Apr 6, 2013

all looks

I get them on the bus and I get them on the street and I get them from you

The way people look on you has a far reaching effect on how you experience the world

I've been called everything from paranoid to overly sensitive when I try to describe this, but I find it hard to imagine that a lifetime of gentle, caring, welcoming and loving looks wouldn't have a different effect on the human psyche that a world filled with angry glares and distrustful stares. Or no looks at all.

One of the most fascinating things about being pregnant is that people look at you differently. First off: they look at you more. And they directly look at you, they let their glances, stares and assessments present with full disclosure, and generally the look is benign, often even kind or encouraging. I like to call it the inner coo. I see similar look when I walk my dog and recognize myself doing it when I see another cute dog. I am, effectively, smiling with my eyes at the cute cute puppy. I don't know why, the dog certainly can't smile back...but I am sharing a moment of nurturing and appreciation and joy with that dog and it's owner.

To be looked at so openly, to be so clearly regarded, and to be regarded as a non threatening known entity is at first confusing, and then comforting.

And...well, I really wish there was a way to describe this without sounding slightly insane, or incredibly paranoid, but as a woman who remembers large portions of her life where she received less than welcoming looks, averted glances that communicated the ways she did not fit in, looks on lust from the wrong person, looks of distrust from even more confusing sources, and then, as a middle aged woman, less looks altogether: it is one of the few parts of pregnancy I will truly miss.


1 comment:

cordelia said...

The answer, of course, is to just keep getting pregnant. Hello.