People Watching = Pantomime
A Case for Looking at Strangers
BY THEA ROWE
So, we’re going to dinner at my grandmother’s, right? Just bear with me. We’ll be sitting at the table, conversation bubbling, mouths rumbling with busy teeth, meeting to masticate between words. There will be a lull and you’ll look over at my grandmother; she will be staring at you, steady. She won’t look away when you look at her, but somehow she's not too invasive about it. She’ll keep studying your nose or your jaw line or how your eyes meld into your cheeks. At least this is what I imagine she’s thinking about. I expect you’ll say something cause I always do. She will respond, “I'm just lookin at ya”. She might say, “I’m 80 years old. I think I’m allowed to break some rules. More likely than not she will also add something along the lines of, “and you’re just so beautiful. Do you know that? You really are incredibly beautiful. I just like lookin at ya.” She’ll say this to anyone, maybe subbing in the word handsome. Maybe this is something that everyone’s grandma does, but I think I’ll always prefer to remember it as her thing. For what it's worth, I agree with her, she's allowed; I’m even a little jealous. In those moments I almost look forward to getting old.
That grandmother doesn’t get out much anymore. Her bones are creaky and she gets so cold so fast she's no match for these Minnesota winds. I’m sure she’s not the only person over 80 who sees the same few faces morning and night for days back to back to back. I know she is leading a lovely and fulfilling life but I do wonder what it must be like to not briefly witness a hundred lives other than her own everyday. I’ll be on the bus or the sidewalk or in the middle of a crowd, and each is so full of faces: some of them scrunched against the cold, some of them melting into phone screens, some of them looking earnestly into another face beside them. It feels almost endless, and almost impossible to not try to absorb them all. But just as strong as the instinct to look, is the one to pull away as soon as they make the slightest turn towards me. I appreciate the occasional moment of acknowledgement found in the briefest eye contact. However, almost everything that's interesting about a stranger lies anywhere but their eyes.
There are fascinating details in a patch on a jacket or the shape in which someone's shoulders slouch. I am so glad to be seeing whole faces again, as there is so much to look at in just the wrinkles around someone's mouth. I don’t want to sound like I am deducing a person’s whole life from only their belt buckle or their eyebrows. I can’t know what a stranger had for breakfast unless it's actually clinging to their beard. I mean that allowing myself to be intrigued by, and sometimes in awe of, how other people are moving through the same space that I am is a grounding experience.
At all times there’s a little monster in my pocket with one big glowing eye that feels practically magnetic. I don't like typing the word phone but there’s no escaping it, it's a real problem. Right now, I could easily launch into a New York Times doodle where all the comic book people have their noses half submerged in their phone screens. However, what I’m actually getting at is this: out in the great, wide city, on the bus or in the park or walking down the street, the tug of a buzz deep in my pocket loses its strength. The wind, the audible pulse of the road, and all the faces of strangers passing by play a perfect game of whack-a-mole with the urges to grab a screen; this feels so freeing to me, to have the little dopamine machine stowed away, ready to be utilized in the more still, more quiet moments feels like balance. Key to maintaining this tranquility is the act of witnessing all the other people joining me in it.
My grandmother currently lives with my uncle. His partner has studied dreams for years; it's a hobby of hers. I read once that all of the faces in anyone's dream, from the core cast to the extras, belong to real people one has seen throughout a day. I haven’t corroborated this with my uncle's partner, despite feeling both skeptical and curious. It's a pretty idea; I’d love to imagine that I am populating my dreams by exploring the faces of the strangers I see on the bus.
It's important to note that my grandmother has been misplacing her memories with increasing frequency over the last few years: many of them are still there, they just get lost. I find myself wondering if she still remembers her father’s face when she’s telling a story about him, or if she ever reminisces about all the fascinating figures she must have seen wandering around New York years ago. I also wonder if, in the first few moments of sitting at the dinner table, my face might be a strange one to her, if maybe she is reacquainting herself with the way my eyes sit in my head or the curves of my nose. I know there will come a day when she’ll be looking at me with fresh eyes every time I visit her; and I hope she’s never shy about it.