To find a Penny on the street

Though the streets of New Orleans are admittedly tough, Penny maintained that becoming and remaining homeless was a personal decision.

The January day was warm even for New Orleans’s standards when I happened upon her street corner right outside Jackson square. At first glance, she seemed like any other homeless women: long blonde dreadlocks thrown over a shoulder, bags nestled behind her and a cardboard sign leaning against her crossed legs. It wasn’t until I drew closer that I read the sign’s message, “Home(less)-made Jewelry.”

She peaked my curiosity with just her unconventional cardboard sign, but I soon learned her curiosity-peaking abilities extended further than curbside jewelry.

The woman sat cross legged behind a tackle box that was overflowing with beads as her hands worked gingerly with a small length of wire. Her dog was groomed neatly, her clothes were worn but not ragged, and her smell was not offensive but rather surprising.

She looked up at me as I approached. Neither of us deigned to speak first, so her wiry hands gestured to the sidewalk in front of her in an invitation.

I accepted hesitantly; the sidewalks in the Big Easy aren’t known for their cleanliness. In fact, the feeling of disgust at the cool concrete beneath my thighs didn’t leave until after Penny had swept me into her story.

She had moved to New Orleans 20 years before. Back then she was fresh out of medical school, ready to get a start as a general surgeon in the Tulane Medical Center. New Orleans had drawn her in with its rich history, easy going nature, and surplus of surgery positions.

Penny told me that the stress of working with illness and death had built up more quickly than anticipated; she had come to New Orleans for its atmosphere and found herself wound too tightly in its crime and poverty.

“Crime and poverty are addictive in their own way,” Penny confessed to me as she fitted a purple bracelet around my wrist with gentle and callused fingers. “It revolts you, and yet it calls you as well.”

To escape from her denial of death, she decided to immerse herself in it instead. She stayed at Tulane for 10 years before stacking up her money in a local bank and taking to the streets; she had called this busy street corner home ever since.

“I help people more out here on the street than I ever did in Tulane…I give them stories and happiness and encouragement. That’s all we really need for life.”

#professional #feature