People are the beauty in everyday life.
There isn’t anyone you couldn’t love once you’ve heard their story. // Mary Lou Kownacki
I think the most beautiful pieces of art I’ve ever seen are people. People in themselves. People alone. People in groups. I guess that’s why I stare. Everytime I find myself looking at another person, truly looking at them, I find myself admiring them more than I ever could the Mona Lisa. I don’t know why but in that brief moment I see more than the exterior… it’s the little details that get to me.
I see the cleaning lady changing the trash and I notice. I notice the texture of her hands, leathery, like they grew up too fast, too hard. I notice the cracked nail paint and I start thinking that maybe she takes care of everyone around her so much, her husband and daughter perhaps, that she doesn’t have time to take care of herself that much. I notice the wisps of grey in her hair, and I start thinking that maybe she’s getting too old. Pretty soon she won’t be the cleaning lady anymore. But then I notice the smile. And realize, maybe, just maybe, she’s happy. For some reason her smile tells me that although she cleans other people’s trash for a living, although she barely has time to pamper herself, and although she’s getting older; in this one moment, while she’s cleaning, she’s happy… For some reason I smile too.
It’s Saturday. I see the party girl at the club and I notice. I notice her high heels and tight mini-dress; tonight’s the one night this week she’s allowed to look like this, like she’s easy, and get away with it. I notice her sway, back and forth, back and forth, back and forth… mesmerizing. I presume she’s on drugs. I notice how, out of nowhere, she screams loudly. She isn’t being attacked, she’s just that happy right now. Her scream sounds so carefree, as if she’s throwing herself to the winds this one time, before she has to head out; after tomorrow is Monday afterall, back to the rat race. There’s a guy beside her, brooding and tall, probably her jerk of a boyfriend. And I imagine him to be a jerk, I don’t think she’d be here if he wasn’t a jerk, it doesn’t seem like her birthday. I imagine that she’s clung to him, clung to her dragon, waiting for Prince Charming to come save her. But I don’t think he’ll come. I don’t think Prince Charming goes to clubs. He always seemed like the shy type to me. Then she flings her hair back and looks at me… Wow, her smile is so fucking carefree. Like she’s in her one moment of freedom in this cruel world of ours. I hope she gets home free. I think she wants love. Someone to truly hold her. I hope she finds that person. I hope it’s me, but I have no ambitions to be that person at the moment, even if I briefly lied and said I did. I’m young and I’m a guy; I’m horny. I think I’d just want sex. For some reason, I see me in her. Maybe it’s because we’re both here, escaping reality for a brief second together. Maybe it’s because I too am looking for love… Maybe I’m just over-thinking this, but nonetheless I notice myself in her.
I sit at a local diner and I notice him. He’s eating his food. Not rushing, not slowly, at a normal pace. As you would at a proper family table, those that only exist in movies and in rare, rare real-life households. He looks like he’s been alone for a long time. Not in a he’s a loner sense, but in a he’s had to look out for himself for a long time sort of way. As if he has friends, but none of them live the life he lives after they finish hanging out and part ways for the day. As if he’s either too old and they’re too young, or he’s too young and they’re too old. I can’t quiet tell but I go with him being older. He has regret in his eyes – That comes with age. His clothes don’t look new or comfortable, so I don’t think he’s where he wanted to be in life. Maybe that’s the regret. Some past mistake, a childish mistake, a stupid mistake, an honest mistake, that ruined his life. I imagine he was foolhardy as a teen, I imagine that if he had a time machine and could go back in time to warn himself, his younger self wouldn’t listen, being that foolhardy. I imagine he knows this too by now; there’s no way, time machine or not, that he could have been prepared for this. He looks up. Up at me. Yes, that’s definitely regret. But mixed with a kind of sad endurance. As if he knows he can endure more, but it saddens him, that he has to endure at all. That he has to endure watching his peers, people the same age as him, do better in life, when he had more potential than them. I briefly take in the rest of him. I see tattoos, a mohawk… Crap, I have to leave. I see too much of me in him.
There are people you look at in life and you just see the hardness of them. Like they’ve been roughed up, tossed and turned; like a karate master’s hands. They look normal, but when you touch them, feel them, you realize the hardness of them. They’ve hit so many boards that they’ve just gotten hard, as a safety mechanism, in order to survive all the beating. And then there are those that you envy. The one’s who look soft, inside not outside. As if life’s been easy for them. But sometimes you feel sad for them, for they’re usually young, and you know that life will throw boards at them, and they too will have to get hard in order to survive, or die trying. We’re all mostly hard after a certain age. Only a rare few of us stay soft when we grow up. I think when you look at people you see them through you. By this I mean your experiences help you see certain aspects of them. Your experiences in life highlight and dimmer certain aspect of someone because it’s easier to see that which you’ve also felt. We’re all rounded characters. But the happy person will see the happy in you first. And the sad person will recognize the sadness first. For they are seeing you through them. Through the looking glass that is their eyes; tinted pink, or blue. I think a person is the most beautiful masterpiece I’ve ever seen. And I don’t think that can be replaced with a photo or painting of them (few artists, I think, have captured this). I don’t think a photo or painting can ever correctly capture the brush stroke called experience… A video camera, maybe, but there’s still something to being in that person’s presence that can’t be compared.
