It's faded and the weather is stealing it's strength with every passing season. But it is beautiful in its waning.
Isn't it? Maybe it's just me, looking for beauty to saturate an inner monochromacy. After all, isn't it true that we see what we want to see?
All those years ago, the
palm wavers who lined the streets of Jerusalem saw a man on a donkey and went wild with delight. They looked at him and saw a king. They saw a warrior who would make tyrants bow and emperors pay.
What they didn't see was that his shoulders were shuddering and heaving with sobs. Their king was crying.
For them.
Because they
didn't really see him at all. They saw what they wanted to see.
I've been asking myself these days whether my eyes are clear.
I've been seeing things. Lots of things. And I have been contemplating moves and counter-moves based on the things I've seen.
But, what if my eyes are liars? What if my eyes are taking orders from my wants and longings? What if, somewhere along the path from retina to visual cortex,
my blueprints for reality are being hijacked by my latent post-impressionist sensibilities? And suddenly my lines are skewed, and my colours arbitrary. Walls hung with
swirling sky and
bubblegum sands. All the while, real life presents itself calmly outside my window. Unseen.
There is a little Van Gogh in us all-- we see what we want to see.
But I want to really see. And chances are, I'll know it's the real deal because I'll almost miss it. It won't be showy at all. And I probably won't like it much.
Reality won't be a picture I hang on the wall, but a book I don't want to open that will sit on the bedside table beckoning. It will be the last thing I see when I fall asleep. The first thing I see when I wake. And I will have to reckon with it.
And when I do, I will not see what I want to see. I will see heaving shoulders and the paths where tears left salt behind. But,
I will see.
