Count on the Birds

Another day of staring into cupboards hoping for revelation and ending up with lentil soup. Spare change suddenly a small fortune and I choose greedily between drinks or dinner, coffee or books, and in the long run I may not remember which I chose. Poverty is beginning to sink into my toes now, to become tangible, as my skin becomes sallow. At the end of the week, I bring my neatly folded earnings back to my room, and for a moment they are an immense treasure, until I must relinquish them to the underwear drawer to await the day that rent is due. My roommate orders delivery and I realize it was never in my mind that I could. L shows me her latest shopping finds, and I remember that I must mend the pocket in my skirt because I relentlessly drop my phone through it.

And still, I know that I am, as Anaïs calls it, playing at being poor. That the choice is still mine to gather my belongings and return to the Real World, where rent is humane and my fancy degree magically opens doors to higher credit lines and unlimited avocadoes. I read news reports from the devastation in Haiti, and I am well aware that I have no idea what true poverty is. I battle myself for the amount to donate; wanting to give so much but the sensible side of me forcing me not to overdo it. It is the eternal battle between my parents, that I now have to fit neatly into my one being. I pay by credit card. Sterile. I don't feel different afterwards, and isn't that always the thing about plastic? It is only half real, and for the most part I fear perhaps we are pretending.

And still, what a large step from me to those around me, with their high incomes and reckless taxi riding. I do not envy them. In my poverty, I see meaning. I see the reasons it is worth such a life of counting pennies. I live well, I eat, I sleep, I laugh. Unbound by the shackles of house, car, fancy dinners, I have something more precious than pennies; I have freedom. I have Time, I have reckless abandon. And as long as that is worth more to me than a shoe to match every purse, I will revel in my poverty.

After all, it is the going I'm after.