Straw Struck!

There she is—look at her! Her hair flies out in jagged odds and ends making her look like a mythical Medusa, as the erratic breeze plays out its aimlessly ambivalent mood. She’s standing at the curb waiting for the bus to bring back her child at 2.30pm. Just that today her kid comes back at 3.30pm. She only realizes that as all the kids tumble out of the bus but her own. She sheepishly gets back in the car and drives off, with as much dignity as possible as the other parents look quizzically. Blame it on old age—blame it on the all the straws in her life. Straws…you ask? Yes all the straws in her life.

She’s clutching at straws now, hanging on to it for dear life. All the puny, dried up, dirty brown straws that you would throw away for recycling. And that’s funny because her eyes would be all but vacant hadn’t it been for those straws—it gives her hope. What’s wrong with that, she asks? There would have been no Shawshank Redemption without hope. Hope springs eternal and life is for living. So what if along the way, you meet men (and women!) of straw? They are not what they seem to be. But then none of us are what we seem to be, she says. Scratch under the put on airs and all of us will be like the people of straw we love to blame. I am like those straw men the military do their combat training on, she says. It’s hilarious how she stood her ground clutching at what she could, while her house of straw was huffed and puffed at. Build a house of bricks, you say? But this little piggy is incorrigible! She ran here and there clutching at all the straws around her and held on to all that she could. Why, you ask? Because you can’t make bricks without straw, or paper, or rope, or…even handicrafts for that matter. Besides, you never know when Rumplestiltskin comes around to weave the straw into gold, she says.

After yo-yoing between the to be or not to be, at the moment it looks like she’s drawn the short straw—the shortest possible. She knows she has the unpleasant on her plate right now. Sometimes she bawls about it shamelessly when no one is looking (and my, does she look ugly—like some water color set out in the rain!). Sometimes she laughs when her friend guffaws to point out the funny straw or two (and my, does she look a sight—like some unrehearsed comic sidekick!). Sometimes she’s angry to the point of mutiny (and oh boy, does she look demented—like the mad wife from Jane Eyre!). But most of the time she deals with it. Someone’s got to deal with it, it's like toilet-cleaning duty. Or would you rather the necessary but unpleasant tasks not get done? Hey no one is setting up a straw man argument but at least let’s not get to the talk of the final straws. Lets point her to the straws in the wind that isn’t just messing up her hair—it’s signifying a different future.

Let’s just leave her now. Let her be. She’ll be back at the right time. She’ll be there for her child. She’ll be there for those she cares about—the final straw might break the camel’s back, but let’s hope it won’t break her. You see the final straw, you say? Look at her—she just dodged it, again!