People perception

A cartoon that popped up recently on Facebook, showing a man unloading a dishwasher, was captioned as follows: "Realising that not every moment in life will be deep, or meaningful, or vibrating with energy that would give him the fulfilment that he’d always hoped for, Todd unloaded the dishwasher."

Sometimes this is applicable not just to life, but also to columns.

I am currently sitting in front of my laptop, at a wooden café table.  The sea ahead is greyish-blue, with many white caps. The trees within my line of sight are almond, coconut, mango and a few whose names I do not know.

I can hear multiple bird sounds, but see no birds. People who are "into" birds would be able to name them by their calls alone quite easily.  The few birds I can identify by sound only are cocricos, chickens, ducks, geese and wild green parrots.

To my left there is a house painted in a pastel-shrimp colour on an expanse of grass. Hens are pottering around near the verandah where two women are sitting – one wearing a fuchsia sleeveless dress, the other a green T-shirt and black trackpants with white stripes. The women are chatting and appear relaxed.

I recall once hearing about a Russian psychic who practised his powers of people perception by sitting in a park daily, looking at people and trying to figure out things about them simply through their appearances and mannerisms.

Looking at the two women and applying his technique, it seems natural to assume that the one in the trackpants is into sports. However, her body type does not necessarily support that assumption – unless the sport is one that does not require flexibility or speed.

Then again, it is stereotypical of me to assume she is into sports simply based on trackpants.

The woman in the fuchsia dress just got up. When seated, she appeared younger, because I could not see her fully. On her rising and walking with a cup in her hands, her grey hair, slumped body posture and shuffle show that she is possibly an older woman – or maybe younger, with early greys and body aches.

I wonder what a stranger looking at me would decipher in this moment? The fact that I am sitting at my laptop tapping away might conjure obvious thoughts – that I am a writer, working on some project.

Three older women just walked in...one (Jen) whom I know. She introduced the two women as her flatmates from London. Based on this, I am assuming they have been friends for many decades.

Looking at one of her friends, I assume that she is creative and/or has an eccentric streak. Her blonde hair is short and a bit tousled, partially subdued by a headband similar in colour to the house where Miss Fuchsia and Miss Trackpants were. Her dark shades are not too conventionally-shaped, but also not "wacky," suggesting that she can fit into the world while still maintaining a sense of original individuality. Her loose white cotton dress has prints of what appear to be palm trees with shrimp-coloured tops and green trunks. I have images of her in Grace Kelly mode, in an open-top convertible, speeding along the winding roads of a small Mediterranean island, hair and scarf blowing in the wind.

The other woman seems a bit more conventional, but not overly so, with neat, shoulder-length brown hair and what looks like rimless reading glasses which she just put on to read the menu. She has a Trini accent. She looks like she is dependable, a good listener, someone who values friendship and can maintain connections over a long period of time.

On leaving I stopped at their table to say goodbye. The friend with the Trini accent said: “Are you a writer? An artist? A poet?”

Clearly that was her assumption, based on whatever she had seen in/of me.

Her handshake grip was strong, supporting my sense of her as a dependable person who values connections.

I did not ask what had created her impressions of me. Neither did I mention what I had deduced about them.

Jen reads my articles, so will see this and know I was writing about them. I will chat with her after and see how close I was in my imaginings.