The Red Luggage
It was a fine Tuesday in San Francisco.
The weather was warmer than usual for mid-October in the city, but occasional swooshes of wind cool down the temperature a bit.
I had a late morning dentist appointment, followed by an afternoon work session at a coffee shop on Castro. I got there around 2pm, and ordered my go-to iced mocha. Milky and cold, sweet, yet just enough bitterness.
I went to the high top table along the corner of the interior, lined up with people, laptops, and various types of caffeinated drinks. I sat down, put my backpack on the empty chair next to me, took a sip of my iced mocha, took out my laptop, earphones, and my phone from my jeans’ pocket.
The view was stimulating. It was a corner coffee shop with floor-to-ceiling windows, lots of interesting people walking by, doing their usual daily business.
About 3 sips into my refreshing iced mocha, I couldn’t help but notice a man, lying down on the pedestrian sidewalk, 15 feet from the edge of the coffee shop I was in. He was underneath the shady canopy of a tree, resting his head on a big bright red soft-cased luggage — the type of old luggage you would bring for a week-long short-distance international trip.
His body was relaxed, stretched on the sidewalk, but not obstructing passersby. He was just there… watching, witnessing, occasionally adjusting his sleeping position, but never losing touch with his red luggage. It was almost like that’s all he had. Everything he had, is inside that luggage. Nothing more, nothing less.
I couldn’t help but feel a sense of guilt.
Here I was with my fancy MacBook laptop, my $5.75 iced mocha, being paid per minute doing a job I love, in a hip coffee shop, having a home to go back to, and clean clothes attached to my skin…
I wondered how he felt — laying low on the ground, a luggage his only friend, looking up at people passing by looking down on their phones, but never even glancing at him. Being surrounded by people with their clean clothes, cold delicious drinks, and comfort bubbles.
Did he feel sad & lonely? Jealous & angry? Indifferent? Or I wondered if he felt…empty in the inside? Did he have a dream, just like I do? Or had that dream died a long time ago? Did he have family who still checked-in on him? If I could grant one of his wishes, what would that wish be? I wondered…
“I wonder how he feels…”
What would happen to him if someone takes over his big bright red luggage?
That’s all he had. It’d be like someone basically stripping him nude, nothing to grab & hold on to anymore, if that actually happened.
I started listing all my possession, and all the things I had bought over the years, and I mentally put all of those into a luggage. How would I feel if I were to take that luggage & just live like nomad? On the street, under the bridge, temporary camps, under the stars, deep in the belly of the city… not seen, not heard, just invisible, always on the background.
How would I feel? I honestly didn’t know. I don’t think I could ever be ready to experience that, and to stay sane.
This guy had definitely gone through so much more than me. Yet he managed to survive… somehow… he’s calm, he’s sane, he’s still human.
…not seen, not heard, just invisible, always on the background…
I kept sipping my iced mocha, while my heart & brain were conversing with one another. He finally got up, opened his luggage to grab a comb, zipped his luggage back, and started walking.
He left.
And so did my thoughts. Just like that, he disappeared back into the background, invisible to most eyes, forgotten in the city’s maze. If only there was a way I could help him to find his way back…
“Most people never really sat down and got to know a homeless person, but every homeless person is just a real person that was created by God and it is the same kind of different as us; they just have a different story.” — Ron Hall
