Considering the topic
of my last blog post, the importance of discretion becomes increasingly
relevant. I suspect we tend to share much more information with strangers,
viewing brief encounters as fleeting and inconsequential, than we do with
people we know well.
However, there are
different levels of comfort with friends, colleagues, and family compared to
strangers. We might overlook that any conversation, regardless of familiarity,
can seem more interesting and meaningful to our interlocutors than it appears to
us in the moment.
There is clearly some
research and writing about why we tend to confide in strangers, the people we
assume we will never see again. By that assumption, one might wonder about the
embarrassment that could arise if a future encounter brings an indiscretion
back to mind.
Holding one’s peace
There was one such
conversation I could have fully engaged in, as familiarity might have caused me
to let my guard down. It concerned remuneration and rewards, though it focused
on how poorly longer-term engagements were being recognised through promotions
and appropriate pay.
Opposing that was the
absurd situation where titles do not necessarily entitle the holders to better
pay than the staff they manage. Although the discussion called for some
disclosure, I chose to observe rather than contribute.
Then, the following
week, everything that could be deemed absurd happened, and I was grateful not
to have been overwhelmed by the urge to speak, despite having several opinions
to express. It remains clear, regardless of the setting, that discretion is the
better part of valour.
Those chance
encounters with strangers and their stories. Too often we see people on the
surface, with no inkling of who they are. Dare we strike up a conversation with
them that leads to deep discoveries of similarities and differences between us?
For instance, I used customer assistance services for my trip to Cape Town. Someone to
cater for getting me from the check-in counter to the aircraft and back through
customs to the arrival terminal by wheelchair or a motorised buggy.
In Manchester, after the security check, I was left in a waiting area until my gate was shown. Soon, an
elderly couple arrived, the husband needing a bit more help than his wife. She
was amiable and friendly as he made for the gents.
Everyday interesting
people
They had lived in
Africa for more than 40 years, mainly in Namibia where he was an engineer, and
she was in community development. They were going to Cape Town via Doha,
arriving in Cape Town about 4 hours before I do.
As the conversation
shifted to why we needed assistance, their son had made all the travel
arrangements ensuring both his parents had the assisted service. Two years
before she had open heart surgery and was put back together with 4 staples and
glue.
She volunteered he
had a non-cancerous enlarged prostate along with mobility issues and the onset
of dementia. They were looking forward to their holidays, full of life and
happiness. As we parted ways when I was picked up for the departure gate, we
wistfully thought this might not be our last encounter.
I saw them later as
they were being taken to their flight and we waved to each other. It might be a
concert or wine estate where we'll drink a toast to good health.
The choices we make
Then sat beside me on
my flight to Cape Town, I spoke to a lady, resident in Belgium but returning to
South Africa to see her family. Alluding to my just completing treatment for
cancer, she said she was going for surgery in a few weeks.
You would never have
thought, but behind every facade is a world of stories with a touch of
humanity. I used my experience to encourage her. She had made treatment choices
to protect her quality of life. Every motivation is valid. I elected for
radiotherapy over surgery to preserve urinary and sexual function.
With cancer, it is
important to have all the useful information to make informed choices. The more
pertinent thing: regardless of what people suffer, they go out and live their
lives to the fullest.
In considering the attitude of some
people to others, I found myself thinking about how we could allow complete
strangers to influence how we think about ourselves to the point of dejection that
we become unhappy about ourselves.
Be careful not to rate the approval
and approbation of strangers over the acceptance and love of those you know. A
fleeting rejection should never define your self-worth or your existence. That
you have not been liked at a point in time is just an episode that quickly passes
on, not to be agonised over.
Let strangers be insignificant
Usually, that situation is a factor of
them speaking more to their limited sense of appreciation than of you and who
you are. Knowing this will give you peace and a sense of perspective, for
strangers are just that, strangers. Until someone gets to know you, they don't
know you. Even if it is lasting, their first impression is just theirs alone.
You may never encounter that stranger
again, so, why let them dwell in your memory and experience? Obviously, how
they made you feel or treated you might be bad, unfair, and unkind, but they
make up an insignificant proportion of your existence, and do not give them a
platform where they should never even have a toe hold.
I was in Tuican
hom in modern-day Twickenham,
the place between two rivers, the Thames and the Crane, or so it was written of
a place first recorded in 704 AD and that was a long time ago, just as I was
with a friend I had known from way back when my innocence was losing its
virtue.
From the many things
we did and the memories we shared and then brunch at an authentic Italian
restaurant, for many of the patrons, Italian did speak, we made for the station
of carriages drawn not by horses and my last bit of hand tissues was left in
the hands of a man who by trying to avoid the crowds, slipped and fell into the
road, drawing blood from his nose bridge. We worried, but he was fine.
Loafing towards a
seat
Passing through the
ticket gates and down to the platform where my electric-powered carriage was to
arrive in just under 10 minutes, I could almost gambol towards a vacant seat,
but there was none as strewn across three seats were what I thought were bags
of shopping, but the lady on seeing me made to remove the bags for me to take a
seat.
