Musings
Fragments about daily life and happenings as I think out loud and try and work it out
#1
Did you go to private school? he spits at me, glowering menacingly through an eye that would look more fitting on a baked fish.
I had initially crossed the street to avoid him. On that other side, I become transformed. I am no longer paranoid and my suspicion rearranges into empathy, whispering that I must act.
He stares up at me through his fish eye, a foot down on me at least, from a pasty, mottled, white Elephant man head hanging off his neck at a 90 degree angle. I take a moment to regret the other side of the street initial instinct that re-emerged as I approached and watched him repetitively poke his stick into a hole in the pavement. Each thrust of his stick screamed, disengage, retreat, flee. I silenced these instincts as if I had chosen to put on a pair of noise cancelling headphones.
Are you alright? Do you need any help? He stops thrusting his stick and fixes his eye on me like a marksman just before firing a shot. Who the fuck do you think you are approaching a stranger asking them that? The bullet hits. I am stung, shocked, unsure what has just happened. And then I am answering, confessing in a far too literal way that yes, I did go to private school, but that actually I am Scottish as if that somehow made it better.
He continues, did you know that this city was built off the back of the legacy of colonial slavery? Once more, I fail to disengage as I confirm that yes I did know that. Youâve probably not gone hungry a day in your life, have you? Iâm not sure how to fix this and Iâm not quite sure if heâs connecting the fact of my education to some historic privilege related to the fact of colonial slavery. Regardless, far too slowly, I can see now that I have become the hole in the pavement and he will just keep repeatedly jabbing at me the longer I stay on the wrong side of the street. I apologise and retreat as he crescendos on a stream of fuck offs.
I return to my partner holding the dogs who witnessed the whole thing. I told him what the man said to me and asked if he knew that I shouldnât have gone over. He said that he did and that he wouldnât have done it. I tried to explain how my initial instinct was the correct one but that I questioned it because I saw a physically vulnerable person. I reasoned that most people probably avoid him and that it must be a lonely life. I felt that I could be someone to show kindness, especially if others generally didnât.
It left me with a bad feeling. Did I centre my own prejudice, my own ableism at the cost of his dignity? Was I acting on some misguided white saviour type impulse?
#2
A few days later, I am walking my dogs on Crow Hill, across from the busy main route leading to Arthurâs seat. Itâs a hot day and the dogs are happy but overheating. We are descending a particularly steep slope as we head back over to Whinny Hill. Molly is where she always is, tucked behind my right heel, following my every step. I am descending the hill cautiously in a slow zig zag, humming the section of Casual by Chappell Roan knee deep in the passenger seat and youâre eating me out is it casual now?
I interrupt my humming intermittently to turn around and caterwaul Bye Lea! as she sits at the very top of the slope like itâs a throne, unmoving, casting judgement as she stares impassively at my slowly descending form. Finally I get far enough away, or the promise of chicken or the threat of parting is enough to kick start Lea like a motorbike as she races towards me. As a trio, reunited once more, we stop to wait as a tourist begins the opposite journey to the one we have just made. He is young, healthy and radiates with a warm amusement. He looks like the kind of person who snacks on trail mix and dried fruit. Still bruised from my recent encounter, I avert my eyes as he approaches. Your dog made it back down to you! he exclaims. I realise that he has been watching the entire performance from the hill we were about to ascend. In that moment I realise he probably heard me humming and shouting so I say nothing. And you made it down too! he continues. Yes, I offer. I take my time getting down because I fall a a lot. He smiles and starts to climb past us. Well, you be careful, he sings back with a smirk and a kind smile. It was the vocal equivalent of giving someone an unironic two thumbs up.
Maybe the kindness of strangers does exist?
