The Orange Man

Every morning I walk through Beacon Hill Park on the way to work. It is nature in it's glory. Fountains, ducks, herons, flowers, and green grass everywhere you look. This is the place that I will miss the most. More often than not I wake up on the wrong side of the bed, but it is absolutely impossible to remain in a bad mood when you are walking through that place. Oh believe me I have tried to take my bad mood to work with me. But the smell of the flowers is intoxicating. The soft duck talk eases my nerves. Just when I find myself calm a heron screams from the tree tops and scares the shit out of me. I laugh at myself. Early in the morning it is so peaceful. By the afternoon of course it is a swamp of people taking pictures and laughing and screaming and kids and dogs and music and chaos....but even then it has a certain beauty. It becomes nothing more than the backdrop for a tourists day of touring. Every evening walking back through that park I pass by a homeless man. He wears an orange winter coat - whether it's thirty above or thirty below he's got that orange jacket. He sits peacefully on his bench. Same time same place absolutely every day without fail. He sits with his feet tucked neatly under the green bench and his hands folded in his lap. Almost as if he's embarassed to be there and feels that if he can make himself small enough maybe people won't notice him. People avoid him at all costs. He is dirty. He has only a black umbrella and a garbage bag full of ? Every day that I pass him by I wonder about his story. I romantacize that some twist of fate left him with nothing but that dirty orange jacket. I have wanted to approach him and ask if he would share his story with me, but am afraid that he's just a junkie like so many other souls on the streets on this city. I want to believe that he's better than that for some reason. As much as my spirits are lifted every day going into the park, somehow my heart breaks a little every night going home. I have no idea why he affects me so deeply. I want to give him a hug and tell him that it's going to be okay. But I know that for him and whatever his reasons are it will never be okay. Just past where he sits there is a bush with almost unnatural yellow flowers. It seems so out of place in the usual gray and dreary weather here. It's such a sharp contrast from the dirty orange jacket. It always reminds me that life goes on. Just as it always has and I suppose always will...