Strangely, the bags
were full of loaves of bread, different kinds and shapes, but before I landed a
quip to feed my curiosity, she said she had all this bread leftover from tending a Celtic Bakers store at the Twickenham Farmers' Market, all variants of sourdough
bread that she could not throw away and she offered us some, for free.
Breaking the bread of
blessing
For a moment, we were
in a moment of spiritual transfiguration to Bet Leḥem (“House of Bread”) in Hebrew, or Bethlehem as we now know
it, the lady a priest with knowledge, wisdom, and revelation of breads like a
sommelier, showing us the scriptures of bread afresh and winning us over to a
new experience of bread so different and unique.
Even I was caught in
the spirit of bread so divine, I was given a loaf and offered more, but there
may be others just in need of this sustenance. Another party, a lady too got
involved in the conversation between the three of us, she also took a loaf before
she asked about a Jewish sweet loaf, and there was one on offer, too big for
one to take and so we broke the bread and shared the blessing of life.
Her carriage arrived
to take her swiftly off to Windsor where she might even find herself the
welcome audience in the court of Elizabeth II, before our own carriage arrived,
wherein I bid the priestess farewell not to be taken to taken to my Waterloo,
but to emerge at the pleasure gardens of vokzal (Russian) or Vauxhall railway
station, today. [BBC:
Waterloo and Vauxhall]
Reflecting on times
we were in Cape Town; we did not get around as much apart from spending just
over a week of the last part of our stay at Mouille Point not too far from the
Green Point Lighthouse after four weeks in the Oranjezicht area near the
Parliament precinct and Company Gardens.
On the evening of our
move, we found a restaurant where we settled into steaks rather than seafood along
with my first helping of Malva pudding. Whilst I usually have my steak medium
rare, mine was closer to rare than medium, the fat became a bit off-putting
that it became a discarded script of Murder, She Wrote unworthy of any edition
to be progressed for auditioning.
We returned to the
restaurant on our last night together before my departure but could not sit
outside as we did before because of the wet weather. Wary of sitting inside, we
found a table at the highest of cascading levels to the very back of the
restaurant, not that crowded, though with a couple at a table already tucking
into their meal.
Stake upon steak
As we were putting in
our order, we could not help but notice the frenetic activity at the other
table, the man who we soon learnt was the husband was constantly genuflecting
for the waiter modifying their order and trying to engage in conversation with
the staff as a regular customer who might have been slighted for not being
recognised. He ordered a second steak even though for his appetite he seemed to have
found a means of not allowing it show on his physique, and that is commendable.
Soon, he engaged us
in conversation telling us that the restaurant had the best steaks as it transpired
that they were regular visitors to Cape Town and this restaurant did take their
fancy any time they were in town. A flutter of introductions ensued, he was
Indian born in Nigeria with no religious pretensions to vegetarianism, his
family having lived there for at least two generations, he knew the Chellarams,
his wife was Scottish born in Hong Kong, Brian is Zimbabwean with distant
Scottish and English ancestry and I am English born of Nigerian parentage.
Partners in blush
It made for
interesting conversation even as they were UK-based but had escaped the
lockdown to Cape Town via Addis Ababa only to find it uninteresting because of the
restrictions and the alcohol ban that they were going to jet off to Dubai and
stay there until things eased off. I did not get his line of business, but he
appeared to have made a fortune selling his company in the UK having learnt he was
not suited for the cutthroat business environment in Nigeria that his father
prospered in.
We were soon through
our two courses and were ready to leave, his sometimes-inquisitive
talkativeness had a Nigerian influence that at times made me uncomfortable as
he insisted on knowing what kind of partners were. Whether he missed the
passing comment that we were too like his, partners in bed, I could not tell.
We parted friendly and jocularly enough and surprisingly loose-tongued without
the aid of alcohol. Even with strangers, encounters can be not so strange at
all.
Sometimes, small talk
is a defence mechanism, a way to put you at ease with strangers though there is
no clear determination of what topic will come up for discussion. It is at times
a case of fleeting opportunity taken advantage of to stop the heart racing in countenance
of the unknown.
Where it occurs might
also determine how long that encounter will go on for. At a restaurant or on a
journey, it might go on for hours, weaving in and out of the insignificant to
the gravely important, snippets of personal information inadvertently exchanged
in the trade for a sense of the personal, the individual or the unique.
Short and naughty
However, in a lift,
the exchange will probably be over before it has started. It requires something
catchier like when I stuck my foot in it so much that I literally could not put
it out without causing a right old stink. He was already in the lift going
doing as I entered on the second floor, he ensuring I had entered for the right
direction of travel.
“You don’t live in
South Africa, do you?” I asked, observing that he was completely devoid of the
tone of tan as you might naturally expect of a Caucasian living in these
climes. In my mind, I expected another answer pertaining to him being a foreigner
tourist who had just arrived on holiday. Suffice it to say, I had to quit
whilst barely ahead, he does live in South Africa, the other question that
should have followed indiscreetly was reserved and unspoken as we part ways
soon after the lift doors opened.
Curls adrift with the shade of blonde, Walking up the road with an angelic visage, Looking into window panes every few steps, Hands running through the hair, For vanity, we must live.
