Reflecting on my ‘people in motion’ observations.

In my observation of ‘strangers’ I was quite conscious of being an observer; outside of what was going on around me. I was sitting on a bench, feeling a little odd about making notes on how people walked or looked. Quite quickly though, I started to enjoy this and had difficulty in deciding to spend more time observing one particular person or to switch my attention to somewhere else; there was just so much happening, and each individual became more interesting the more I looked at them. I noticed that I was very quickly assigning “backstories” to these people even though I was only catching a glimpse of their lives; the couple with the shaved heads immediately became a blurb about a couple’s struggle with illness. The soundtrack of this observation was mainly associated with movement; traffic, the referee whistle, birds and an airplane.

In my observation of my wife, the setting was entirely different; more intimate. I didn’t feel outside of what was happening as everything was going on in a space I knew well. I had a feeling of contentment making notes on a domestic activity and focused more on the detail as there was only one person moving. The sounds and smells were far more vivid here; familiar and comforting.

Through this exercise, I became more aware of how much we miss off what is happening around us. To stay in one place and just watch is to open up a kind of hidden world of interaction and existence. Of course, we see others as we go about our own business, but by observing we see so much more. I enjoy “people watching”, particularly at airports; this is the place where I usually observe people more closely. Again, backstories come into my mind as I imagine where people are going and what might happen in their story after they leave my sight.

From this exercise, I learned that regularly taking time to do this might well be beneficial. It slows time down in some way; my 12 minutes on the bench seemed like far longer! It gives us a kind of “time out” from our own issues and can help in making a connection with the people and the environment around us.