She and I are quite alike

There is a woman, she walks the hill of my neighbourhood as habit. She makes a life of walking.
I see her on the river path pausing on the bench between steps. She wears a long skirt, an awkward stance, with each step the weight of her shoulders slipping down through the trunks of her legs as though the shopping bags she carries on the way to the town are as heavy as on her return.
One day, when her face was becoming familiar to me she called out, ‘You smell nice.’
‘Rose.’ I replied.
But she was already continuing, ‘You look like a hippie who got it confused, funny dress you are wearing.’
I looked surprised until another lady ahead offered, ‘She has bipolar I think or something like that.’ My heart still circles that remark with uncertain curiosity.
I have become used to this honest lady, we cross paths every day and I wonder if she will meet our passing moment with silence, or the next judgment. I approach our shared space occasionally with a smile, sometimes I look away in hesitancy, or I take a big deep breath and listen to what she has to say as I move on and breathe out.
There is a remarkable similarity to the internally voiced criticisms that I offer to myself daily. Accurate, irrelevant, kind, rude, unpredictable, honest.
Life offers creative reminders.