photo via Vice Magazine's Do's & Don'ts

I’ve been telling my friends about this homeless man I had a conversation with right before I left for Georgia. It was one of those profound and heartbreaking moments where you realize the fraility of human beings and the importance of exercising and owning your choices in the face of endless adversity.

It started like all my usual conversations with crazy people. Crazy person is in the near vicinity ranting about the unicorns of the apocalypse or something equally crazy ranty. I’m minding my own business while quietly wishing ranty crazy person would rant elsewhere. Crazy person somehow telepathically hears my wish, does the exact opposite and starts a conversation with me. It never fails. It’s been happening since I was a kid. It’s always a little unnerving, but I take solace in the fact that the minute they sit down next to me, they’re always lucid. No more angry diatribes about the evil of psychedelic squirrels and their scheming or the importance of tinfoil hats in receiving messages from aliens. I’ve decided that either all crazy people are just pretending to be crazy for their own entertainment, or i possess the potentially useless super power of crazy person whisperer. Whatever it is, it keeps me from being shanked with a spork on the subway by a schizophrenic.

Dude was like a bizarro universe version of George Clinton and Sun-Ra’s crack addicted love child sent from a parallel future to show me the importance of resilience. He sat next to me, ate my munster cheese without permission and riffed on his life, how Obama wasn’t gonna do nothing for the homeless and the importance of not smoking cigarette stubs you find on the ground because they might be laced with crack. I learned that he made all of his own clothes, that he had been off of the rock for 2 years and that he was 56 years old. He drew a portrait of me that bore a closer resemblance to Cheetara from Thundercats with a frohawk. He was a character even after crack had its way with him. I couldn’t help but see a little of who he might have been if he hadn’t fallen into that. What started with a quiet wish that he would go away ended hours later with a gift of cheese, the yarn I’d been knitting with and a hug. The man had dropped knowledge like he had it in his pocket for rainy days and emergencies.

I left to meet a friend and felt both sad and renewed about our conversation. Try as I might, I couldn’t adequately describe this man, his presence and our shared moment. That is, until this morning when I came across a picture of him during my early morning procrastination on the internet. I think the picture says it all.