Deeply Seen

Today I saw three people.

The first person was a man. He had black hair, a mustache, and brown skin. After peering at him briefly, I realized he was Hispanic. I stood a short distance away from him and watched him sit with many other men at a picnic table. I knew I was supposed to marry this man but for some reason I wasn't so attracted to him. I also knew that he had just gotten out of prison for murdering two people. I wondered how come he was out of prison so soon. Shouldn't he still be there? He couldn't have served his time yet, for he appeared to be not much more than thirty years old. He sat there talking to his friends and waiting for me to approach him. However, I continued to watch him from a distance.

I also saw a little girl. She was perhaps 8 or 9 years old. She had a sideways pigtail, her hair was brown with curls and straightness intermixed. She walked right up to me with her big brown eyes and just stared at me. She didn't say a word. I couldn't take my eyes from hers. There was something underneath the surface. She seemed almost joyful on the outside but underneath those smiling eyes she was in a liminal state. There was something hidden in her eyes, you could only see it when you looked so hard your own eyes began pounding with exhilaration. I wondered how such a little life could have seen such death. I walked away from her because I didn't want to see what else was in her eyes. As I glanced back, her arms where stretched out towards me, like she was begging me to embrace her.

The last person I saw that day was a rather large black woman in her fifties. The clothing she wore was not like anything I had seen before. She had on bright red balloon shaped pants, which rounded out far beyond the size of her legs. She wore a dress over the pants. The dress was pale blue with royal blue, that unhurriedly crept over all of the pail blue. It seemed as thought the royal blue on the dress was alive. Over and over again I saw it canopy the pale blue. It was so beautiful, like the sun rising and setting, brilliant color illuminating the sky. The woman was laughing hysterically at something in front of her. I was very drawn to her yet at the same time afraid to get to close. I yearned to feel what she was feeling, to have joy that came from the gut, rolled up, and out. It seemed as though her laughter was never ending. Would she ever catch her breath? It didn't appear as though she needed to. I was captivated. I didn't watch from a distance or turn away. I walked up to her and smiled into her eyes.

To be continued next Monday...