Geometric People

As a kid, I had always battled with getting the ‘hand me downs’ from my bigger brother, especially when it came to books and stationary. He had the miraculous ability to make a geometry set last him years, where as, if I had a choice, I would want to buy one every term either to replace lost pieces or to get a scratch free ‘angle measuring thingy’ or a pointer compass. I learnt how vital it was to have a good working set when I started CXC Geography, because map reading was not only tricky and demanding in precision, but was also one of my strongest points and the most fun part of Geography.

All those who know me well enough, would know that I am a self-proclaimed ‘directionally challenged person’ when it came to putting a place name and location together. I have an excellent picture memory when it comes to land marks and telling people to ‘turn left on the street right before you pass the big white house with the Jundi flags’, but for the life of me, don’t expect me to remember the street name, town, village, city or its labeled environs.

One day short of a week ago, my parents took me to a doctor in Arima. How simple is that? I’d say I never expected this revelation until I actually reached my destination – that is – ‘I’ve never been to Arima before, have I?’ – ‘I have absolutely no idea where I am!” – “My good Lord, I’m a foreigner in my own country!” … The alarming part of this was the fact that Arima, in my head, had always been a well known word, a place I identified with as being part of sweet T&T. I had done map work pieces on Arima before. I know of people who live Arima. I always knew it was ‘up North side’ … but it never dawned on me until then, that I had actually never been to this place.

Dad said “Lets drive through the town, I don’t think you’ve ever seen Arima proper before” and despite my mom’s protest about it being peak hour traffic, we did. Man, was I in awe! Something as simple as this, had my senses perked and eyes wide open. I remembered a dream I had once, where I took a maxi from UWI to go Curepe and somehow ended up in some strange unknown busy city like area of Trinidad. I was walking around frantically looking at land marks, buildings, people – anything to give me an idea as to where I was (other than street signs) but still I had no idea. There I was totally lost and desperate and not one soul even noticed I was there. But back to reality, as we drove into Arima, I thought to myself ‘Hey, this could have well been the place you got lost in that dream!”

I stared at everything and everyone… taking it all in. The place was swarming with busy feet going here and there supposedly all preparing to head home sooner or later. I did something I recall doing occasionally – I looked at one arbitrary stranger, all dressed up in working clothes and heavy hand bag strapped across her shoulder and I entered into this realm of awareness… aware that this was another human being quite like myself. And I knew that as she stood there, thoughts were going through her head – thoughts about people she knew, things that needed to be done, how she felt…etc. I was witnessing just a mere fraction of a moment of what makes up an entire life style and lifetime of another person. This woman – like me – lives in this world, in this country – has feelings, desires, dreams, memories and fears. To her, everything and everyone around her makes up her life. She is not JUST another person on the street…

I did the same for a rather Amerindian looking, relatively handsome vagrant… and I thought to myself that he would make really beautiful children.

Now as I end this entry, I come to realize that my introduction and conclusion has little to do with each other. That’s the beauty of spontaneous blogging I guess – It transcends the rules of any known writing style. But for the sake of my dedicated teachers for English language and Literature of seven years (God bless their souls) I confess that yet again, upon entering UWI, I bought myself yet another geometry set :)