I attended an evening of figure drawing a few nights ago. The model was nude, adorning bangles on her wrist in black and gold, with a heavy hamsa pendant nestled comfortably between her collarbones. She switched poses at different intervals, allowing time to capture whatever we could before she moved again. The varied temporal stretches are intended to help us zoom in and out: one minute, broad strokes, a shape; seven minutes, shadows, light, folds of skin, dimples, fingernails, expression. I stayed with the details that night, even in the minute-long segments, enchanted by the shadows her shoulder blade cast against the curve of her spine. I don’t have any experience drawing - I hardly know how to hold a piece of charcoal between my fingers. What I’m really learning when I walk into the studio is how to look. I floated out at the end of the evening, high on attention, thinking about an experience I had in Costa Rica that taught me how to look with love, and how that enhances what we see.
“Place your right hand on your partner’s heart,” our teacher began after we’d been coupled up. “Now, take your left hand and place it over your partner’s hand on your own heart. In your mind, repeat, ‘Thank you.’”
And so we stood, looking vulnerably into each other’s eyes, feeling the thump of heartbeats flooding through fingertips, intertwined.
“I urge you to keep your eyes open, even if it’s uncomfortable. Especially if it’s uncomfortable.”
It was an exercise in connection, in union, on the last day of our yoga teacher training. I was partnered with a woman I knew well, of whose beauty I was already aware, so it was stunning to watch her blossom in front of me the longer I looked. The shape of her eyes, her soft gaze that radiated kindness, little flecks of green in her brown irises, her unfaltering courage, hesitant smile, the life she had lived - all becoming more apparent the more earnestly I observed. Bearing witness to her expansiveness, a chorus of “thank you” resounding in my mind, I thought about the depth of beauty that is exposed in details we’re often too afraid to invite people close enough to see. I looked at her, sure of her beauty, and I wondered if she was as certain of it as I was. We are our own harshest critics but what if, instead, we became our own biggest advocates? If we allowed ourselves to look closely at our own details and find the beauty that exists there, too, how would we show up in the world? We build walls to protect ourselves and refuse to be known, afraid to really be seen, when that’s the only thing that could clear the pathway to connection.
I intended to write about cities this week, to weave a charming tale about falling in love with the place your feet are planted. What began as an intention to dissect my love for New York, to explain to you how it’s done, became an exercise in paying thoughtful attention to details. Maybe it’s not about zooming in or out at all but, instead, about taking the time to notice, offering yourself the gift of directing your attention somewhere special. Part of getting sensitive is noticing small things and allowing yourself to be moved by them. Minuscule but significant happenings like the way fog eats up the tallest parts of buildings on rainy days or how feather-light touch elicits goosebumps on the skin of the person you love.
There’s something powerful and bidirectional about recognizing the beauty in all things. I wonder if we can take it a step further and realize that, when we learn to trust ourselves to see the beauty in our own details, we become empowered to invite others to do the same (in us and in themselves). It’s so common that it feels natural to be critical, to panic when others get too near, but maybe it’s because there are things about ourselves that we’re ashamed of that deserve to be loved instead. And it’s not easy! Society has taught us to conflate perfection with flawlessness. We have been sold plastic dreams of airbrushed skin. It is a worthwhile rebellion to believe that even the versions of ourselves that are a chasm away from the people we want to be are perfect. There will always be things to work on. We are human; that is our condition. It is the radical and unconditional acceptance of ourselves, as we are, that empowers us to bloom into the people we aspire to be.
So I urge you to create some time for the details. Look long and focus on something beautiful. Hold it, for a moment, in your mind. Turn it over, love it in every direction. And, if you’re bold enough, let it be something in yourself. Try not to negotiate your own love by finding something negative to compensate for your compliment. Allow yourself to be admired by the person whose admiration would be most transformative.
This is absolutely stunning, thank you for sharing love.