The Quiet Grace of Being Seen
An Ode to Unglamorous Beauty, Earnest Romance, and the Power of Being Known
I have an affinity for any kind of natural beauty, landscapes of verdant, rolling green hills, a newly opened lily with wet pollen on its stamen, a soft and silent drizzle of snow. I am, unfortunately, one of those deeply earnest, romantic types. One of my favorite natural beauties is the crescent moon of which I have often remarked, “How beautiful is that moon? It looks like a toenail clipping hanging in the sky.” A comparison my companions routinely say ruins the image for them. Of course, nail leftovers are not the pinnacle of beauty, but a crescent moon is precisely the shape of the remains that litter my sink when I clip my nails.
Perhaps this connection with something “ugly” stains the purity of the moon’s beauty for some, but it only heightens it for me. It’s exciting to think rough trimmings from our fingers and toes can be thought of in the same breath as the celestial orb poets write about and musicians sing to. Giving hope to the idea that I, sometimes passed out drunk on a public bathroom floor covered in an unidentified liquid, could be compared to some stately form of beauty even in my lowest moment.
Sharing beautiful moments and things with other people is gratifying and life-affirming. It is saying, yes, we are in the same reality, and here you are confirming it. That moon, while it does not resurrect nail clippings for you, is in fact, gorgeous, and what you see when you look at it, is the first time you snuck out of your parents’ house and drank in a little bit of that intoxicating freedom, which when you reach adulthood and have it readily available, you will want to surrender for the simplicity of having everything chosen for you (only sometimes). These different memories and associations lead us all to the same destination, giving us communal food to share. No, we are not as alone as we thought!
The sunlight shining brilliantly off the East River, sending glints sparkling throughout the subway car, lighting things up at random. There, a man’s stocky hand ensconced in light, over there a woman’s face and top of her hat partially lit up, the strand of hair falling onto her forehead electrified. Yes, neighbor sitting across from me giving me a knowing look, I noticed the brilliance of everyday people and things in this light, too. We are alive!
Beauty, it seems, is something to be shared in an almost loud and noisy way. A way to bring joy into the drab, go-to-work-go-home-eat-sleep-wake-up-again world we must live in. Perhaps this societal desire to overshare beautiful things, say celebrities with perfect, architecturally constructed faces (that they paid for, probably) is designed to make people notice their own ugliness or dissatisfaction less. We glob onto these unbelievably stunning things, places, and people because we want the hope we could be that one day too. This is only surface-level.
The beauties I want to keep just for me are far more important. Those ones I want to lock up and keep in the safe of my mind, stowing them away for when I unexpectedly feel heavy, the thoughts in my brain like overstuffed suitcases at the airport. I need to take something out, but I don’t know what to get rid of, that chunky sweater, or the feeling that I’ll never be enough imparted to me by my dear, perfectionist mother? These cloistered beauties are the stowed-away treasures that don’t make me wish to be anyone else, anywhere else, or own anything else. They are the ones that make me grateful to be me. They are far more rare than the everyday glance of the river on the subway (delightful, nonetheless) and much more meaningful. This one I have in mind, I keep even tighter now that I’ve lost you, knowing that even if I don’t see you again, I can look back on this and feel that for a small span of time, someone (and not just anyone, you) knew who I was.
I am not a punctual person, in act or in thought. I’m often physically late, but, more often, I’m late to myself. My feelings are always a beat behind, and I find myself frantically running through my mind to pick up my past thoughts in time for the present moment. It leaves me breathless and simultaneously spewing words, thinking if I can just get through to the next sentence, paragraph, or story, maybe I’ll feel like I’ve finally caught up with right now. I never told you this, but you understood it about me.
It was the second time I ever hung out with you. The very beginning of that evening, so basically leftovers from our first encounter. And I was late on both counts; late to dinner and late to understanding how I would feel about you. I stood facing you on a dimly lit sidewalk. I was talking quickly giving reasons, excuses, late trains, justifications. You stood there listening for a few minutes. Silently, you placed your slightly calloused hands on the tops of my arms and just stared at me. Your hands warmed my biceps, not in any sensual way, but in a grounding way. And then, for a brief moment, my mind was blank. No thoughts running across it, just your eyes coloring the inside of my skull a deep brown. I suddenly felt right on time. You were telling me, without a word, that you saw my busy-ness internally, that it would be okay if I slowed down for a minute right here, on this sidewalk in the East Village, with you.
In this moment of serenity, I oddly felt I had the most power to be an unedited version of myself. That if we, two people who barely knew each other, could stand in this vulnerable silence, I could certainly make more grotesque metaphors than that of a moon with a nail, and it would be okay. If the people scurrying around us running to dates and drinks and dinners and friends could have known what just happened, they would be lining up around the block to receive this beautiful gift you had given for free. But I’m selfishly glad nobody else knew, and that it was just you and me.
 | A guest post by
|