Then interests came as desire does, To wit, what we must do to enjoy, With pleasure is tacked a fantasy, Never satisfied to attainment, They must for another thing ask.
Just as the thought swelled with admiration, A chance encounter revealed a surprise, As he passed a man on the street, Without cause, his voice was raised, After which he cursed and railed.
Then back to the other episode, My race is an exotic find for the curious, My state is incomplete for a date, To which I must boldly and crossly aver, Have me as I am or be gone with you.
In the stranger, we expect the good, But in the unknown, you can see the strange, Beneath the skin is much human strangeness, Sometimes to be held in contempt, If you are uncomfortable in your skin.
It has a cousin, Kurfürstenstrasse
[5], not really parallel to it but close enough to be confusing.
Starting off a few hundred metres beyond
the old central railway station of Berlin
Zoologischer Garten [3] it wends down respectably until a point where
certain ladies in a manner of dress for a manner of trade ply their goods for
custom.
This is observed is one walks the shortest path to Pohlstrasse where a Nigerian-Italian couple runs a restaurant serving Nigerian fare, the man being the chef at Ebe-Ano
[6].
Strange times of things
There are a few things I conservatively
consider have their times of the day. For instance, I would not look kindly on
alcohol consumption before the afternoon, but ladies on heels on the street
even in a pseudo-red light district before dusk is quite disconcerting.
Not only is it that, there is a sense of
almost effrontery and daring aggression but could belie desperation when you as
a man are found on the rough end of salacious ogling for the pleasure of an
illicit liaison.
One can only wonder what happens when the
light of the sun makes way for the dim light of the moon. Not a street to walk
after a certain hour, I would suppose.
Street of strange
However, whatever the circumstances that put the ladies out there, for situational adversity through will to the coercion borne of heinous human trafficking, there is some sadness can only be felt as people meet different human needs in the darkest recesses of primal desire.
I hope the church at the tail-end of the
street offers succour to all who ply that street of strange.
As I returned to my
hotel, I walked up Bülowstraße
[7], the far end of the street that started off this blog, she flagged down a
car, it stopped, she negotiated and he nodded, she got in and they drove off.
This morning I woke up to the playback in my mind with the
refrain - Sometimes you want to go, Where everybody knows your name – and
as I thought that through, the words of the song formed
into a sense of existence - And they're always glad you came.
But, I really did not feel like being there, the familiarity,
the catching up, the questions, the answers, the concern, the sympathy, the
empathy and much else was weighing on my mind – I wanted to be present
somewhere whilst being absent elsewhere.
Somewhere elsewhere
Basically, I did not want to be where everybody knows my
pain, and whilst some might be glad I came, I was not ready to take the strain,
even though my excuse does sound lame.
There were some things I was not ready to deal with until a
more convenient time. So, I moved to another section of the song - You want to
be where you can see, Our troubles are all the same; - I wanted to be in
church, just not my church.
Antipodean flavours
My friend observed that the churches I seem to have an
affinity for were planted by Australians, I dare say, there is something
refreshing about the antipodean perspective of the same revelation that has
been in Europe, gone to America to be exported round the world and emanating
from Africa too with the contaminants that belie a tendency to error, levity
and licence, I am persuaded of a different allegiance.
And though having attended C3 Amsterdam and now C3 London, I found myself visiting Hillsong London at the Dominion Theatre
on Tottenham Court Road where I found welcoming and friendly faces unified in
song and common humanity that one had to reflect on whether one was being swept
away by the awesomeness of mass hysteria or a personal experience similarly
expressed by others.
Words and meanings
together and apart
I began to understand the need for songs if you did understand
what the words meant; for in song, you invariably were chanting the affirmative
in the structure of verse and chorus almost repetitively without it becoming a
mantra – the accompaniment of music then engaged your whole being with some
being exercised or overcome with emotion.
There is life in participating, and when the prayers are
said, you being to realise that our troubles are more or less the same and we
all want insight, ideas, inspiration, results and solutions to take us to a
better place.
Sometimes, that is what church is all about, amongst friends
and amongst strangers, the fiendish and the strangest things can find root, but
we can find firmer foundations in how we believe that together we can reach for
a better day.
Cheers!
Making your way in the world today Takes
everything you've got; Taking
a break from all your worries Sure
would help a lot. Wouldn't
you like to get away?
All those night when you've got no lights, The
check is in the mail; And
your little angel Hung
the cat up by it's tail; And
your third fiance didn't show;
Sometimes you want to go Where
everybody knows your name, And
they're always glad you came; You
want to be where you can see, Our
troubles are all the same; You
want to be where everybody knows your name.
Roll out of bed, Mr. Coffee's dead; The
morning's looking bright; And
your shrink ran off to Europe, And
didn't even write; And
your husband wants to be a girl;
Be glad there's one place in the world Where
everybody knows your name, And
they're always glad you came; You
want to go where people know, People
are all the same; You
want to go where everybody knows your name.
Where everybody knows your name, And
they're always glad you came; Where
everybody knows your name, And
they're always glad you came...
