..did I stop being wonderful?" she asked softly. She must not have noticed I was sitting on the park bench. I know she was not asking me the question, really.
I studied her sadness. She was an attractive woman in her 50's. Her hair, gray at the roots, hung in a messy halo around her head. She stared with eyes darkened by the shadowy places her soul must have taken her. "Friends used to tell me I was wonderful," she continued, a frown on her wax lips, "now there are no friends." She turned and looked through me. "Does that mean I am not wonderful anymore?" she asked. Again, not really asking me. There was an awkwardness that is usually felt when a stranger bares themselves. You don't know what to say, so you say nothing. I watched, in stunned silence, as she walked away.
I have been thinking about this one sided conversation for a while. The woman seemed as tho she had not become un-wonderful. No, instead she seemed to have temporarily lost her wonderfulness. It was as tho when she stared, she were searching for it. Playing hide and seek with the wonderful parts of her. The parts hiding behind her shadowy soul.
I wondered too if a person is only wonderful because other people say they are. Or, are they wonderful just because they are. Know what I mean? Do you have to hear you are wonderful, to be wonderful? I'm thinking not.
If I see this woman again, per chance, sitting on the park bench, I am going to tell her she is wonderful. As wonderful as she ever was.
3 comments:
you are wonderful onto yourself, wonder is in your heart and soul, alot of people have to hear it from others but a truly wonderful soul knows, sometime you look bakc in wonder but then you remeber that you are the most wonderful person you know. If any of that rambling makes any sence. i love you my very wonderful sister. ur witchie sister
You ask a complicated question, Boni. You are what you think you are in terms of self-esteem and satisfaction with your life. But, sometimes the ego gets a bit carried away with self-perception, and arrogance and other negative attributes are the result.
Either way, the opinions of others enter into the equation.
I guess I do not think this is an either-or question.
Hey Fram,
You are right.
Wondering about what this woman said, also made me wonder about children. For example, I've watched my sister's four year old grandson as he looks at his younger brother and sister get oooohed and aaahhhed over. He tries to do the same things they do, but does not get the same response. When did those things stop being cute for him, and not for his brother and sister? I don't know the answer to that either. How much of a perception of self does a child have? Or an interfering ego?
On the other hand, I know an adult woman that still believes what she does as an adult should get the same kind of reaction it did when she was a child....ooohs and aaaahs again. It doesn't quite work that way anymore.
We all have our dark moments in life. Some people succumb to them, others see the light side again.
I've been thinking about the woman in my post, since I saw her in Woodland Park several weeks ago. I don't like being the only one with brain cramps about life and what happens to people that affects their outcome.
I'd rather write about funny stuff, but that is not always reality is it?
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