https://thisibelieve.org/essay/90212/
This story is very interesting, even before your eyes scan across the typing across the page. The title is intriguing, and as it’s tagged in the theme of ‘goodness and kindness’ along with ‘place’, and ‘self knowledge’, you can tell there’s bound to be good storytelling here. The thing that I like about this story, even before fully reading it, is that you can tell that she thinks about this experience a lot, using it as a life lesson of sorts. The description paints a vivid image in your mind, bright hues of paint coloring in a dull, colorless canvas of imaginary artwork. Her style of writing Is very precise, and she uses words very carefully to depict what she is feeling.
The connections in this story are almost endless. The feeling of being disconnected in a land expected to be one you’re familiar with is very common. She thought that her knowledge of languages would help her out here, seeing as she missed her train, her professor left, and she’s left with a classmate who doesn’t speak the native language either. She makes sure to calm herself down, and exchanging a glance with a fellow stranger helps her drive away the cloud of anxiety and fear. Us as humans feel the need to communicate with others, and even though she didn’t make a verbal connection, eye contact was enough to reassure her that everything would be alright in the end.
This article of writing illustrates how that with a simple glance, we can forget our troubles, and merely enjoy what is around us without worrying about deadlines, or life. She seems to have enough trust to willingly show her vulnerable emotions to a stranger merely though eye contact. She shows how even when we are in times of stress, fear, or need, there is always a stranger nearby willing to help, just in means of support. She realized that there was nothing in her power that she could do to fix things. She didn’t speak the right language, her classmate didn’t either, and their professor had left them, so they merely did what they could with the few given resources. They didn’t freak out about the things that they couldn’t control, instead she was calm about the scenario and situation at hand.