Tell Me a Story

What's going on in that picture? Who are they? What are they talking about? What has their attention so firmly?

Well, who they are is easy, since I happen to know. The lady is Emma Castro, sister to Fidel and the gentleman is Gabo, Gabriel Garcia Márquez. The other questions? Who knows, could be just about anything. Discussions of rebellion and passion? Secret communiques between Gabo and Fidel with Emma as an emissary? A recipe for butter tarts? OK, maybe not the last but that's the point, it could be just about anything.

Disney made a fortune assigning human characteristics and emotions to cartoon animals because we like to see ourselves in others and seemingly in animals, cartoon or otherwise. When we see a cute picture of a sloth "smiling" at the camera, is that what is really happening or is it seeing what we want to see? Do we see reality as it is or as we want it to be? I don't know. What does it matter anyway? We're seeing what we want to see, which is a discussion for another day.

I like to think about the lives of those people and what might have been happening. That picture, a moment frozen in time could be something innocuous or something profound or simply somewhere in the middle. Like looking at old photos of your parents, seeing them as young teens or adults, before they became mom and dad. What were they thinking, dreaming, feeling? You can only use your own prism of experiences to view them through, but it should make you wonder at what the back story really was.

Back in the day I would, from time to time, ride the subway for no particular reason then to watch people. Kipling station out to the east end of Scarborough and back, just to observe. I would make up rich side narratives of what I thought peoples lives were all about. I recently did this very thing in Montreal. Nestled into our booth with good wine, good food, good music and good company, we observed a few people near us and built rich back stories around our perception of what we were seeing.

I guess what I'm trying to say is that you never know what that person across from you is going through. Everyone has their own story and their own set of circumstances they are dealing with, the good, the bad and the ugly. Maybe taking that into consideration, even just a bit, will make our little corner of the world that much better. Help us to be better versions of ourselves by taking the road towards the greater good...you don't know what battles are being fought, so why add to them? Be a better person, if only for yourself but really, in the end, it makes the world that much better.

I often find myself wondering about this. So much so that I feel maybe, just maybe, I am going to get to the point that I am going to openly solicit stories from complete strangers. Sit down next to someone and simply say "hello, tell me a story." See what happens. Other than charges of one kind or another, perhaps a punch to the throat...what could possibly go wrong? On the other hand, imagine the rich possibilities out there. I imagine the things to be learned would be surprising and possibly profound.

Our lives, as intertwined as they are, are affected by all the interactions we have on a daily basis. The other day I helped an older lady by grabbing a shopping cart for her, giving her mine and then grabbing one for myself. Not a big deal in any way on my part but maybe it brightened her day a bit, seeing that there are still polite people out there. Or maybe the lady watching this unfold in front of her while she sipped coffee was reminded that maybe she should call her mother. Or maybe she was simply staring into nothingness and thinking about her day ahead and didn't even "see" what was happening. Regardless, and without agenda, I simply did a nice thing and moved on. I'll leave the rippling effect to the universe to figure out.

Go ahead, tell me a story.

Ciao
D