I had a teacher, at my grammar school, who taught me a
lesson I’ve never forgotten. She was a graphics teacher. She frightened me. I
would have told you at the time that I didn’t like her but I can see now that I
was afraid of her. (She belonged to the Disparaging School of Teaching Methods.)
I thought she could see how stupid I was but I think she thought all the girls
were stupid. It wasn’t personal.
I didn’t do graphics because fine motor skills aren’t my
thing; I came to it by default on a rotation in the O’Level timetable. We’d
selected ‘art’ and now we had to choose between painting or graphics. I already
felt like an interloper. I was called ‘the academic one’ and my sister, ‘the
creative one.’ There was no sculpture or making on offer at my school and it
was many years before I realized that that was what I was. I still doubt my
creative ability today even though it turns out that my sister and I are both
academic and both creative.
One day, Miss Whose Name I Can’t Remember, asked us to put
up our hands if we walked from the centre of town, where the buses dropped us,
to school. All of us did. ‘So,’ she said, ‘here’s a quiz for you.’ This is the
only question I can remember. We walked past a big car showroom, Ford, I think.
She asked us if we’d seen the three cars arranged precariously on a display
stand. Of course we had; it was difficult to miss them. ‘What,’ she asked us,
‘were on the number plates?’ I had no idea. Every day I walked past them and I
never noticed the number plates. She wasn’t interested in the answers. She
wanted to illustrate how most of us go around with our eyes shut. I knew they
were there but I didn’t see them. (It
was something like ‘SEE 1’ ‘LUV 1’ and ‘BUY 1’) Every single day for the rest
of my school career I saw those number plates with a sense of shame. If I think
now of my walk to school those damn cars and sense of shame is back in an
instant.
I still fight with myself to see. It’s tied up with being
blind to the things that are there all the time and taking them for granted.
One of the things I do very deliberately, though not often enough, is to go to
new neighbourhoods so I can see again. I am forced to look.
That’s one of the things I love about going to my jewelry
class. On my walk from the underground station, I pass this wonderful spirit
house and Bodhi tree. I have no idea of the relevance of the zebras although
this site gives some suggestions. I’ve written about spirit houses before here
and there’s a great story from Catherine at Women Learn Thai about a visit to
the Chao Mae Tiger Shrine here.
