Ideas for Short Essay 1:
I watched the video for "Les Cruel Shoes" and think it's a fun idea, doing voiceover with video. It could be a powerful way to tell a story. I've never done a multimedia piece like that, but I think I'd like to try it. I have a GoPro camera and have made videos in iMovie of my adventures, so I could use that as my jumping off point. I'd have to figure out how to do voiceover, though. I also love spoken word poetry and how it moves me, but I don't have the guts to do something like that...yet. Not sure how I'd use video.
Ideas for writing: Can we revisit the essay we chose not to use for our long essay? I may give some thought to resurrecting it in a new light, however, it doesn't feel close to my heart right now.
One idea I have, is to write about the dirty, homeless-looking old man who walks around my town, seemingly aimless. Wherever you go, there he is. After months, maybe years, of seeing him walking and walking and walking, I finally (and very recently) had an interaction with him.
Cabin fever plagued me, so I went out for a walk. I walked to the top of my street and headed down the Boulevard. I made a right on 14th, and then a right on Monroe. When I reached the high school, I saw him walking towards me. Great, I thought, he's going to try and talk to me. Shaggy and greasy and dirty; same stained clothes he always wears. Pack of cigarettes in his breast pocket. Normally he's seen picking cigarette butts up off of the ground and smoking what's left of them. Who the hell does that?
He stopped me. "No dog today?" I laughed. I don't know that he'd ever seen me walk my dog, because I rarely walk him. He's 15 and arthritic, so we don't walk together much. But I smiled, and said that I left him at home this time. He smiled, and I saw a warmth in his eyes that I didn't expect. His eyes were swallowed up by years and years of aging; deep, cavernous wrinkles, that are signature of a lifetime smoker. His hair looked like it was slathered with lard. His clothes, like they hadn't been washed in decades. But his short-sleeved button-down was tucked neatly into his filthy, creased, navy blue pants. His silver hair, slicked like he just stepped out of a 1940's ad. I could tell he craved conversation at the way he caught eyes with me. His cloudy eyes spoke to me, telling me to give him the time of day.
I told him I always see him walking all over town, and he told me it's because he likes to give his wife a break from him. I'm not sure he even has a wife. I imagined him going home to an empty house, the result of being a long-time widower. He told me he is from Greece, and I always thought he looked Russian or Polish, but never Greek. I could hear his accent weighing heavily on his speech though, so I knew it was true. The wife, I'll never know if it's true. Maybe he was never even married.
After seeing this dirty-looking old man cruising the streets for years, I finally spoke to him. He looks scary, but he has a warmth that you can only know if you look into his eyes. I wonder if he's someone's grandpa?
There's more to our exchange, but I'll save it for now. I need to understand why we had this brief encounter on the street.
Thank you for taking the time to speak to this man. You've seen the warmth in his eyes, and he's seen yours. I find that I like to interact with the people who seem invisible to others...the cleaning people in the school, for example. I know the names of several on the floor where I work and always say hello or offer a smile to any of the others. I smile at strangers and even try to strike up a conversation with people I meet on the elevator or in line at the grocery store. Like Horton says in "Horton Hears a Who," "A person's a person, no matter how small," and in this case, no matter how invisible they may seem or how dirty they look. Everyone holds some significance. Just curious if you asked his name or told him yours.
ReplyDelete