No idea

 -
-

Since yesterday, I have been sitting at the laptop thinking that I have no idea what to write for an article – the deadline for which is midday today (Thursday), roughly five hours away.

Even though I say I have no idea, I do not really think there is such a thing as "no idea." Even the most mundane thing, especially when seen from a new perspective, can inspire an idea. In the vast inner universe of our consciousness we have the potential to expand upon any concept through association and deeper exploration – akin to examining a seemingly simple object through a microscope and discovering that it is an intricate and complex world in itself.

Straight ahead of me is the fridge, with various fridge magnets adhering to its upper half. I could write an entire article on those fridge magnets – what each one looks like, what the words on some of them say to me, where I got each magnet, or who gave them to me, what those people mean to me and I to them...and so on. Such an article would be on personal lines, each magnet and the collection as a whole giving insight into not only aspects of my history but also elements of my character.

I am now going to create and implement a concept using the fridge magnets to stimulate my mind for article-writing purposes – not unlike the way a jump cable restarts a seemingly dead battery.

The approach:

I will write several topics of national interest on pieces of paper and, standing in front of the fridge, eyes closed, I will place each piece of paper at random under different magnets. These pairings will stimulate my mind to see the topics chosen from new perspectives.

Topics chosen:

1. Children of today

2. Adam Smith Square

3. Domestic air/seabridge

4. TT’s 60th anniversary of independence

5. Future of TT

With eyes still closed, I chose one of the magnet-and-topic combinations.

The resulting topic is Children of Today and it is paired with a rectangular Mode Alive fridge magnet featuring a blue emperor butterfly on a leaf. The text in the upper left corner of the image is: “I can’t survive with pesticide.” The text in the lower right corner is: “Come alive, Mode Alive.”

-

This random pairing instantly brings to my mind the recent shooting incidents involving innocent bystanding children. On August 1, a ten-year old girl suffered a broken bone when a bullet from a Malick shootout struck her left leg. More recently, on August 16, in Morvant, a bullet passed through the head of eight-year-old Jovan Price, fracturing his skull. The boy was in a crowd of children among whom gunmen ran, while shooting at their human target. Another little boy was also shot in that melee.

Something in a Newsday article on the Jovan Price incident that caught my attention was:

"When Newsday visited on Wednesday, the area was void of children playing outside – an unusual sight for the July/August vacation.

"Residents said since the shooting children are afraid to play outside."

The tragic reality of children being afraid to play outside is hauntingly reflected in the blue emperor butterfly’s ultimate demise under threat of the fatal consequences of man’s inconsiderate use of pesticides.

As a child I spent hours in the garden observing and playing with the multitudes of butterflies that flitted around our garden, often collecting dead ones for closer examination. Children of today do not have that privilege; butterflies are less prolific now.

It is unfortunate that the sight of children playing freely outdoors – beautiful and fragile "butterflies" that they are – has also become (or could increasingly become) less common, as the "pesticides" of adult abuse, violence and illegal gun use threaten their very existence.

Last weekend, while in Trinidad, I was outside in the dark around 5 am, doing yoga on the platform of the back steps. I lent no thought to the possibility of danger, but as I came indoors, both my sister and mother heard what sounded like gunshots, causing Mummy to call out “Is Elspeth inside?”

A recent, shocking and unexpected daylight shootout in their neighbourhood understandably has them and all neighbours on high alert.

We are all the butterfly on that fridge magnet, longing to live in a world where "pesticides" (symbolic and otherwise) do not exist...so that we can.

Comments

"No idea"

More in this section