This was a little sincere for April Fool’s
What color are your eyes? Mine are blue, darker on the outside and lighter on the inside, but blue through and through. They say that looking for the color of people’s eyes and trying to decide what the color is most like is a great way to make sure that you’re looking at their eyes enough to actually connect in a conversation. But send me a picture of yours if you’d be so kind, because I’ve noticed that I don’t look at people in their eyes. It’s so bad that I don’t even look at my own eyes in the mirror O_o
I’m exploring that with Jesus and this musing is a part of that exploration which seems light enough to share. What I’ve noticed is that I can stare any of you in the eyes for hours - if you’re the one talking. I’ll make eye contact, I’ll maintain it, I’ll nod and smile and offer you vocalizations and questions to invite you to continue talking.
But when it’s my turn to talk, I’ll look anywhere but your eyes. Don’t take offense! I really do want to be heard and give you the chance to reciprocate the nicety of keeping eye contact as a sign that you’re listening, but I won’t look at you to see if you’re doing it. If our eyes do meet while I’m speaking, it’s fleeting, possibly accidental, and I will undoubtedly look away because I simply can’t bear it.
The last play I saw in-person was Laramie High School’s fall play, “Our Town.” The last movie I saw in theaters was the Puss in Boots sequel. What do these two pieces of performance share in common?
Their main plot is about dying which makes
Their main theme about really living and
It’s all in the eyes so
I cried at the end.
If you’ve watched Puss in Boots, maybe you noticed how much of the actual imagery is centered on eyes. Puss’ eyes. The Doctor’s eyes. Lobo’s eyes. Softpaw’s eyes. Perrito’s eyes. Goldi and the Bears’ eyes. If the word “eyes” is ceasing to look like a word anymore, you’re getting the picture. The protagonists each start re-seeing the world through new eyes over the course of the movie and it’s riveting. Why do they see something new? Because of Death. They finally see each other for who they really are, and by the end I was crying.
Our Town ends with the protagonist dying. As she enters the grave, she discovers she can go back to any time in her life! Being warned not to visit an important or especially lovely day, she chooses her 12th birthday to re-visit. And at first she is warmed and comforted by the fond familiarity of everything she had forgotten about being alive, and how incredible it all was! But the more she remembers, the more unbearable it becomes, and it culminates with the eyes of her memory. She grabs her mother and begs her to look at her, to see her, to stop and focus on her eyes so that they can really see each other.
But they can’t. It’s a memory. The daughter truly sees the mother as though for the first time, but the mother cannot see her deceased daughter. She returns to her grave, shaken at how unseen people are - how unseen she is - and as the curtains closed, I was crying.
Being seen, truly seen, and known - vulnerably known - is a rather integral part of being a healthy human and I suspect that you’re probably quite as average as me in that you and I desire to be seen like that. You surely have certain people in your life that you feel like you truly see, and certain ones that you feel see you. And as much as I want that as much as anybody else, I can’t bear to experience it. The only reason I can tell you with such audacity about any of this is because I’m protected by pixels on a screen and time between my writing and your reading.
Because were we to be sitting down across from each other and I were to say any of this, I wouldn’t be looking you in the eyes. Because if I did look at you and discover that I saw you - really saw you - I think my capacity for being truly alive would immediately be exceeded and my entire inner world would explode. And if I saw you seeing me, it would be over. I would be catatonic.
… is how I feel when I am talking and our eyes meet. And yet. I know why I cried at the end of both of those performances.
In Our Town, it’s because I deeply relate to the characters who weren’t brave enough to see each other while they were alive. And in Puss in Boots, it’s precisely because the characters chose the bravery of looking at each other, seeing each other for who they really are, and loving the imperfect, courageous people that they are that had me in tears.
And that bravery, my friends, is an incredibly compelling witness to how truly alive we are. So next time you’re talking to someone?
Make sure to look them in the eyes and decide what color their eyes are most like. And if you’re feeling extra brave, maybe tell them what color you’ve decided on, and why seeing them matters to you.
It is good to be alive today,
–Beth
