20 August 2009

day 41 - of weeds and grasses
This is a personal story, but one I hope, drugstore fans may be able to identify with.
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The scene: a conversation of the school Headmistress and a pupil, a troublesome 10 year old girl. The Headmistress is trying to explain that life is like one beautiful football pitch, where every season, since time began, the Head Gardeners take great care and put much effort into keeping the lawn in perfect condition. But every now and again, and particularly during the rainy season, a few little weeds spring up here and there uninvited. The weeds are quickly removed, as soon as they're spotted, for the grass must remain as homogeneous and as weed-free as possible, so the games designed by man can run smoothly, and everything can remain as pleasant as everything ever was and will always be.
The Headmistress then explained that most people are like grasses, they are ever so slightly different, but roughly the same shape. They grow through life as units, but together they form the whole base of society. A few others though, are like weeds, although from the same basic material, their shape is different and they stick out in the fields. Some welcome their arrival, arguing that they add colour and variety to the picture; but most feel uncomfortable, for they bring an unsettling edge, as if deserving of more sunlight. She then said that, together, grasses and weeds formed the full picture. And that each had their own particular form of beauty. The grass on the football pitch could only be appreciated from a distance, whereas the weed's delicate beauty, from a closer inspection. And If you were a grass, you should take comfort in the fact that you will never be on your own. And that if you were a weed, you should make the most of the extra sunlight, but must be ready for the gardener's fork, for it will inevitably come.
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I have previously stated my obsession with shapes, and have now made the connection that, in Drugstore, I've found a place where I don't need to fear the gardener's fork.
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4 comments:

Lex said...

Life would be so boring if there was only grass! Great Headmistress she must have been - most of the time at school they try to put you inside a mould... And children themselves can be so nasty with these looking different, the worst time being teenagehood I would say... If you don't dress the same, aren't interested in the same things than the mass, you're considered the black sheep in the family. I have always wondered why... Human being is tricky, why being so scared of being different, why is difference rejected at first (vicious cercle)?

Glen Robins said...

Such profundity to lay on and in the head of a ten-year-old. (My headmaster, an ex-army Major, would have just said "Boy, get yer hair cut!" and clipped me round the ear. But that's another story)
Weeds are only weeds because we deem them to be. Perception and location are everything. A grass in a flowerbed may be considered a weed, just as a flower in a lawn might be.
Be a weed and get noticed. Or be a grass and get trampled under foot. I know which I'd rather be!
Just keep in that little spot right behind the goalpost, near where the goalie leaves his can of drink during a match, and which the sit-on mower can never reach, and the sun will keep shining on your part of the pitch.

isabel monteiro said...

Your comms- always interesting and amusing.
Headmistress was(still is) a truly great woman, bigger than most.
x

marky said...

another lovely entry!
thank you.