On the Waterfront

San Francisco serves as a beacon for modern day gypsies. More often on warm days these folks spill out of the shelters onto the sidewalks and public beaches. Down near Fisher Man's Wharf, today was no exception.

Usually their face or contorted figure stands out only for a minute or two. I hold their faces in my head as I thank God that I have a consistent access to indoor plumbing and a well made bed. At the moment I can't shake the impression left by of a woman sprawled in on the beach today.

Her calloused blackened feet jutted out into the fine, warm sand. Her head rested between a cement wall and the ground. Her mouth hung open, still and hard as if she were frozen, mid-chant, in a Zen like Ommm. I felt the urge to close it, like the eyelids of the newly dead.

Her sun streaked hair, grubby and stringy, looked sticky and limp against her head. Her shorts were inappropriate for her age; they exposed her still shapely, tan, bare legs. Sleep softened her features and smoothed her wrinkles, this made it hard to tell her age. She could easily have been in her sixties, though she may have been much younger. I can't imagine her life had been easy or carefree, despite its nomadic turn.

She sleeps on this San Francisco beach and appears more relaxed and vulnerable than I've been in years.