I need a better visual

 

The Theme for the week is pernicious trauma and the fundamental necessity of seeing and being seen.

I have been watching the Sinner. Without going into an indepth review there is a quality about the main character that makes the characters, the very traumatized and emotionally vulnerable characters trust him when they are so past trust that they no longer, really, seem to hope. 

It is something, something born of his trauma that lets him see them. There is something in him that unflinchingly stares when others look away. There was a quote, I once read that noted that Joan Didion "her life to noticing things other people strive not see" and that resonates, in this thought. And yet I think it is more. I think some people, without choice, even without consent see things others either cannot or will not. Be it their trauma, or their choices, or their fundamental disposition, or something bred over time with experience and environment, lets them see into spaces others will miss. Like an emotional tetachromacy. Not really unique in chemistry so much as an accident of time and place, in a world that seems increasingly interested in creating spaces to hide.

I have, since I was young, often looked at things a little closely. It annoys most people, I think. Seeing the ugly with the good. Some call it pessimism. Others just find it exhausting. I don't know. I notice the crumbling foundation of an amazing house. I don't think my insanely awesome friends are especially beautiful or smart, even though I love them deeply. I do know that that outfit doesn't work for you. I do wonder at the missing flavor in many dishes I eat. Although man do I love to eat. I seldom hear a statement and think that this is fundamentally true. I experience curiosity where others might experience revulsion, and it just feels right. It is how I experience life and love.

But enough about me for the moment, because I think, broadly, globally and personally, there is healing in seeing. Because how can you fix what you cannot see? I think love is seeing and being seen. You hear people say it, the first time they fell truly, madly in love, they felt seen. Personally, I think we owe to those we love to see them, to look at the all, the experience and validate the all, even if we don't like it. Especially if we don't like it. Letting them show us their trauma, their flaws, their possibilities and limitations is part of that love. Sometimes we need to pretend to look away, but never blind ourselves to the all that is them.

Globally, I feel the same. We have all heard that phrase "love it or leave it". Missing the whole point. We can't leave because while we may not like, but we DO love it we can't feel safe because we saw the flaws in something we care about. Loving means seeing. Caring means you look.

Which is exhausting. Because there is so much to see and so much more to heal.

Which is where I come full circle. This week I have come to really notice, to see on a personal level how trauma never leaves. It just grows inside. Like a ring in a tree, at best like complimentary gut bacteria, at worst like a deadly parasite.  And either way it needs to be tended. It needs to be managed, and to manage it we must see it.

And make no mistake. This doesn't mean we let it take over. This isn't an argument for sunken investment. Not an argument for becoming our mistakes or doubling down on our trauma until it is all we are. If this is a lifelong condition, this trauma, then love necessitates we study it, and we learn to address it,  to hate it with all our love until it becomes a meaningful detail, not our only defining characteristic. 

We must admit that our joy and beauty comes with pain and threat and fear and greed and confusion if we are to address things. We have to see the poverty if we want to address it. We have to see the cracks in our foundation, or our outdated and often cruel history if we are to solve it.