self & sight
February 4, 2015 § 2 Comments
I have spent a lifetime navigating invisibility in plain sight; hiding behind the boisterousness of a louder companion or the deception of disinterest, the fullness of my doubts and dreams more easily masked by assigned roles tangent to more colorful personalities. I learned this first as a child shuffled between new schools in my parents’ divorce. Uncomfortable in a space of extended uncertainty, I began to lean against other’s for direction; moving through days in borrowed shadows.
There is a magic to disappearing; watching the world unfold like actors on a stage. Expectations are safely impersonal, opinions ignored as irrelevant; failure and loss are guarded from the fragility of exposing the intimacy of hidden vulnerabilities. This too is a trick of perception. Just as I have escaped the criticism of others in consciously crafted illusions of confidence, echos of unrest reverberate in the silencing of self.
I celebrate those who walk uncomfortably into unforgiving spotlights, dropping the veneer of security for a moment of brave authenticity. I champion the stranger who falls dangerously along a path of their own design, bolstered by the boldness of their courage. Each imperfect articulation of someone else’s sense of self whispers to my soul the warmth of knowing and being known.
Today I am looking inward for direction, setting my compass to new intentions and old dreams.
scribblechic 
There is satisfaction in simply observing–seeing and hearing the conversation. Sometimes, though, it comes to be that you can no longer bear to simply be an observer and need to make the transition to participant. That means an exit, some thought and another entrance.
It is funny how pieces of my youth tend to explain so much of the mundane mess of adulthood. We over think so many challenges when the truth is often a more intricate simplicity. To the end that we come and go, in and out of our own story, I cannot help but remember jumping rope – finding that balance of sight that determines stillness and movement, a running into and out of a rhythm we cannot control but can move within.