Life's like that!

Always in the same dress, sometimes clean but most of the times, stained. Her head always bent and eyes searching the street, randomly picking bits of paper and reading what is written on them searching for something that I guess even she does not know. I tried to meet her eyes once, nothing happened, another time, still the same.. and finally I managed to make contact and gave her a smile, wondering if she would smile back, and she did.
Another day on my way to the market bumped into her and smiled, tried to talk to her,kind of forced my question by asking her "Where are going?" her words came tumbling out, faster than she could control, I tried to comprehend, some I did but most I didn't.
She talked about matters that did not concern us, about nosey neighbours(Who seemed to be the bane of her life) I just moved with the flow, and got the impression through her talk, that not too many people wanted to say Hi to her,( maybe it was her reluctance to make eye contact or maybe just her antisocial nature.)
She talked about the price rise, and how difficult it was to make ends meet, at which I asked her very politely"If she was a working girl?" she was mighty thrilled with my question and gave me the widest smile, which showed me a set of teeth that needed a lot of care.
She said she did work for a while but gave it all up to look after her ailing mother who passed away a while ago, now she was living on her sisters charity, and seemed to be very content with that.She asked me very relevant questions"Are you married?" "I know you live here" she said and pointed towards the right direction and even mentioned my building, both of us walked towards the icecream shop and enjoyed icecream together.
"Oh Thank you very much for the icecream"with a wave of her hand she was gone.
A couple of weeks ago I met her again this time she just looked thru me, like we had not met.
I see her sometimes walking and mumbling something to herself and even managing to smile at her own jokes. At times she smiles at me, most of the times she just goes on walking, searching for THAT BIT OF PAPER, .......