Tag: people

Silent observer

Street artist

I couldn’t take my eyes off him
his long and slender back was tilted
supported by the knees slightly bent
jawbones showing, brows narrowing
he stood looking at the girl in front
who didn’t care, glanced elsewhere
unwavering he glared, his round pupils
measuring her tiny frame, flashy hair
unmoving he observed, taking in
her being and her every movement
his soul concentrated at his object
betraying not an emotion in his face
shifting only his wrists, the master
outlined her outline, his spine still
for hours he watched her, and I him
filling up my heart with so much joy
and his canvas with all that grace
I missed the sunset over my head
but he saw colour fade from the girl
and moved with alarming swiftness
he clapped. Packed. And strode off
ciao, street painter. Until tomorrow.

Photo credit: Dennis Schrader on Unsplash

Normal

Henry had a perfectly fine life.

In the small river town of Carr, home to no more than 200 people, he was the only person who travelled twenty minutes to work. He was the executive accountant for a law firm in the city. And no one in his town knew anything more about what he did. He didn’t mind.

Every morning, he’d catch the same 6:55 bus that dropped him off in front of his office. And at 4:30 every evening, he’d get off at the same stop outside the cafe, enjoy a good natured conversation with anyone in the vicinity, and walk home with a cup of black coffee.

It was his thing. It was his routine.

Every Friday, he’d show up at the supermarket where he’d always say hello to everyone. He’d get a bottle of wine, wave cheerily at the casher, and head back home.

That was Henry. Mysterious and nice to be around.

“It’s unfortunate he died.”

“They say it was a heart attack.”

The whole town whispered condolences at his funeral. He didn’t have any relatives that they knew of, and Henry’s employer in the city didn’t either. So the town mayor had taken it upon himself to organise the ceremony.

No one would miss Henry, of course. He was a simple, exotic young fellow who lived and then died without a fuss.

But when he didn’t show up the next few days, the swans and squirrels knew something was amiss. Henry had never missed a walk by the lake before.

Making friends

I’ve always had trouble making friends. Possibly because I don’t enjoy large crowds or loud conversations, but probably because I have trouble making friends.

For years in I had only one or two friends with whom I shared a lot and whose lives I was a permanent mark. It took me over ten years to two others who were as bespectacled and as touched in the head I.

Before I got used to it I changed schools. And the friend-making process started again.

It took me a year and a half to find the one person who was around for a while. But alas, it was only a two year course.

Life happened. She went to college (or university) while interned intending to study from home. In the five years since, I found two co-workers I call friends.

And now I’ve moved again. This time, it’s across the seas. Down Under is my new found land.

But as is always the case with moving, I still had to make friends.

The older you get, though, the harder it becomes. You’re conscious of wet hair flying about, dry skin cracking in the wintery breeze, and the damned jet lag leaving you like a zombie every morning. Approaching people is daunting, your low voice could reveal your fear, and you never know if the old man returning your smile is being polite or responding to a whole different social cue.

So it was for me. I encountered folks walking in tank tops and shorts, running in speedos with dogs on their tail, and striding in suits and pointed shoes with a McDonald’s bag in their hands. Should I smile? Nod? Purse my lips and raise my eyebrows, ‘Sup?

I’d no idea. Oh, and sunglasses. I couldn’t guess if people were making eye contact or staring at the patch of autumnal trees over my head. Most times, they didn’t even see me. Being short doesn’t help.

What did help, though, was volunteering. I found a co-operative shop and cafe in town. A small non-profit organisation with a massive potential and an ambition to match. It’s a great place to work too. I dropped by one day to check it out. And a few days later, I was in the kitchen peeling onions.

It was the least I could do to help with the onion marmalade. I peeled about fifty onions—red, brown, and white. And all the while, I was making friends out of people I’d never met before. Like those onions, we all came from various places, too. It wasn’t much, but it sure seemed like the beginning another friendship.

Here we go again.

Scars

She had an unmistakeable spring in her step. It was a new town and a new life, yes but she would make it work. She was nothing if not adaptive.

She slipped into her new sweater, pulled on the boots, buckled up the coat, adjusted the hat, and walked out the door. Winter was fast approaching.

Hello, world! Her soul yelled. Show me what you got!

As if they’d heard, two boys came up from hind her. With watermelon heads and noses the size of grapes,”Yo!” one of them called out. A large cap sat on his head while chains dangled round his collar and fake tattoos plastered his temple. He leaned forwards, shoving her nostrils with the nauseating scent of long-packaged cigarettes, “you got cash?”

Before she could react, the other boy grabbed her backpack and shook her. Hard. Stumbling on the walkway, she mutely watched him fish her wallet and grab her buffer money. 

He thrust the bag at her, while tattoo face ruffled her hair, “Good girl!” He leered before walking off.

It was now an old town and accustomed life. But she still doesn’t look at a man’s eye without shivering within.

Tell me a story

“Oh, I thought you’d forgotten!”

“How can I, mom? I just got 20 per cent off of bread on Mother’s Day sale.”

My mother thought I’d forgotten about Mother’s Day because I didn’t wish her on Sunday. It came up when I mentioned it, with the flyaway tone it deserves, in a conversation two days later.

Every street corner has a flyer or a billboard reminding us about this celebratory day. Everywhere I look, there’re roses and pinkish red ribbons cajoling people to splurge, guilting them into buying things their mothers may never even enjoy.

But that’s just the tradition of Mother’s Day. Each year during this time, storefronts and in-stores promote maternity, maternal thankfulness, love, and forever gratitude.

What a story, huh?

Storytelling is now an unmistakeable chapter in marketing books. Almost every marketer I know understands its value, speaks about it, and in public forums vouches for it. But this “trend” came about only in the last three to five years. Before that, no one spoke as much about the great tactic that’s storytelling and its role in marketing and sales.

And yet, for years, we’ve been falling prey to some of the most wonderful storytelling the retail industry has ever divulged.

Yes, I’m saying Mother’s Day is a story. And a well-said one too.

In most of Asia, children live with their parents until they get married or go off to work in a different city. However, in most of the western world, children move out of their parents’ far sooner—sometimes as early as fifteen years. That is an excellent market for the Mother’s Day story. You know how it goes: the child takes one day off from their personal life to meet with their mother, praise her, thank her, and show her how much they love her. It’s the perfect story—with the right blend of care- and guilt-inducing narrative, the story can survive generations, as we see it has. The best part? As the Asian culture adapted to westernisation, more Asian children experience it too.

In a sense, the grand narrative of being there for your mother, at least one day of the year, has become such a relatable matter for so many of us that we give in to without second thoughts.

With today’s tech growth, we don’t need one day of the year to bond with our mother. Heck, I moved to Australia a month ago, and I still call my mom twice every day. I don’t always want to—when you’re talking to your mom that often, you run out of things to talk about much sooner than you’d imagine—but I still make time to call her. She would freak out otherwise, but it’s also a nice way to acknowledge her and what she means to me.

I’m not the only one either. A lot of people I know have regular interactions with their parents. But even they follow Mother’s Day ritual because it’s just so baked into our minds, and—gosh what would people think about them if they don’t?

That’s how compelling this story is. It’s so haunting that you can’t get away from it without going through with it. And like a vicious cycle, as people fuelled the tradition every year, we’ve ended up with a generation of mothers who’re accustomed to expecting the $100 wine bottle (which they know was on sale for $89.95) as proof of their children’s love.

As a marketer, I appreciate the mastery of the storytelling. But as a child, it just makes me a monster who’s so obsessed with work that she couldn’t even send her mother a card on Mother’s Day.

Oh, well.