Other people's glances

There's a moment when a friendship is deepning that a face changes before your eyes. It feels like a kind of shimmer, as a veil has dropped away, and you can suddenly see the face behind the face of the person you're getting to know. If you spoke a language like French, it would be the moment you moved from formal to familiar, from vous to tu. Whatever language you speak, it's the moment when the person before you, and the connection between you, becomes more real. Do we see ourselves as accurately as those who care for us do? When we look into the mirror or the lens of a camera, there's a sadness of trying to keep up with an idealized version of ourselves. Once a close friend told me: " When you laugh, you have way of loosing yourself in the laughter. And that's something I've always loved about you." We say that "beauty is in the eye of the beholder." and that "who looks not with compassion sees not what the eyes of compassion see."

                                                                                             Noelle Oxenhandler