Thursday, August 07, 2008
Bright pink, big eyes.
There’s a little girl downstairs, who has a pink pushchair. She stares at me and I feel very white. She looks and laughs and smiles at me, maybe they haven’t been over here that long… I’m the only white person in my block of flats, I think. I like that she has no fear yet – of how to be when you walk past someone – do you look down, or do you smile, or do you pretend to look at your mobile phone. Every day I have mini quandaries walking to work, judging each person on how they’ll react to you looking at them on the way past. I always try to smile, but some people just look too plain scary - potential rapists, or muggers. It’s more of an unconscious decision, not like I loose much brain time over it… But shows how quick a snap judgement can be. And how dangerous that could be too. Sometimes I’m surprised how friendly mean-looking people can be. I shouldn’t be surprised, really. I like saying hello to the little girl with the pink pushchair, seeing deep into her eyes, she has no barriers yet. She laughs at me. I say hello to her mum, too, but I don’t think she knows what to say to me, she looks away but is quite nice.
¶ 6:03 pm 
