This young girl sat on the bollard for well over an hour, sometimes texting, sometimes just staring into space, yet never seeing - always totally isolated from what was going on. Look at the girl on the far left of the top photo - she has noticed her and perhaps her isolation. 'If isolation tempers the strong, it is the stumbling-block of the uncertain.'
~ Paul Cezanne
~ Paul Cezanne
un beau portrait de cette jeune fille....elle n'est pas seule, car comme tous les jeunes elle a son portable ;)
ReplyDeleteI wanted to go up to this girl and tell her 'hey, you are young, life ain't so bad' cos she looked so sad, so preoccupied but I had the feeling talking to her might embarrass her.
ReplyDeleteAnd true, Olivier, she had her portable but often she wasn't using it, just staring into space, in her own world of seeming woe.
This is a bit sad...either she's really alone, or perhaps was stood up...just as bad.
ReplyDeleteCommunication by satellite....a kind of isolation, too.
ReplyDeleteOh, Jilly, this must have broken your heart. Do you think technology is isolating us more...particularly her generation? On another note I wanted to thank you for your kind and generous words. They mean so much to me. So technology isn't entirely isolating. It brings many of us closer together. But do we sometimes look like this girl to people in our off-line lives?
ReplyDeleteI agree with Catherine and Brattcat, technology is isolating this generation. Sad really.
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I believe that the young lady is being "stood up"! The close up photo of her face makes me believe that somebody is going to get an earful when they next meet! :-)
ReplyDeleteThe texting part is probably similar to "where R U?"
Ken B.
Live and learn.
ReplyDeleteIsolation in the crowd. I know a person with paranoid schizophrenia who sometimes goes to New York for a while, I think because he can feel lost and ignored, never seriously looked at. There is a real tinge of depression in your story and images. Godot never comes but I hope she worked out whatever she was waiting for.
ReplyDeleteAn amazing portrait Jilly, and you obviously observed her for a while before being able to tell us about her behaviour. You are so perceptive.
ReplyDeleteOh, the stories your portraits tell.
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