Day 8
What a beautiful day! The sun shone and I walked. For quite a while there was nothing about the day that had anything to do with homelessness. I was just a walker in the countryside. No one would guess otherwise. And all would have been well apart from the fact that I’m trying to stick to some guidelines learned from real rough sleepers. The lovely country pub was off limits.
I was once in Sheffield City Centre with a lad who was one or two steps away from street homelessness. We were next to Café Rouge and I asked him if he wanted a coffee.
“In there? No way.” He looked at me as if I was joking with him. To me it was a coffee shop. To him, it was another world, a place he was excluded from. A self-exclusion. He looked around as we went in as if he expected some bouncer to step in front of him. Within ten minutes the myth had been busted. It was just another place to get a coffee.
The country pub was in my self-exclusion zone. So what? Well, my phone battery was dead and I wanted to charge it. I could have done that there. There would be somewhere else surely? But there wasn’t. And at my destination there wasn’t anywhere. So, no phone. But also, no conversation. I sat and watched people pass-by with an occasional ‘Hi’. I sat in one place and then moved to another and found a bench. And I sat there for a while and then moved somewhere else. Killing time that didn’t want to die. No conversation. No cup of tea or coffee. People passing by doing simple things. Walking the dog. Popping into the Co-op. Overhearing bits of others’ conversations, friends processing thoughts as they walked and talked. I felt alone. I was alone, not even a phone to check.
At six I met Gary the vicar who had food for me and a socket to plug in the phone. I talked too much. I could hear myself doing it. It was wonderful. The phone came alive. Messages. I hadn’t checked in, because that’s one of the conditions of me doing this. Then the full weight of loneliness descended, not mine, the loneliness of others who weren’t getting messages, who didn’t have people checking in with them, who weren’t asked if they were safe. I cried again. I must be tired, surely I don’t usually cry this easily?
I know that most homeless people have other homeless people but it’s not the same. I know it’s not because each Christmas we hear the same thing, “I bloody hate Christmas!” Why? Because it’s the big annual reminder of not having messages of love and care.
If you want to know more about changing the lives of people who are homeless visit www.archerproject.org.uk
To donate follow the link https://www.justgiving.com/campaign/timssleepoutslog
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