. Jeremy doesn't work for a non-profit and he's a damn sight more charitable than I am. I could always corporate it up and give all my money away, I'm just not sure I trust myself not to get seduced by the possibility of new clothes and houses and floor to ceiling bookcases.
I want change - more change than moving countries and getting married is going to bring. Watch this space. Although I'll almost certainly disappoint.
Having said that, the man I'm marrying (he's a man in this context, boy the rest of the time) is one of the most socially responsible people I know, and he's pretty good at calling me out on selfishness. So maybe getting married will bring the change I need - he'll certainly mock my anti-bacterial-gel addiction into submission, that much is certain.
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