Claire de Lune — Kamasi Washington

#365Songs: November 9

I’m jealous of people with light in their eyes.

The woman sitting behind me at this coffee shop with a Harris/Walz button has that light. She sits at a table surrounded by companions listening to their stories with genuine interest. She is present.

My light has dimmed. I know how I am seen; I know how my family sees me. I cannot disguise my pain. It’s projected though my eyes. They always project what I’m feeling.

I’m told they’re expressive. I think this also means that I cannot lie. Or at least I cannot like about my emotions.

“I’m fine,” doesn’t cut it. I’m forever betrayed.

Here’s the thing, though. I will be fine. I will recover. Even though I’ve fallen, I will get up. No matter what you think my eyes are saying. Also, you will be fine. You will recover. Even though you’ve fallen you can get back up.

Mental health is not binary code. It’s not yes or no. Every day is a spectrum. Some days are a magnificent array, others monochromatic. And even on the latter, strive to see the full scale of grays — not just black or white.

When I first fell more than fifteen years ago now, I stopped answering “How‘s it going’?” with socially acceptable positivity because my eyes said otherwise. I was not fine. The lights flickered when I spoke. I would get the look of concern that said, “I see you. You are not fine. You are lying,” but they wouldn’t push further. That would be indecorous.

I would have normally agreed, but maybe in light of recent events we should be more indecorous. If you’re worried about a friend or someone you hardly know, politely ask about their light.

After all, the last thing a casual acquaintance wants is to overstep their place in our social order by asking a personal question based on the flickering light of an ocular Judas.

My response to “How’s it going?” became “It’s going.” It wasn’t a dodge. It’s an honest answer. I am doing complicatedly, but I’m here and I’m alive and I am open to the idea of positivity.

Those that might have been concerned, recognized the mid-ground I needed to cover; those that merely fulfilled norms thought it droll. And that was exactly what I wanted to convey.

I am a work in progress. My eyes might betray how I feel in this moment, but they do not reflect my hopes for tomorrow. I am not okay, but I am also okay because I’ve been down here before and I will get up. I have to get up.

One day my eyes will project a familiar warmth. The indecorous quiver in my chest will subside.

I will be okay.

I had to dig around in my long-annexed memory to remember one of Shakespeare’s sonnets that resonated with me in college. I found myself reading sonnet after sonnet until it appeared.

My eyes, I hope, found some solace in the following words. They resonated with me then — just as they centered me now.

Shakespeare’s Sonnet 27:

Weary with toil, I haste me to my bed,
The dear respose for limbs with travel tir’d;
But then begins a journey in my head
To work my mind, when body’s work’s expired:
For then my thoughts — from far where I abide —
Intend a zealous pilgrimage to thee,
And keep my drooping eyelids open wide,
Looking on darkness which the blind do see:
Save that my soul’s imaginary sight
Presents thy shadow to my sightless view,
Which, like a jewel (hung in ghastly night,
Makes black night beauteous, and her old face new.
Lo! thus, by day my limbs, by night my mind,
For thee, and for myself, no quiet find.

I am not alone.

I have witnessed many fellow travelers with similarly sad eyes, eyes that also betray them. What is the tonic? What is the cure?

With eyes wide open, see the world as it is, full of contradictions. Rediscover the beauty of a simple sonnet. Listen to a familiar classical music piece — but find a jazz orchestration, change your angle. Are you afraid? Conquer a fear. Any fear. All of the fears.

Fill those betraying eyes with passion instead of fear or anxiety.

Be the woman at the table behind, in this coffee shop, wearing a protest button, talking, living, engaging. Not just a lonely writer, sitting at the bar, working through his pit of despair for a blog.

Our time is now.

“And thogh youre grene youthe floure as yit, In crepeth age alwey, as stille as stoon, And deeth manaceth every age, and smyt. In ech estaat, for ther escapeth noon”

— Geoffrey Chaucer, The Canterbury Tales

Which is a fancy way of saying…

Yeah, right, that’s the way it is. It’s down there and I’m in here. I guess it comes down to a simple choice, really. Get busy living, or get busy dying.

— Andy Dufresne, The Shawshank Redemption

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