What Are You Looking At?

Ever try to go unnoticed?  Well then you know the natural outcome – if you don’t want to be looked at, people won’t be able to stop looking.

Some people spend a lifetime enjoying being the center of attention, starting as class clowns in grade school.  Others want to disappear. For most of us, it’s probably somewhere in the middle – wanting people to notice when we’re all cleaned up, and when we’re not looking or feeling our best, it would be nice to be ignored.

People will stare – because of unusual physical traits or because we’re caught in a place where we aren’t expected to be, and because sometimes onlookers are rude. This is rattling to the spirit.  

Crossing a bridge over a creek last week, I watched a crane or some other kind of oddly tall bird with very skinny legs, standing absolutely still, pretending he wasn’t there. Though we made eye contact – if a crane can be said to make eye contact – he ignored me. While he tried to act like a statue of a crane, he was the center of attention. 

He stood in a spot where generally only ducks (and the people who watch ducks) gather. He was in the water barely up to his ankles – if cranes can be said to have ankles – while the rest of the waterfowl dipped and swooped and floated. 

When we meet people with outstanding physical characteristics – some incredibly good-looking and some missing features that others have, it’s enlightening to note that many of them don’t seem to waste a minute on their differences.  Proof that it can be done. The lesson we’re all trying to learn is to accept that our physicality is only a fraction of who we are.

For the times when the crane finds himself a bit off-course, in a body of water that’s too small for his exceptional self, a sense of humor might be helpful – if a crane can be said to have a sense of humor.

Ó Anita Garner