SCHUDDER’S LESSON
There is this piece, by Samuel Schudder. “Take This Fish And Look At It”. I read it in class last semester and it did seem farmiliar, but I just could not place it. A few days ago, however, before I wrote “Looking At The Drapes” I remembered where I had first seen it. I was thirteen years old, and in my final year in primary school. The head mistress had called me to her office, and as I waited on her, I saw it on a seat placed outside her office.
The reason I recall this particular piece is because of a number of things. The story itself is one. It tells of a young man studying to be a scientist. He goes to this class and the professor basically gives him a fish specimen in a jar. Over time, the professor asks what the young man saw while looking at the fish, and every time, the student, though struggling, manages to come up with an observation. He tries so hard to look at it that at one point he draws the fish down on paper.
Schudder’s article reminds me of a number of things. Persistence in our endeavors, hard work, humility, love for what we do, together with lots and lots of patience. These are things that we often forget as we go on with life. At least I know that at one point I get too lazy to see something through and this piece is actually more for me than for you. It is to remind me that no matter what, we need to get up, dust ourselves off and take one more step. One more look at the fish, because you do not know what you might just learn unless you look more closely.
UNDENIABLE
Ever connected with someone at a level so deep, you know you can never dig yourself out even if you tried?
And not with just anyone. Not a person you have grown up with, or a school mate you we’re forced to interact with. I’m talking of an eruption of friendship and closeness with a total stranger.
Someone you shared a table with at a random restaurant or we’re introduced to for the first time by a mutual friend. Someone you never saw coming, so being set up does not count. Someone who just emersed themselves into your life so suddenly that you had to come up for air. So suddenly that you had to literally think of ways to manage the connection.
Ever had a soft spot for someone you didn’t really know? Whose name you only know the first but it doesn’t really matter because your ship goes beyond last names?
A connection so concentrated that the chemistry is undeniable. It almost seems animalistic because you have never seen anything like it in humans.
Ever related to another being so much you think of calling your parents if only to confirm that you do not have a long lost twin? So much that you feel like dancing all around a room full of strangers, because you know they can never have what is between your new friend and you.
Ever known someone so well that you finish their sentences and they yours on your second meet? That you give them your secrets, those intricate parts you hold dear, unknowingly, and only realize it when the damage is done.
Ever had that one person, that one angel, sent to you and only you because they belong in your life?
Have you ever had that?
Because I don’t believe I have.
THE MAGICAL DISAPPEARING ACT
I have this friend, who I love with all my heart. I love her to the moon and back especially because she has the brightest of souls. She brings light to a room when she walks into one. She is the kind that I know I can count on, no matter what. Let’s call her Shirley.
Shirley is amazing. And I’m not just saying that because I want a pack of oreos next time she comes visiting. I’m not saying she is so just to get a couple of eclairs from her next time I see her. But I like to think that Shirley is a magician. She has this one trick; The Disappearing Act.She is genuinely a remarkable being, when she is single that is.
Shirley totally changes on me when a guy touches into the folds of her heart. She goes inside out on me, one of her best friends. Shirley totally blocks me out. She builds a wall in between her life and the new catch. She goes all in every single time. Reason: She has found “The One”.
When Shirley has a boyfriend, you could make plans, because you miss each other and it has indeed been a while, plan everything out, the food, the venue, how many people are invited or it is just the two of us, and she won’t show up. She will, probably a month later, tell you that the boyfriend called or needed a hug that one cold night.
Shirley becomes a moth drawn into a flame that is the opposite sex. She becomes a hyena to a lion’s scraps. She gets so attached that nothing can break her concentration on the guy.
Woo unto you if you dare tell Shirley that her new boyfriend is a cheat or a flirt. Tell her even that she is too good for him and see your contact get deleted right in your face. You are doomed if you say you have heard rumours that he isn’t at all a saint. Because to Shirley, her boyfriend is her Messiah. He is the one good grain from a pile of chaff, which you have now joined.
And I’m used to this. Every time Shirley shuts me out, I wait one or two months at most to get that ever so farmiliar text on Instagram or facebook telling me to text her and that she “lost all contacts”. I wait on that text because it always comes, and Shirley comes a-knocking, with my oreos and eclairs, to cry on my ever warm shoulder, till the next catch arrives. And I don’t mind it. Because I know she is always there, somewhere.
I love you Shirley.