Really Seeing Someone

I know a woman in her 60’s who’s taken up art late in her career. She’s a fan of painting with watercolors (which she says are SO difficult), and is now exploring oils (which she says are SO hard to use). Mostly, she draws with pencils, including colored ones. Her favorite subject is botanicals, flowers, but sometimes trees or natural settings. She said something to me that struck me as both wise and oddly surprising in its simplicity. She said, “You never really see something until you draw it, and everyone sees it differently when they do. It’s so fascinating!”

I was impressed by the zeal she showed for life when she spoke about her art. Her voice changed. Her smile grew, and her face flushed so blatantly. Anyone can recognize passion and authenticity when it’s that clear. It’s a kind of love… of life.

So I started thinking about whether I’ve ever really seen someone unless I’ve written about them, or written a private letter to them. Writing, for me, is a deeply personal place, where in essence, I’m exploring and showing (to both myself and the reader), just how I “see” the subjects that I write about. Most surprisingly, through writing, I’ve found that I love people (as opposed to botanicals). I love people for different reasons, mostly for their unique features, a combination of the physical, the emotional, the intellectual, the geographical, the temporal, the linguistics, the artistry, the mysterious, and the erotic. I still love people who are disagreeable, and difficult but well meaning, though I have no love for assholes or cruel people.

My colleague described that it’s very rare when you’re able to get into the right mindset to be creative and you can actively create something artistic, even though that’s perhaps the goal of each artistic endeavor, to realize the passion and authenticity that is a kind of love… of life. I think I know what she means. It’s just as difficult to write about someone, or something, to be creative in the process, to truly “see” them and to understand the love for them. If that’s the case, I consider writers block a sort of lovers block, or an inability to love creatively, to manifest the passion and demonstrate the authenticity, it’s an inability to love… life.

When it comes to life, there’s so much to love. I don’t understand why it’s so hard to “see” it, but a lot of times it just is. I wish the artist in me could figure that part out, because I have a lot of love to give and often just can’t see the love for the words, kind of like many people can’t see the forest for the trees.

thesealivesinme:

I’m a man who knows spells.  I know that magical feeling which causes a tingle to go from the spine, all the way down the arm, bringing the little hairs to stand on end; that faint feeling of something powerful, something miraculously bordering between electricity and excitement dancing under your skin.  I hold quite fondly the Driftwood Wand, which I call my own, made smooth by the rolling surface of the sea.  With its air of salt and breeze of freshness, it is tender and kind.  It understands the depths that a man’s heart travels, for a man can, in many ways, be as deep as the sea itself.  I am at peace with the Driftwood Wand.

So you can imagine my shock when that fatherly old chap Olivander sent an owl and bade me to come to his shop one night after midnight, the witching hour.  “Partake of the back door.”  He wrote, and so I did, whereupon I found him brooding before a single candle, his old brow and cheekbones illuminated softly by one tiny flame.  “Mister Edward.”  He said very slowly in an intriguing whisper.  “There are in some wizards the capacity for more than one kind of magic, and so it is that I believe another wand has been waiting for your time to come.”  He held the dusty old box carefully with both hands, and removed the lid to reveal my second soulmate, 15 inches, straight and narrow, dark cypress, with carvings that twisted the entire length starting from above the squared grip, converging at the sharp tip.  

I took it loosely in my hand, the way I usually hold the Driftwood Wand, but I felt nothing.  I raised my doubtful glance at Olivander, a match maker who sometimes creates an awful explosion like the one commonly observed between jilted lovers.  “Are you sure about this?”  I asked.  

“Mister Edward, a wand of this caliber requires conviction, a bold wizards grip, a commanding grasp of its core.  This wand will only yield to one who understands the true nature behind the Dark Arts.”  He stepped back and was swallowed by the ominous darkness as he said it.

So I gripped it firmly and felt a painful burning sensation rise in my heart, a fire that instantly ripped to the tips of my fingers and made silver flecks leap forth from the wand, like sparks when flint is struck angrily by stone.  The wand gleamed red by the light of the candle, and strangely, though the light brought a soft appearance to the cheeks of that gentleman, Olivander, the same candlelight brought a hardened temper to the engravings of the long wand, and I could not imagine what manner of beast must have contributed its heartstring to fuel the core of this weapon, for a weapon it clearly was.

For years now, I’ve kept the long Cypress Wand in secrecy, practicing a second art in front of the encouraging light of flaming wax, or beneath the rising silence of the waxing crescent moon.  By mere thought alone is my flame kindled to life in that wand, silently spoken to that intrepid core of something devastatingly hungry deep within.  Alas, the dark wooden wand and I are one, as we no doubt always were even throughout my childhood, though we were apart.

And now, I will admit, there are times in my travels when I sit across the desk of a foreign headmaster, and I can imagine all too well the disquiet that Dumbledore must have felt to address the Death Eater Igor Karkaroff directly.  There are times when the fire burns in me and the voice in my head begins to echo quietly the resounding whispers of the killing curse, “Avada Kedavra… Avada Kedavra… Avada Kedavra.”  I reach for the Cypress.  But more importantly, I now know the difference between a young wizard who casts the spell ruthlessly with stupidity, and the wise wizard who knows the spell as he knows the fire in his own heart and yet he chooses carefully to hold his tongue.

