Yesterday while I was crossing the street I saw a woman carrying a baby. She was beautiful. Mature, but beautiful.
Not alta-sociedad or even sosyal beautiful. She didn't even dress rich, so the safest I could say was that she was probably better off than most. She had shoulder-length hair in loose curls and highlights. Her face was beautiful, but aged by wrinkles around the eyes and sagging jowls. She even wore a bit of make-up. But what struck me most was that she was carrying a baby - a girl, probably a year old.
She walked with a purpose and carried the child in a protective way, as if to say, "this is mine and you can't take it away from me." It made me think that she was the mother of the child.
But as she walked towards me and I got to appreciate her age, I noticed the younger woman beside her and to her rear: twenty-ish, fair-skinned, and simply but neatly dressed in jeans and a T-shirt. She was looking down, watching her step as she followed the older woman.
So I thought, maybe I'm looking at three generations of women here: dominant grandma, docile daughter-in-law, and doted-upon grandchild.
In a moment they were past me. Funny how so short a glimpse can give you ideas about other people's lives.
But honestly, there was something in the way that she carried the child.
I love watching people with their kids. You should try it sometime. People can be oblivious of the general public when they're with young children. Much like lovers behave when they're in Paris. Lots of private moments there.
As I like to say, I love the way we love our kids.
18/100
Friday, May 19, 2006
3 women
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2 comments:
hmm...reminded me of that one time about three years ago when i saw this mature woman with a kid who could not have been more than two years old in national bookstore cubao. i thought she was too old to be the kid's mom. anyway, as much as the scene you witnessed was pleasant and inspiring, mine was nasty. the woman had her arms full with the baby and some boxes of christmas lights, and she kept screaming, pinching and slapping the child's arm, "huwag kang malikot! ang kulit-kulit mo!". she looked middle-class and a bit touched in the head. the kid looked so innocent, (his big eyes rimmed with tears) and so incapable of doing mischief. i wanted to grab the child from her arms and run. i was so indignant that i was about to tell the woman off. thankfully, the national salesgirls did it for me. "huwag naman po, kawawa yung bata." and one of them got a pushcart so the woman could free her arms of the kid and the boxes. what was so poignant was that as soon as the woman set the child down, he fell asleep. now i suspected the child--young as he was--was only pretending to be asleep, to avoid the wrath of the woman. ang haba na nito parang blog entry na rin, hahaha. anyway, the woman thanked the salesgirls and made chika with them,
"hay naku, ang kulit-kulit niyan talaga. nakakapagod. buti na lang at nakatulog na." it was too scary for me to imagine what the woman was gonna do to the child once they stepped out of the store.
mismo
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