Our Internal Stories

I was out amongst the shops the other day. ‘Among the shops’ is one of my favourite places to be. Ashamed as I am to admit that I so often resort to fulfilling the materialistic, first world female stereotype. But that’s by-the-by… So, I was in a market and a clamour was building a few yards behind me, like a small unpredictable whirlwind…A small-ish lady was shouting at one of the stallholders to ‘give me my money back,’ and the aplomb with which she vented her aggression gave the impression this was no novice in the field of scene-making. A veritable ‘scene’ was created, with people watching, commenting and a couple of brave souls coming to the aide of the stallholder who held his own as defiantly as the small-ish lady. The situation escalated. She descended. She screamed abuse at him with a few general terms of offense sprinkled with some choice racist slurs (the lady was white, the stallholder Asian) Another male stallholder came to the defense of his friend and told the vociferous woman to get out. She turned on him and it got physical. She threw blows and spat at the man. He restrained her with another female stallholder who intervened, maybe seeing it was more appropriate that another woman handle her and not a huge guy. They held her to the ground as she thrashed and screamed; it was like something you’d see in a disturbing TV program on life in a high security correctional facility. I left the market and crossed the road to continue with my everyday business. I was in the spot long enough to see police arrive and take the girl outside to talk to. I am one of life’s observers. From the other side of the street, I took the chance to observe the girl more closely than I could inside the market. She stood with her face defiantly away from the officer as he spoke to her. Her whole stance was defiant, she stood with legs shoulder distance apart as I notice boys do when they are trying to look ‘hard.’ Her manner in general was very 'masculine'. She had her hair cropped close to her head, and wore baggy clothes usually seen draping from teenage boys going through that Justin Bieber phase of trying to look 'street' and tough. I noticed the large Celtic cross tattooed on her neck. I noticed the smattering of street slang in her language; terms such as ‘nah blud.’ I noticed her seemingly more timid yet similarly dressed friend who’d been waiting outside for her. In life’s little moments it’s so interesting to realise what our internal commentator makes of the whole thing. Mine always creates a backstory for people I come across. Sometimes it’s good to realise everyone has a story and has been through things that make them who they are. It makes us less quick to judge and condemn. It may be the natural born writer in me that uses situations to let my mind venture. But sometimes creating stories for people may just be patronising assumption. Mine was probably the latter. It went like this; ‘This is probably someone who has grown up in care home. Probably been locked up before, as is statistically all too common amongst ‘institutionalized’ children. She probably learned to be this way as a defence within the dysfunctional environments to which she’s been subjected. She must hate being made out to be weaker than men. It must have rocked her to rage when she was being held down on the market floor like that. She’s probably been restrained in a similar manner at some point in her life, in the institutions she’s been in, because I’m sure this isn’t the first time she’s manifested that violent temper’ –and so on. I don’t entirely know what the focal point of this post is. I guess it’s just intrinsic to want to write about daily experiences. This blog is ‘The Conundrum of Self’ –maybe I'm just trying to analyse the way my mind interprets environmental happenings. Anyway, bless you if you read all this. Love x