The Way They See Me
Tracey Clark takes my camera for a spin, Chicago 09, Diana F+
This last year brought me many opportunities to find myself, to pull something of myself into focus like never before, as I was seen by communities and friends who welcomed me with love. It's clarifying to be thrown into a mix, like a crew of actors on a rehearsal stage because you see what you bring that's missing when you step behind the curtain. I play a good sage to her queen, or I am the wild woman in the woods. This is a point-of-view that's hard to get when you're alone with your life and your work.
"Listen to who we say you are," I tell her now. "Can you just step inside that picture of yourself long enough to play in it a little--try it on to see how it feels?" I know she will feel like a child trotting around in high-heeled shoes, but I ask her to trust us. To trust that just maybe (or quite likely) we see her more accurately than she sees herself.
"I want to tell them about this," I tell Jen later, "about how we find ourselves through each other's eyes. But I'm afraid. I don't want to cause despair for anyone who doesn't have this experience yet."
I need not worry, she says. "The desire to see comes with it a willingness to be seen. Desire is the beginning of everything, don't you think?" We are like old ladies when we talk to each other this way, knowing more than our present selves could ever claim.
Nodding, I think it must be so. I know plenty of people happy not to be truly seen (I have been one myself), but those who desire to see and be seen seem to get what they wish for, even if a small dose of patience is first required, like a faith offering.
How about you? Are you willing to be seen? Can you pry those clenched fingers open, smooth them flat against the table top so when love brings you your first morsel, you have a surface on which to receive it?
Receiving the love is the hardest part of being seen.
I feel you cringing. Yes, it might sting, because it won't let you keep that distortion you call your self-image for long. But it's the pain of healing, and the relief and balm that follow are worth every risk you take, and then some.
I've known this healing, and I'm becoming more whole and true all the time. It doesn't happen as often now, but I still have spells in which I'm waiting for someone to notice me, feeling like a quiet wallflower at the the party--holding the fireworks behind my back and just waiting for someone to clear a space on the dance floor and invite me to set them off.
But how can I keep convincing myself that no one's noticing me here, when they keep seeing me and putting me out there for the world to see? (Not very well, that's how.)
[I just want to make sure our photog/visual arts friends understand the priceless gift they give us when they see us, and let us see ourselves through their eyes.]
My friends, old and new, teach me how to be seen. You don't have to smile, they school me. It's safe to let the curtain drop. So I look deep past their lenses and their skin, and I let them see my intensity, my love for them, the way my heart looks when it's been dismantled by raw, wild love.
After all these photos of this woman, try to believe these old thoughts she once harbored:
- I'm not really beautiful.
- I'm a wallflower at the dance of life, and no one sees me.
- I'm not good at being myself, just a master role-player.
- It's too scary to be seen; I should keep hiding out.
- If I show them the Real Thing, they won't appreciate it.
Do you see how the way they see me is remaking my vision of myself? This is how even when I am lost to myself, I am found in their presence. Their eyes. Their love.
This is the opportunity we have (no cameras required) in every conversation, with our eyes and with our words. We can really see people, and tell them who they are: to us and to the the world. And when others do the same for us, from a place of love, we do well to believe them.
Desire is the beginning of everything, she says. Do you desire to see? Are you willing to be seen?
You will never be the same.
Tuesday, August 11, 2009 at 10:21AM | Share Article 20 Comments | Email Article Print Article | Permalink | 1 Reference | in authenticity, community
Reader Comments (20)
Once again: amazing. I am a hider, albeit a hider in plain sight, so this really rips at me, in a million different ways. Thank you so much for forcing me, through your eloquent, true words, to think about this...
I have been wanting to send you something and I did not know what until I read this post. Putting it in the mail this week and I hope it shows you what I see when I look at you.
Oh, Jen. I do want to be seen but I am utterly terrified at the prospect.
Such profound thoughts here - and such profound beauty in these photos. I, too, long to be seen and yet I hide. Much gratitude for your honest thoughts on this vital point.
i'm changed just by reading this.
yes to desire.
yes to being seen.
yes to uncertainty and possibility and love.
you blow me away.
lisa
I have become so adept at hiding that I now have to "pump myself up" when I go to a doctor so that s/he will see me accurately.
Knowing who we are comes from adequate, accurate mirroring--and if we don't get it when we are young...it is not too late.
