Wednesday, April 7, 2010

My Friend Dave

Friend? Can I call him that? Really?

As I walked to church, bundled in my leather coat, neck swathed in my cashmere "Irelandseye" scarf, from a recent trip to that inspiring nation, I came across Dave. He was standing in front of MacDonald's, looking cold, with his hands tucked into his dirty coat pockets, as they often are when he is standing along Princess or Montreal Street.

"Hi! How are you?"

"Good", I responded.

'Good'; that's my usual response, always said with a smile. (Dave and I are neighbours of sorts.) Normally, I immediately regret having quickly walked by and not asked him the same. This day, perhaps because it was Sunday, I don't know, I turned, and said:

"How are you?"

"Good!” he said enthusiastically.

I wondered how he could possibly be good, as I continued past a spa, Tim Horton's and the Asian Grocery Store. I was just left thinking: if he's good, then I need to snap out of it and stop thinking about all the things in my life that are not perfect, or that keep me up at night. As I walked on, feeling smug for having engaged in a rare two-way conversation-of-sorts with Dave, I began the motion of crossing to the other side of the street, just in time to walk past several homeless men, who by 10am, have to be out of the Harbour Lights Shelter where they've just slept in a warm bed. What did I do? Imperceptibly, I hope, I jerked my body back to the north side of the road, so that I wouldn't have to walk past them. (I always feel so conflicted in these situations.) Instantly, I felt ashamed, knowing that my simple 'how are you' back at Dave, a few moments before, had brought a wide smile to his face. Within minutes, having arrived, I looked up, and the sign at the road in front of my place of worship, on this Sunday, said: "The best vitamin for a friend is to B1."

Somehow, in that moment, it felt like a scolding.