Being Seen

In workshop yesterday, we did an activity that was focused on just being with our scene partners and it involved silence, eye contact, and observation. After the first few seconds of superficial thoughts (wondering which eye to look in, noticing the details of my partner's face), I thought I'd just try to soften a bit and be present, and that's when I noticed that my partner was really experiencing being seen. All of the other thoughts cleared and in my head I just calmly said "I see you, I see you, I see you" over and over again. She started to cry. I was a little startled and when I checked in with her later that day to make sure she was okay, she said that she often struggles to feel seen and that she felt really seen in that moment. Those words must've come into my head because I relate - it's something I struggle with too.

I know I am looked at. I feel people sneaking glances and trying not to be rude, I notice people watching me through the window as I board the bus, I am aware of kids staring (though it doesn't usually bother me too much) and their parents trying to sneakily tell them not to be rude (one kid insisted loudly to her mother that she was looking at the ice cream behind me). Even when I'm not in Stella I occasionally get a double-take for my unusual angles and small size. I'm not trying to say wow I'm so special everyone wants to look at me - there are of course people who don't care or notice - I'm just acknowledging that I look different and that often people do notice that and look at that. But it turns out that being looked at is entirely different than being seen. And like a lot of humans, I want to feel seen. I want that mutual acknowledgement and connection of seeing and being seen, in a real way. Interesting how hard it can be to feel that way in this world, even though it's something that so many of us want!

Since middle school I've been seriously anxious about my appearance, which is something I can't seem to logic-myself out of (or haven't yet; hopefully someday), despite being aware and critical of the super messed up systems of beauty and ugliness that we inherit and consume, despite being a feminist, despite celebrating diversity, despite being proud of my disability, etc etc. It's something I try to keep in check and also try not to hate on myself more for. So recently I've been wondering: If I'm so anxious about my appearance why the heck am I drawn to performance, where I am continually pushed to get on stage where tons of people will look at and judge me?! Choosing to become an artist/improviser feels like learning how to sustainably bare my soul again and again. So. Why?

I think it's because I would like to improvise and create art how I would like to live - making bold, scary, honest choices, being weird, being taboo, messing up, celebrating, asking intense questions, having hard conversations, being uncomfortable, making others uncomfortable, loving fearlessly, having wild enthusiasm, dreaming huge, meeting monsters, breaking rules, being complicated, being contradictory, acknowledging what everyone is thinking but no one is saying, seeing others, being seen... but I also really care about connecting with people, and I recognize that doing some of these things can have huge social consequences and, out of context, can shut people down and close them off. So I keep going back to our experimentations in street performance. I think if we hadn't been in costume and we had tried to interact with people in the way we did, we might've had a more negative response. But because we were clearly part of a 'performance' we and everyone around us entered into an unspoken agreement that it was okay to break some of the social rules. Suddenly it was okay to interact with strangers. And not in a small-talky ordinary way, but in a genuine, cut-to-the-chase "I SEE YOU I AM EXCITED ABOUT YOU AND GLAD YOU ARE IN THE WORLD" kind of way.

#beingseen #difference #body #art #performance #reflection #watson