What is home?

This morning's encounter with a woman pushing her belongings onto and off of the 1 Train got me thinking about what I would die not to lose.

Photo by Dias Jakupov on Unsplash

I was headed uptown to meet my friend David for brunch. The 1 Train was virtually empty on a Sunday at 10:30AM. And I had no difficulty finding a comfortable seat.

At 28th Street, a homeless woman pushing a Shopcart Trolley bursting at the seams with a collection of bags of various origins, shapes and colors all covered by a bungee-corded fake fur wolf-grey blanket, joined us.

I was seated at the end of the middle row of seats. On the opposite side of the door to my right was the small collection of seats that makes up the end of the car. These little nubs located after the last set of doors can offer a bit of privacy to someone seeking it, particularly on a more or less empty train.

I watched her struggle to push her cart onto the train and hesitated to assist her for fear that she might interpret my touching her belongings as aggressive.

So I searched to make eye contact and just as I managed it, she seemed to have managed the requisite shove all on her own.

I smiled.

She smiled.

I relaxed in the understanding that she and I were operating on a similar mental plane.

She steered her cart into that empty nub of seats, took a seat herself, and deposited one black plastic grocery shopping bag on the seat beside her. As all her bags were opaque I could only guess at contents.

But the bag she’d placed beside her seemed to hold several orbs of various sizes and shapes and so I decided it must be a collection of various fruits. And that would explain why she carried it in her right hand and did not add it to the contents of the cart.

The bags which had been stuffed together under the blanket inside the shopping trolley seemed to contain larger items, softer things, perhaps blankets and clothes things which did not assert themselves into distinct shapes through the opacity of the plastic and fake fur coverings.

A couple stops later I heard her shriek.

It was the kind of shriek I no doubt make on my own while home alone throughout the day if I happen to… I don’t know… stub my toe, or crack an egg so the shell drops in with the yoke, etc. etc. It wasn’t too loud or crazy but the fact of her homelessness made it shocking to those of us who turned quickly in its direction just to be sure nothing horrible had occurred.

Nothing had.

And she didn’t look back in our direction.

So I figured whatever injury had transpired had already passed.

As we approached Columbus Circle I wondered whether that might be her stop since I had frequently observed unusually high numbers of homeless people congregating there.

And sure enough as we ground to a halt, she was up and ready to exit.

But luck wasn’t quite on her side this morning as the exit she chose presented a supporting pole smack in the middle. This meant she had to not only push her cart out of the train but simultaneously force it in through the too-narrow space between the door and the pole in order to escape the train’s closing doors.

Having established eye contact before, I felt comfortable helping with a push of my own and she smiled and thanked me but then the cart seemed on the precipice of tumbling over completely and she yelled for me to lift not push as the doors started to close on both of us.

I pushed against the closing door with my elbow unsure of whether this technique might do anything at all.

A man on the platform joined in our effort and lifted her cart to safety but not before the doors of the car almost closed upon her two more times.

As we pulled out of the station and I saw her frantic inventorying of her belongings disappear behind us, it occurred to me how frightening the last two minutes must have been.

Contained in that cart seemed to be her entire life. I felt confident in assuming as much. And as such, I suppose, the seven or eight bags she carts around amount to the equivalent of home.

It made me wonder… what would be my own home base? That ultimate ground zero which if I were to lose it suddenly, it would feel like losing everything?

Would it be my physical home?

Or my family and friends?

Or my memories?

I don’t know. But it seems like it might be wise for us all to take stock and figure out our own answer to that question… just in case… life ever deals us a really bad hand.