To hold ones tongue requires more courage of heart and more magic than it takes to hold with a firm grasp the weaponry of this caliber of wand.  One can only truly master the Dark Arts by mastering the restraint of their use.  Though, I will also admit, fearfully the echoes grow, and the whispers beg to become living spoken words, spoken words… of death.

“One can only truly master the Dark Arts by mastering the restraint of their use.”  

Revealing a Gift

In my profession, I meet some pretty uptight people, some nerdy people, some people who like to keep things in boxes and make them behave appropriately. These people come and go like the tides, in the main door like a flood… (mingle mingle, mingle) a handshake, a bow, an exchange of cards, (mingle mingle mingle)… and then out the same doors as they came in. I remember very few of them, that is, until they reveal something. This dance is repeated all over the world and online every day.

I noticed during my last interactions, that what I really enjoy about people, are the tiny revelations that they sometimes give you. You have to see such revelations as gifts, for they are almost always given, rarely are they simply forfeited. It might be something they say, some secret history, some unexpected truth, some admission of guilt… passion, prejudice or pain. Sometimes it’s just a glance, because the eyes never lie. The eyes speak for themselves with the most ancient of languages… a glance that lasts a half a second too long, one that lingers, is an admission, because the eyes follow what they want most. Sometimes I don’t know what all the staring means, what the admission translates to, or even what it’s for, but the secret is exchanged nonetheless, and that’s the gift.

Oddly, while I value and admire the ability to reveal things by others, it struck me that I rarely reveal much of myself. I’m the one among thousands of thousands with perhaps the most interesting past, the widest range of experiences, the unbelievable fiction of a life lived… all in non-fiction, hidden right before your very eyes. Look into these eyes (or read these words), and you might just see that glance that lasts a half a second too long, my simple gift, whether it’s understood or not; given, rarely forfeited.

So if I’m quiet and haven’t revealed much, please don’t take it personal. I reveal very few details to most, and I reveal the most details to very few. If we’ve shared a truth, exchanged a glance, or nodded to each other secretly, those were the gifts, the chances to reveal something to someone we consider important, and the chance for a revelation to be acknowledged. We all have the power to look or to say something kind, many of us never take that chance, or fail to recognize it when the gift is finally revealed. I often wish I could simply give more… but I’m not an easy man in that sense (eyes lingering for half a second too long).

martin-jhnsx:

thesealivesinme:

You meet the greatest people online, some who become your best friends, at least for a while.  When you meet, at first there is scepticism about whether they are really the people they claim to be, are they the people in the photo, are they stalking me, are they marching to some psychotic drum beat?  Then over chats and over the reading of tens to hundreds of posts and IMs you come to understand that they are clever souls, kindred souls with passions and animosities, they have been burned by someone else and yet they are always burning for someone else, they rub you one way and you rub them another, and the back and forth goes this way and that, and before you know it something changes in your daiy routine and you fall into the virtual embrace of your Internet friend for counsel and to bare your bones, you lay it all out on the table, hang all your dirty laundry out to dry expecting that they will not judge you, that they can’t because you are Internet friends, and at that moment you both transcend the Internet part of it and you become friends.  

The exchange goes on between you both, everything is going perfectly and is so convenient because the timing works for everyone, you are both online, your messages and thoughs beam back and forth all week, all day, at all meals and at all hours.  Then one day something happens, you can’t quite say what it was, one of you has changed.  Maybe it was the three days someone had to go offline because of a family emergency, or maybe it was just because your computer broke and you were stuck with something inconvenient like your phone, which isn’t even a smart phone, or maybe it is as silly as someone having a change of heart, actually being the fickle human just the way we all are in person.  There is something about not having the ability to sit infront of a wetted pair of eyes, or being able to admire up close the smooth complexion of a surface of skin with a different tan coloring than the usually exposed bits, or maybe just the lack of having that person’s warm voice resonate in your ears when all you have around you is cacophony and what you really needed was a soothing hum, a simple vibration, a tug on one of the instruments in your mind, perhaps your cello, and everything might have been the way it always was.  But something did change, and although you can’t put your finger on what it was, you feel you know something, like the way you know it’s still not time to get up in the morning when your mind comes to attention, before you open your eyes to check the clock, before the alarm clock even rings.  

From then on, the Internet thing between you two is broken.  Someone deactivates, email addresses change, you move to another city, all of your IDs change to another name, your passport is reissued with a new photo, and you are off, off to explore something new, without your best online friend… and then you meet another, and the cycle repeats itself like seasons, only shorter and with less of a wardrobe change.  You meet the greatest people online, and they rarely last as long as you wish.

I kept this post in my drafts for a long time.
In these times of forced changes …
I don’t know what to say.
Many friends will leave this place soon, and I have no words to say how much I’m gonna miss them -_-

I’m so happy to see this again. I’m going to miss a lot of you, my friends.