The Reason
There's a woman in town who doesn't wear shoes. She walks the streets barefoot, sweeping the sidewalks with a broom. It's winter now, so she scrapes with a shovel instead, but still she walks without shoes. She's a common topic of conversation, this woman. "How does she walk without shoes? Do you think she has a home? Doesn't she get frostbite?" I'd never talked to her before, but like everyone, I worried.
This morning I was walking, the city a ghost town on Christmas Day, when I saw her up ahead, shovel scraping the ice, her feet pink and bare on the snowy ground. I wasn't sure what I could offer; all the stores were closed where I could have bought her shoes, and I'm sure she's been offered before. I thought I could suggest a coffee shop that was open, in case she needed to get warm.
"Are you okay?" I asked, stopping beside her. "Are your feet cold?"
"A little," she admitted, pausing in her work. "But they're always moving, so it's not so bad. It's my hands that get so cold." She laughed, a smile beset by just a few remaining teeth.
"I wish I could offer you mittens," I said, pulling my own bare hands from the pockets of my coat. I wasn't wearing gloves myself.
"Oh, I don't wear them," she said, returning to her work. "I used to wear them, years ago, but they get wet in the snow and my hands get so cold. You take 'em off and put 'em in your pockets, and then your pocket's full of snow." She shook her head. "It's too cold for gloves."
"And your feet?" I asked. "You're okay without shoes?" Her feet were pink, but not chapped. She had all ten of her toes.
"I go inside when they get too cold." She nodded to the house behind me. "I've been out four times already."
Her words didn't sound like rambling. They sounded like a logic I simply didn't understand. She didn't seem sad or in pain; she seemed like she had a job, and she was doing it. I wished her a merry Christmas and I continued on my way.
The more I talk to people who are eccentric or insane, the narrower the gap I see between them and myself. We all have our own strange logic, and no matter how weird the things we do, we always have a reason. We all always have a reason.
Merry Christmas, if you celebrate today. And keep your toes warm.