The gift of true vision is rare and precious. How do you know so well what's in my heart?
THIS! This is why I came back and sealed the deal with a blog subscription. This writing....QUOTE: "Can you pry those clenched fingers open, smooth them flat against the table top so when love brings you your first morsel, you have a surface on which to receive it?." End quote. This authenticity. These raw, scratchy, REAL thoughts of the heart & worn-smooth soul.
II found you through your photographer friend Chookooloonks. And then I found others through you and more through them. Artists. Writers. Photographers. I am breathing fresh air now. I was gasping for this type of originality in the mommy blogosphere. And, as a hiding-in-the closet artist for the last 20 years and as a writer (not in the closet) I am so encouraged by the beauty of full expression by each of you. I hope you know who "you" are. This fabulous network I've found by cyber-leaping to eachl of your recommended sites.
In closing, this reminds me of Marianne Williamson's poem delivered by Nelson Mandela, "Our Deepest Fear." Surely, you've read it. Here's the first few lines and then a link. Priceless:
"Our deepest fear is not that we are inadequate.
Our deepest fear is that we are powerful beyond measure.
It is our light, not our darkness, that most frightens us.
We ask ourselves, Who am I to be brilliant,
gorgeous, handsome, talented and fabulous?
Actually, who are you not to be?
You are a child of God."
continued: http://www.squidoo.com/our_deepest_fear
Thank you for this. I needed it today.
You are such an inspiration.
Thanks.
Do you want to be healed?
Yes. Yes, most of us do; just takes a faith in the possibility to get started.
Thank you my lovely friend. :) I LOVE this photo at the top of the post and especially the one of your intensity. Just so you know, your intensity as you name it here is deep and beautiful.
You said you were an introvert, yet when we spoke you were the most present and open in conversation as any conversation I've ever had. Maybe there is some sort of gift in this opportunity to see ourselves as others do. Lovely, lovely post.
I think I had this once. I'm hoping for it again.
Thank you.
to be seen...oh! reading your post brought me back - viscerally - to a number of years ago when i was in the Gestalt Therapy Institute of Philadelphia program...one weekend a month we'd gather for (obviously - lol) training in Gestalt therapy...on Sundays we had to break off into groups of threes..each of the threes got to be a client once, a therapist once and an observer once during the day, while we practiced what we'd learned on Friday and Sat.
EACH - and i mean EACH time we did this I cried nonstop the second it was my time to be client (before i started to talk - kid you not). Even brand new to the group I was fine being the therapist - how scary could that be? (which is silly - there were folks in the group who had so much more time in practice than I had..THAT would've been a place to be nervous)...I didn't realize this until about halfway thru year two when I asked for help looking into this . Being the client meant being SEEN and heard! It was the scariest thing ever.
I SO "get" the fear of being seen - and yet, like the anais nin quote about "too painful to remain in the bud" - life changed SO much when i let myself be seen...
Your post brought tears to my eyes - but different tears than years ago, not of fear, but ones of gratitude and joy for having made that step into the realm of being seen and the joy of being there - which you SO eloquently described here...I can also imagine - because of what you wrote, and the pictures and connections you made IN this post - a whole huge earth-circling tribe of women opening up to being seen - and all of us welcoming each other as we dance and weave hands clasped..ahhh..how lovely!
Thank you so much, my heart feels SO full!
oh yes
i want to be seen
but i keep looking backwards instead of to the faces that surround me now
saying those nourishing things that i can't quite beleive
i wanna let off my fireworks too
I trust you Jen.
I hold onto it every morning when I open my journal.
I rub it against my cheek at night when doubts well up.
and I realize, this trust, it is healing. it is empowering. and one of the most beautiful gifts I've been given.
thank you.
Jen, this post just fills my heart to the brim.
Seeing you, whether through my lens or from across the room or across the miles, has been such an eye opening experience for me on many levels. When I see you, I see a glimpse of my own soul. It's as if your heart holds up a mirror, and those who look deeply in all the way to your heart are rewarded with the ability to see themselves with the eyes of true love.
Thank you, Jen, for letting me see you and opening my eyes inward to see myself.
xoxo
powerful and wise words. thank you for sharing them.. i will have to come back and read them again as i reflect on what they mean to me.
i desire. i am willing.
Beautiful, beautiful words....inspiring.
yes.
oh the treasure of having a community to see our reflection in.