Just A Small Story

Since I have been in Scotland, I have become relatively absorbed with my work.  Although I publish pictures of my travels and meanderings and include dialogue, explanations, and wonderful puns (I say this last part for my own ego...), most of my days are spent secluded in the Special Collections Room in the National Library reading eighteenth-century manuscripts and hoping that the gift of illumination will be granted to me, speaking from an Enlightenment point of view.  Really, for every six hours of research I hope that one or two might prove to be useful, although all are rewarding in some small way.


To and from the library, daily I encounter the trimmings and trappings of a city: tourists, discarded maps, impatient drivers, construction sites, birds sparring over chips, street musicians, the blank and determined stares of those finishing another empty day at work, and the occasional homeless person.  But it is the last of these that concerned me yesterday.  Any guidebook warns of the dangers of giving money to beggars, as - according to the experts - they are the social outcasts of a world where the majority of us - in some way or another - depend on others for everything.  In Edinburgh, it has always fascinated me that many of the people asking for spare change have dogs with them.  Prop?  Companion?  Loyal compatriot?  With skepticism, I usually pass by, desensitized by a society that clings to the notion of Social Darwinism as the best explanation for such disparity.


Last evening, on my way to the Grassmarket, a woman in a wheelchair stopped me and asked where I was going.  She seemed to carry most of her belongings in a plastic bag secured to the back of the wheelchair, and my thoughts immediately conjured up an eloquent, sensitive passage I once read in a travel book: "do not offer money or interact with the indigent, as this may compromise your safety."  But she did not ask for money.  She just wanted me to push her to the bookstore, as she wanted something to read and said that she misjudged the distance from one end of the street to the other.  I pushed her along, amid sidelong glances, people staring, some parting to allow us to pass, boys and girls texting with no regard for others.  We chatted for a bit, she asking questions about me, and me asking rather pointless questions about whether she was from Edinburgh or if she thought the weather might change.  Funny, how issues that for most seem so important suddenly lose their relevance, when the answer given trivializes both the person asking and the question.  For the majority of the journey, she kept her head down, politely responded to my questions, and upon arrival at the bookstore she said thanks and continued on her way.  And that will probably be the only time I ever see this woman.  


Why tell this story?  As Harry Bosch might say, "I don't know."  It does not make me a humanitarian, nor does it put me in line for a Nobel Prize.  But too often a self-absorbed person misses the mark.  My dad once told me that there are three things you can never get back: A spent arrow, a spoken word, and a missed opportunity.  Sage advice goes a lot further than the supposed expertise in travel material on all things relating to humanity.  It may be easy to recommend a restaurant, but it is much more difficult to dictate the rules pertaining to human interactions.  Guidebooks don't always get it right.