eyes to see.

i've been wanting to write about this for awhile, but of course, life happens. i had a pretty profound experience at joseph's house a few weeks ago now, and ever since i've been thinking about the way i see others. a new woman moved in who was pretty soft spoken, bed bound, in a fair amount of pain, crochety, confused ("don't leave the door open! the lions are just in the hallway!" she chastized me. i love those moments at j-house - "sorry! we don't want the lions to come in here!" i replied as i closed the door. "damn right," she responded with a satisfied nod). i really loved her, but i wasn't quite sure if she loved me, because every time i went in to check on her or speak with her, she'd slowly open her eyes, stare right at me, respond to my question or comment, and then roll her eyes at me before she closed them. i was convinced that i annoyed the heck out of her and was probably her least favorite person - i don't think i've ever received so many eye rolls in my life! so i began acting towards her the way i typically do when i think a person doesn't like me - i began avoiding her, spending as little time as possible doing what needed to be done with her or in her room, and timidly tip-toeing around her bed. i kind of gave up on the relationship being meaningful for either of us, i guess.

thank goodness my sister molly came to visit and spent some time with this beautiful woman. we were in pulling her up in the bed, and i left molly with her for a hot second while i went to get some clean sheets from the closet. apparently, in the time it took me to get clean sheets down the hallway, this woman who i assumed disliked if not disdained me, told molly, "your sister is so great - she's always taking care of me, talking to me. i really love her." when molly told me this in the kitchen later in the evening, i was flabbergasted. she doesn't hate me - she actually likes me? so what is up with the eye rolling? it was then that i realized that medically, she was losing her eyesight, and after asking some of my co-workers, that she rolls her eyes whenever she's trying to close them irregardless of her feelings about the conversation or person she's with. a chronic eye rolling problem! and my assumptions from my own visual observation of her led me categorize her and lose precious time and relationship with her. a couple weeks later, my eye-rolling friend stopped speaking, stopped eating, and, one morning, with her eyes closed, took her last breath. i'm so thankful that my perceptions about her perception of me were corrected, and that i could get past my own discomfort with perceived rejection to see a beautiful person and relationship.

since this experience, i've been thinking about how quickly i go from what my little eyes see to making assumptions about other people - whether it's categorizing them as a type of person as i pass them on the street: homeless drunk, georgetown preppy, hipster heading to tryst, the trendy coffee shop down the street; or whether it's making assumptions about whether, by the way they look, we'd be friends, or enemies, or just ignore each other... how often do i make judgments and assumptions about people based on first glances? and here i am, hating and tyrading against the way women are used, abused, and violated by the cultural definitions and values of physical beauty... i do genuinely want women to be valued and treasured for their strength, their spirits, their inner beauty more than their outer! but i can't claim to be exempt from visual judgments.

so what i want to think each time the visual stimulus of another person travels from my eyes to my brain is: "here is another human being, who is the beloved of God, loved and treasured by their Creator, and put on this earth with a purpose, a call." because i really believe that. so i want to live it. i want to see each person i pass on my bike, sit next to on the metro, meet coming to j-house, as beloved, and i want to find ways to speak that belovedness to them, even if it's just a smile, a wave, openness to a conversation, to a friendship. may my eyes be opened to see the beauty and belovedness in each person around me.

poems.

these are some poems and quotes that i love and have been speaking to me lately. hope you enjoy.

"sweet darkness" by david whyte

you must learn one thing.
the world was made to be free in.
give up all the other worlds
except the one to which you belong.
sometimes it takes darkness and the
sweet confinement of your aloneness to learn
anything or anyone that does not bring you alive
is too small for you.


by walt whitman

this is what you shall do: love the earth and sun and the animals, despise riches, give alms to everyone that asks, stand up for the stupid and crazy, devote your income and labor to others, hate tyrants, argue not concerning God, have patience and indulgence toward the people, take off your hat to nothing known or unknown or to any man or number of men, go freely with powerful uneducated persons and with the young and with the mothers of families, read these leaves in the open air every season of every year of your life, re-examine all you have been told at school or church or in any book, dismiss whatever insults your own soul, and your very flesh shall be a great poem...


by dawna markova

i will not die an unlived life.
i will not live in fear of falling or catching fire.
i choose to inhabit my days,
to allow my living to open me,
to make me less afraid, more accessible;
to loosen my heart
until it becomes a wing, a torch, a promise.
i choose to risk my significance,
to live so that which came to me as seed
goes to the next as blossom,
and that which came to me as blossom,
goes on as fruit.


by mary oliver

when death comes, when it's over
i want to say: all my life,
i was a bride married to amazement.
i was a bridegroom, taking the world into my arms.
when it's over, i don't want to wonder
if i have made of my life something particular and real.
i don't want to find myself sighting and frightened,
or full of argument.
i don't want to end up simply
having visited this world.