On Seeing and Being Seen

Hello, Lovelies.

A couple of weeks ago I was honored to give a talk to undergrads at Illinois State University as part of the "Professor's Life Story" event that they host once a semester. Conceived of as a way for students to get to know their professors beyond the classroom, and ultimately as a way to build community within the university, participating in this event felt like a no-brainer; after all, I often share my stories with my students, and community-building is my gig.

As it turns out, it was one of the hardest things I've done in a long time. I was so nervous during the couple of days before the event that I could barely eat. My anxiety took me by surprise; I've given talks and led groups with much larger audiences where a lot more was ostensibly riding on the success of my presentation. 

But, as a dear friend and colleague (who attended the event) put it afterwards, it's a whole lot easier for most of us to share what we think with each other than it is to share who we are. 

Opinion, argument, judgment, analysis, interpretation (positive or negative)—how often do we unwittingly hide from each other (and ourselves) within these mantles? What do we summon—what do we allow—when we opt for a different kind of interaction, one less concerned with being right, or convincing someone, or with anticipating and controlling the unknown (another's perspective or response) and more concerned with being fully present to the inherently unpredictable dynamic of connection? 

I wanted to connect with the students in my audience that night. In the days leading up to my talk, I kept trying to stitch together a story of my "life's journey," beginning with my teenage dream of being a visual artist and ending with my current work as a life coach and English professor. But I couldn't do it; there was something too cohesive-feeling about it, something too tidy. What I wanted to share with my students was a story that felt messier, and more authentic. 

So, I told them what was happening in my life when I was about their age. I brought in my behemoth of a portfolio, a huge faux-leather case, now matted with dust, that I've been toting from home to home since I was 16. I placed a photograph of myself, at 18, on the table next to the podium. I told them about my first detention, in kindergarten, and how I was expelled from high school my junior year. I shared the story of moving out of home, a month later, with a boyfriend who would prove abusive, and how I supported myself by working 40 hours a week after school selling coupon books over the phone from a dingy Howard Johnson's motel.

I also told them about Gerry Day, the remarkable guidance counselor at my new school who called me into her office during lunch one day, sat me down, and asked me, simply and earnestly, how I felt. 

I told them how she walked me out of school that afternoon, and drove me to the apartment where I was living, after stopping at a grocery store to load up on empty produce boxes. How she called my mother, who met us there, and how the three of us collected my belongings, and moved me back home. 

How, later, Gerry Day tore up the paper record documenting my expulsion, right before my eyes, then dropped the pieces one by one into her trash can.

"Kirstin," she said, "I'm giving you a chance to revise your story. I see you." 

I see you. 

What a profound gift that is, to be seen. To be truly seen. Not for what we think, or even for what we know, but for who we are. 

As a teen, I walked through the world (usually barefoot) baring my well-honed ideals and beliefs: my jeans were covered with hand-painted aphorisms and invitations ("Imagine all the people, living life as one..."); my bedroom walls were barely visible behind the dozens of poems and quotes I'd taped there; I was quick to point out the flaws I saw in political policy or commercialism or education. I thought I was brave because I didn't hesitate to express my (often contrary) opinions.

In some ways, I was brave: I wasn't afraid of conflict, and I welcomed difficult discussion and debate. 

But what I really wanted, though I couldn't begin to name it then, was to be seen, not for what I thought or fought for, but for who I was. I wanted, desperately, for someone to see past the passionate "expression" to the girl who was in fact wordless when it came to naming my need for love. 

Thirty years and much journeying later, I've learned what I didn't know then: how to give myself the gift of being seen; to lean in to what hurts with soft presence; to feel what needs healing and thereby open myself to real intimacy, and joy. It's true, what we say about self-love. 

And yet, we are creatures wired for connection, and attachment. Give a newborn food and shelter, but deprive her of loving touch, and she will wither, even die. In order to see ourselves, to dare to feel ourselves, we often need someone else to see us first.

Sometimes we are so habituated to the defenses we've wrought in the wake of wounding that we mistake the clanking of our armor for the sound of authenticity. In search of connection and belonging, we then wield that armor harder and louder, ever-more confounded by the painful gap we straddle between the life we yearn to be living and the heaviness we feel at first dawn that we spend our days attempting to outrun. 

Gerry Day saw my armor for what it was, and wasn't fazed. Her clear, compassionate seeing allowed me to see myself, for the first time in months, or maybe ever, my arms filled with boxes, in the huge dusty mirror at the top of the landing: exhausted, young, and vulnerable. Only then, upon seeing myself so simply, did I know what I truly wanted: to leave my boyfriend, and to move back home.

Since then, several more Gerry Days have graced my life, people who've seen me when I couldn't see myself. For these people—certain friends, lovers, teachers, mentors, even students and clients and sometimes my own kids—I'm grateful beyond words. 

As we begin the holidays, I'm also mindful of the anxiety so many of us feel as we anticipate being with those family or friends who rub us the wrong way, who raise our hackles, whose politics we have problems with, whose hurtful actions we haven't forgiven, who we feel inferior to, or superior to, or whom we want to impress (you know the ones), and I have to ask: what happens if we commit this time around to sharing less of what we think, and more of who we are?

What happens if we pledge, today, and in the weeks to come, to worry less about belonging or pleasing or impressing and care more about seeing, and being seen? How might we become, even unknowingly, someone's Gerry Day, or even our own? 

This is my hope, and my invitation, as well as my intention. 

Much love,
Kirstin