Now Hear (See) This
She was plump, not in the way of heavyset women but more like a small girl whose parents often fed her donuts, perhaps many donuts, for breakfast.
She always sat on the sideways seat near the door on the bus. She was so short that her legs dangled far from the floor.
She was hard to ignore because she kept up a steady patter just sort of a tirade about the injustices in her own life, threaded with local gossip about people most of us on the bus did not know She also loudly shared excruciating details about her latest medical appointments.
But none of this is why I couldn’t stop watching her.
I was fascinated by her ears.
It was impossible to tell what size her lobes used to be but they were now quite stretched out, and she stretched them even further by always wearing fairly heavy earrings.
But that’s not all.
Each of her lobes was separated into four distinct sections, as if someone had used scissors to cut vertical lines into them, making them look more like ear fringe than lobes.
I wanted to understand why she wore earrings that not only stretched out her lobes but also drew attention to them.
Maybe I was just nosey.
I wondered what I would do if my ears looked like that. Not that that mattered.
I wasn’t judging her for choosing to wear earrings, I was fascinated, and wished she would let us in on her reasoning.
Looking back I wonder when curiosity becomes judgment. I realize that curiosity almost always creates a fork in our fundamental response. A choice.
We can follow our curiosity to a place that invites us to feel superior, or we can simply take in one more sight in this beautiful and confusing world, and let ourselves feel the wonder.
Cinse Bonino
2024
