Looking Changes a Thing

…a fragile music tuned by borrowed contents,
each narrow flute enriched by what it holds
the song provisional, the precise note
inspiring thirst, but altered by a sip.
April Lindner’s “Crystal”

To really look at a thing, be it an object, place, or person, is to be changed. It’s to borrow a thing, to sip from it and be entirely “altered.” The world no longer looks the same as it did. It has been enriched by a different perspective, and that perspective changes both you, the person looking, and the thing looked upon.

***

Imagine your daily routine. Its ebbs and flows. The way you or your beloved makes the coffee in the morning. The complaint that it isn’t dark enough. The desire for a specific coffee mug, the caffeine pulsing through your bloodstream.

Now imagine the routine when it’s heightened by attentive observation. Coffee grounds spilt on the counter. The sun turning your beloved’s hair to fire and gold. You pause, drink in the scene. You carry it with you throughout the day. It has changed you even if your beloved doesn’t know it, and it has changed the way in which you look at that person. You find yourself more attentive to the incline of head, the pressure of fingertips.

You look for more things to notice, carry with you, treasure in your heart.

***

Elizabeth Bishop says the art of losing isn’t hard to master. Her narrator is a liar, but the poem points to the power of active looking. How else to master the art of losing unless something has been seen, acquired? The final thing lost in the poem isn’t keys or a house; it’s the gesture of someone the narrator loves. It is the thing she must say “is no disaster” even if the loss is irrevocable, irreparable, a rift in her heart and soul.

***

To really look is to share. It’s to share an experience with the thing viewed. It is to look at it and look at it and look at it until you find that “it” is looking back at you. You find yourself under scrutiny. You are under the microscope, on the examination table. You, and not the thing you’re viewing, are what is on display. Your act of looking is an act of revelation. It reveals you, makes you vulnerable.

***

When you look, you choose things. This is not an arbitrary arrangement. There is a method to what you call your “madness.” The way you look, the way you perceive the world is built upon each and every sip you take. Every observation alters you, gives you fresh eyes, frees you to look again and again at the same thing because it is not the same thing. It has shifted as you drink from it.

***

The process of looking is an alchemical one. You can’t explain it, but the things you see, touch, and feel change you. You are in a constant state of metamorphosis. Every observation, wings stirring against the breastbone.

Image: Gene Chan (Creative Commons)