The picture in this post is another one that I've had to edit.
It's a beautiful grayscale picture, and Miss Brown is in it.
In the original she is posing by the railings at a spot very near where we now call the Fullerton Waterfront.
We cannot tell for sure when this (undated) picture was taken.
But we can be sure that it was more than fifty years ago.
Miss Brown- dressed in a sleeveless patterned dress and a belt around her waist- with her hands posed delicately on the railing in front of her- looks very young here.
Seeing this picture I have to wonder how the day of (almost) fifty years ago was like.
Was it a clear, fine day?
Was it a day where the skies were blue and the seas were blue and the winds from the sea balmy and free?
Was it a very hot day?
I think it must have been a very windy day and I think it must have made one feel very free.
This is Miss Brown in the prime of her youth.
We do not know at what stage of life she was at, we don't know what were the plans she had.
But, from this picture, she seemed hopeful.
At least she looks so.
Miss Brown used to say that she liked taking photographs and liked being photographed.
Seeing this picture, I would say so.
Going for an outdoor photography shoot back then was a very big thing.
You dressed up for it.
Those days you dressed up if you were going out.
And you dressed up even more if you knew your picture would be taken.
We will never know what it was the photographer said that made Miss Brown smile the way she did.
Neither will we know what exactly she was looking at that made her smile.
But we know that on that day, at that very minute, something (and someone) at this place that is today part of Queen Elizabeth Walk and Fullerton Waterfront made her smile.
A picture like this makes one question life, living, and the meaning of change and time.
What were Miss Brown's thoughts as she stood there feeling the breeze blow in from the sea?
What were her dreams (if she had) as she posed for the camera that let this moment be captured in time?
Did she know at that time that she would one day open her own hair salon at Onan Road in the east?
Did she know that she would one day marry a man who made a living in the forces guarding the seas?
Would she have known at that point in time that she would one day witness land beyond the waters reclaimed to become the towering glass skyscrapers and luxury hotels of Suntec City and Marina Bay?
And would she have known that the view she now gazed at- across Anderson Bridge and the Singapore River- would one day be transformed from shophouse godowns to skyscrapers of banks local and international?
It is sometimes difficult for us to truly understand just how much our world has changed.
Maybe we have conditioned.
But for Miss Brown (and her generation) it is a very tangible thing, something they could see, something they could watch, something they could feel.
Miss Brown is in her eighties today.
And she doesn't come to this part of Singapore very much now.
But maybe one day we'll bring her.
Maybe (if weather permits) we'll try doing a recreate of the angle complete with Marina Bay Sands skyline.
Then we'll put both pictures together and try merging a life past, a life present.