no 13

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Welcome. Have you accidentally looked into the sun or bright light and then looked away, the image burned into your eyelids? That’s an afterimage.

In the last installment of Afterimage, I shared how connecting with nature and beautiful work is a quick way to grounding myself. I also shared some suggestions for showing up to a friend going through a divorce. Here's what I saw, heard, or sensed that has stayed with me this past week. Let’s begin.

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Message from My Body: Eyes Closed

Punching the Page

My favorite warm-up for writing is automatic writing. I scrawl thoughts, letting ink fill the page. In Japanese, it's 殴り書き naguri-gaki, or "writing-as-if-you're-punching." There's comfort and freedom in writing something that doesn't need to make sense. It’s like vocalization before singing: scales and arpeggios aren’t music. Just like writing from morning pages isn’t writing. It’s like scribbling circles with a new ballpoint pen until the ink starts to flow. It’s physical and cathartic.

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Do It With Your Eyes Closed

My dilemma for writing this Friday: I was away. I decided to write in a coffee shop. I had my laptop, two chargers, no AirPods, a pen, and no notebook. I sank.

An imperfect warm-up felt better than none. I gave digital automatic writing a try. It was off. It was clumsy and awkward, a lot like kissing someone for the first time and finding there is no chemistry. Less than none. My mind did a funny thing and told me to keep going. My body dared me to close my eyes. If this were kissing, I'd stop. But this was typing, so I set my timer and typed, eyes closed. For ten minutes.

In ten short minutes, I learned typing with my eyes closed mimicked the sensation of doodling. Eliminating the possibility to copy, cut, paste, and delete brought typing closer to writing by hand. Not seeing or knowing how much I’ve written is freeing. It’s like running without distance markers, forgetting the time, and enjoying the view.

I liked having zero focus on spelling, length, or structure. I liked being a weirdo in the middle of a coffee shop. I wrote from a different place. I noticed how much stress I hold in my body and the presence of a wispy cloud of self-judgment and criticism hanging in the air when I write on the laptop. The cloud’s become such a fixture I didn’t even notice it was there.

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Take One Away, Gain a Multitude

Taking sight away from ourselves makes us perceive our world differently. It reminds me of an exercise with a beloved teacher from Esalen:

Go on a walk. Invite a friend. Walk with your eyes closed or with a blindfold. Notice. What did you learn about your neighborhood? About yourself? Your partner? How do you rely on yourself and others?

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What I Saw: Through Your Eyes

Playback, 2014

I had a flashback or playback of an old recurring daydream, I think from 2014. It would start as soon I left the office and walked down into the subway.

My future partner is waiting for me at the corner. He’s faceless, but I see his face light up, happy to see me. The point of view changes. The whole scene is now shot through his point of view, not mine. I see what he sees: me.

What do I look like through the eyes of my lover? What does he see when he sees me coming around the corner? What does he that I don’t see?

The daydream was a reaction to life with a now-ex-husband feigning dead-neutral to hide his disdain whenever I emerged into view.

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New Footage, Change of Vantage Point

A meaty part of the breakup is a post-mortem and reflecting on what happened. I usually ask myself how I showed up to the relationship, my partner, and myself– or how I didn’t.

Since this isn’t my first rodeo, I asked myself a new question: what would I do differently from the last breakup? The answer wasn’t what I expected: "Do the post-mortem differently."

Usually, I focus on what’s wrong with me. (I often assumed there’s something wrong.) This time, I decided to see what was good. I went back to an earlier time in the relationship. What drew my partner to me. What was lovable about me? What still made his face light up when I walked into a room, well past the honeymoon phase? It was like the daydream from 2014.

In a literal sense, how did he see me? If I'd given him a video camera to record me, what glimpses of myself would I see that I don't get from my vantage point? What about partners before him? I rewound and played the images in my mind.

Even though my partners’ actual answers would likely differ from the imaginary footage, it helps me see myself from a different perspective. Maybe it’s not so different from seeing my inner child, fast-forwarding her age from five to forty-nine.

I'm cultivating a relationship with myself. It certainly helps to see me in footage shot in soft, loving light. It's another dimension.

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A question for you: What is the unchanging and essential part of you, the “you-ness” or the essence of good about you?

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