Look for it

A couple of days ago, while tending to the household chores I nearly jumped out of my skin when my husband gently placed his hand on my shoulder.  I removed my ear buds to address the look of concern on his face. 

“Are you all right?”

“Yeah, totally… this audiobook is awesome.  Why do you ask?”

“You keep sighing—your “about-to-sob” sigh.”

“Oh.  That makes sense.  About two-thirds of these have me on the edge of tears, but they’re like, inspirational tears, not sad ones.  Thanks for asking though, hun.”

I was listening to “This I Believe,” a collection of essays about the personal philosophies of people with varying levels of fame and anonymity.  These essays were written for a radio program, which originally aired in the 1950’s on National Public Radio, and was revived in the early 2000’s.  Each essay is narrated by the author, which enhances the intimacy of someone sharing their beliefs, making it seem as if they’re speaking directly to you.  The voices (literary, actual, and the powerful cocktail of the combination) that come through each narration are particularly well-suited for the audio-format, because each essay was written to be listened to in this way.  The essay I keep coming back to—that I’ve played for my husband, and listened to on my own several times over the course of the weekend—is “The Mountain Disappears” by famed conductor of the New York Philharmonic Orchestra, Leonard Bernstein.  Bernstein believes in people, and their ability to change the world we live in by connecting with one another through art.

“I believe in man’s unconscious mind, the deep spring from which comes his power to communicate and to love.  For me, all art is a combination of these powers; for if love is the way we have of communicating personally in the deepest way, then what art can do is to extend this communication, magnify it, and carry it to vastly greater numbers of people. Therefore art is valid for the warmth and love it carries within it, even if it be the lightest entertainment, or the bitterest satire, or the most shattering tragedy.”

Last semester, I experienced the deep communication through art that Bernstein refers to.  I was working as a peer literacy consultant in the writing center of the Illinois Central College, where I am also a student.  A man about my age (30) came in for an appointment with me, and through our work together I have come to better understand myself, and the profound growth we can experience when we connect with others through artistic expression and collaboration.

On the surface, our age appeared to be one similarity in stark contrast to the more obvious differences between us.  His skin is as dark as mine is lily white.  For all the advantages my race and social-status have indiscriminately handed me, he has had to fight for everything he has ever gotten. I can’t help but admire that I’ve found he nurtures no resentment, only a desire to be a good man, husband, and father of his own accord. Where I am an intensely vulnerable person, he is as strong, and tall, and sure-footed as a majestic old tree.  But in order to be heard, he was willing to subject himself and his work to the intense scrutiny of letting me proofread and edit his work, written in tiny, scrawling sentences across multiple composition notebooks.

A combat-veteran of the Iraq war, he’d filled these notebooks with a story he’d come up with to occupy himself, and his fellow soldiers during the long hours of nothingness that fell between the more stimulating, though for most, less desirable moments in war.  He translated his experiences from that war into a science-fiction novel that examined the exchanges he had with comrade and enemy alike with extraordinary nuance.  It occurred to me at one point his large stature is a necessary container for his tremendous sense of morality.

Through my interpretation, direction, and arrangement of his words in the revision process of the novel, he felt understood.  Through his patient, listening ears, and never less than outstanding advice, I too felt understood.  We found more similarities to one another than we did differences, which turned up the volume on one anothers' voices, allowing them to reach more ears.  An intense, loving friendship developed—rather unexpectedly, since I don’t believe either of us actively pursue relationships with people of the opposite sex in order to ensure our loyalties remain where they should—but there it was.  So, we reached out to our respective families, and found companionship I hope will be life-long, because I know no other couples willing to come over on a moment’s notice to build a snow fort with me.  And yes, it was the three adults building a snow fort together; the kids were total wimps and petered out on the cold within a few minutes.

If my new friend hadn’t had the courage to ask someone to look at a piece of his soul, or I hadn’t had the courage to bring someone in to my home that looked different than me, I would have missed out on so many moments of happiness and growth.  I would have missed out on seeing the joy in his face when he unburdened his mind of powerfully shitty memories by revisiting them on another planet.  I would have missed out on the companionship he and his family have provided us with, a life buoy during a dark and challenging period for all of us. 

Though face-to-face interactions like this aren’t the norm, the satisfaction and fulfillment we achieve by honest expression coming from a place of love, and the need to share and be loved, is easier to come by.  Look for it.  Look for it in the movements of others, there is an art to everything; look for it in the places you would least expect to find it (look in the obvious places too); look for it inside yourself, and when you find it, share it any way you can.