(Not) looking at you (not) looking at me
(Not) looking at you (not) looking at me
I was eating a sandwich on a bench by the water when a sparrow approached. He flew down and landed three feet away. I don’t know if you’ve ever had a chance to watch a bird up close, but they never stay still. This one was doing its absolute best. Not a thing was moving except its head, which was on triple speed, looking up, down, left, right, behind, under, everywhere—everywhere except at me. Except at me and my pungent sandwich. Homemade olive-herb bread and strong dijon mustard and jellied eggs jellying everywhere.
One bench down there was a young mom and her baby. I was eating my sandwich, not looking at this baby. And yet I know everything that happened. I know exactly when the baby frowned and the mom frowned back, jutting out her lip. I know when the baby spit up a little on her chin and the mom wiped it off with her bare fingers. I was looking at the water, the sky, the bird not-looking at me, and yet I saw everything. I can tell you how many hairs this baby had on its head and the way the young mom didn’t eat the food she had in her tupperware.
The previous night, I had a bad dream. I have bad dreams sometimes about the bad thing that happened in an alleyway once. In the dream I am trying to call for help but no one can hear me. I woke myself up crying out help help help and my husband said, half-asleep, What? And I said nothing. And then I stayed up the rest of the night, not wanting to fall back into the dream, and got up when the sun rose for a solo walk in the woods to clear my head.
It was Yom Kippur, which I celebrate my own way. Not fasting, not sitting in shul, but walking in the woods, where I feel closest to the thing some people call God. Unfortunately, since the bad thing, I feel uneasy about being alone. Even in the woods, where I feel at home, where the thinking part of me understands it is safe, I get antsy if it’s been a while since I’ve seen another human. It didn’t used to be this way, and I think I can get over it, as long as I can walk in the woods and get used to being alone again. It was the kind of cloudy day that promises no rain, only gray. I kept thinking about the dream, about the way I wanted to scream. But I kept telling myself not to think of it, to think instead of the surroundings—fall flowers, mist on leaves, a high-rushing river. I walked over a fallen tree and under a bridge. I walked in the park behind Dumbarton Oaks, where I once hopped the fence with the help of a tall friend. And I thought about the past year—regrets and joys, how I grew, how things changed, mostly for the better, yada yada, trying to be Jewish, trying to feel like I was praying, while prayer has always felt a little strange to me, and feels even stranger to write about.
I was walking up a hill when I heard screaming. But it was clear no one was in danger. These were kid screams. Playground screams. Kids on playgrounds always scream. Put a kid on a swing and they’ll scream. Put them on a slide, scream. Tire swing, monkey bars, scream scream scream. It was recess and there was an outdoor jungle gym surrounded by a bamboo-covered fence. I’d never noticed it, though I’d walked by it often; this was the first time I was there while the kids were out. Screaming. Because they are alive and they need to hear the sound of their voices. They are spinning around the merry-go-round and hanging on for dear life. The meaning of life is life, I thought. Is it that simple? To live life and create life and be life. We believe children are wise because they are alive and that’s all they know. The meaning of life is life.
I stood by the fence and watched the kids through the bamboo. They wore matching lime-green shirts. They had matching screams. I don’t know how long I stood there, but when an elderly couple came down the path, I had to leave. Because you can’t look at kids at a playground for too long. I have to pretend I’m looking somewhere else.
My cats like to watch me do yoga. They don’t hide their blatant stares. They stare and stare until they fall asleep, faces still aimed in my direction. This week I did yoga while the needy cat stared by the mat. He fell asleep. I stood up for mountain pose, where I should have stayed still and closed my eyes, but instead, I looked at the cat. Sleeping so peacefully. And I don’t know if he was only pretending to be asleep and saw me looking through his half-lidded eyes, or if the intensity of my stare woke him, but he jumped up with a chirp, and marched over to me, yearning for attention. The thing about cats is they don’t care if they stare and if you stare back. They look at you and keep looking at you and eventually they give in and just walk over to you, because they’re not trying to hide what they want. The bird, the sandwich, the child, the walk in the woods. We are all trying to hide what we want because admitting that you want something implies that the thing that you are is not enough. But it’s okay. It’s okay to want things. It’s okay to look at things and notice them and want them. Sometimes what I want is very small, like a lazy morning reading in bed. A lot of times I want things that are very big, like a published book and a family. Mostly I want to feel safe. And I want to remember to look at the sky, whether it is cloudy or clear, and find something beautiful in it either way.
-Denise
PS: I have a fun lil article newly published in the Climate Fiction Writers League: How to write climate fiction without being a doomer
PPS: Two cats looking at me:
