a poem about my eyes

....and where I rest my gaze [ft. a poem by June Jordan]

Hello gentle-people,

I want to begin with some things I am noticing in this season.

I am noticing the familiarity of my routes from work to home. Feeling a sense of routine is important to me—even if I have days where for my health, I must upset those routines. Finding myself in the safety of a groove can be quieting in deeply beautiful ways.

I am noticing where a sense of urgency lingers and where it lands on my body. As I notice it, I let myself wonder where it is coming from and if it honors the truths I would most like to live by. As a highly-sensitive person,¹ I can be deeply attuned to others’ emotions, and mirroring them can be exhausting for me. When this compounds in toxic spaces, I can sometimes lose my grasp on what is (my) right….

So this is a reflection on “vision” and what I am noticing and naming as I ground myself in the truths that keep me human.

A look at me, ten+ years ago.

June Jordan “Who Look at Me?”

Who look at me?

Who see the children
on their street the torn down door the wall
complete an early losing
                                  games of ball
the search to find
a fatherhood a mothering of mind
a multimillion multicolored mirror
of an honest humankind?
                       *
look close
and see me black man mouth
for breathing (North and South)
A MAN
I am black alive and looking back at you.

Looking after: the gaze of care

I tell people this because it is true—where I come from, you don’t look an adult in the eyes when you are being corrected. That is an invitation for a different kind of punishment. This was wired into my body—so it was unhelpful when it came to surviving school as an immigrant child. Besides learning English in those first few years of school in the States, I was learning that I had to look my teachers in the eyes while they were correcting me. And in turn, they did not grasp that what they were asking me to do was seen as disrespectful at home.

So with great confusion, I split my body and mind to live in two cultures.

Fast forward to now, my job takes me to public schools and I noticed it took months for me to look at other staff members as equals. However, I noticed students’ eyes search and assess the adults in their lives constantly. I am spending several hours a week looking after them, so I am more aware now of how important each opportunity is that I get to meet their eyes. I am sitting with whatever it means to hold all these things.

• The truth that my first teachers in America, in their search for my respect, asked for something I knew in another culture as disrespectful.

• I am sitting with what it means now to know that walking down the halls of a school, I am making eye contact with teachers in ways that seem filled with glimpses of mutuality.

• ….and I know I will come across students like me (or deeply unlike me) who are looking to and through the adults in their lives…wondering if they are seen. Wondering if we hold some kind of insight into what they have to look forward to.

I hold all these as I wonder what it means, to “look after” someone. I wonder what it means to hold someone under the gaze of care. I wonder if it shapes the caregivers I know who, by nature of playing the same role, look for each other in the world….and if that has anything to do with how now, I am more comfortable holding a teacher’s gaze.

a poem about my eyes

Are my eyes soulful?
Somebody tell me the truth
Because I feel like I see them
Sometimes 

Peering out from me
Haunting everything 
What I have learned 
Helps me lean on

The right pillar of my inner walls 
To keep from collapsing 
But my body is shaking 
And songs come to my lips again

A security alarm
Is ringing in the background and
Every shout in the room 
Is a hand reaching and mine are
Holding me together—

Today I returned home and 
Looked through my photos
In my bed with my 
Heaviest sighs waiting to release,
I face what was hidden
In my worst desires

I went to edit 
A folder of favorites 
And as I affirm what are 
The best sides of me 

I see her.

I see her
I see her,
Today, I see her 

And her eyes are soulful 
Someone told her the truth
And in that mirror I feel
Like I see her sometimes. 

“what did i see to be except myself? i made it up.” _—Lucille Clifton, “won’t you celebrate with me”

Another 10+ year old selfie.

looking away: writing secrets

I cannot tell you what this poem is about. I have shared its story with the soulful eyes that look back at me. Those whose eyes seek me without collapsing the precious mystery that I know I am. I know that story is safe with those who see the soul in me and do not wish to snuff it out.

writing shadows, spilling secrets

But you, who may still be wondering why I have looked away from you:

I may be looking you up and down, deciding if all of me is allowed to look up and meet your eyes. I may be asking: What if they don’t get along? The soul I see in you and the one that stays with me? What if there’s no room for me in your imagination? What if you don’t know enough about me to imagine me in full humanity? What if you seek to correct what was never broken in me?

It is often risky to engage everyone who looks back at you. I hope you see why some of us seek to set our eyes where it is safe.

So all I can tell you for now is this weekend, I had a day where I needed to know where I could rest my eyes. I was able to rest them and tell the story of my soul to those who could look back and see me.

“I ask my dreams to reveal to me who I am outside the gaze of whiteness.” —ebonyjanice, All the Black Girls Are Activists

looking ahead: where I rest my gaze

I am looking ahead with hope:

In case y’all are new here, you need to know that my head is filled with “memory verses,” they could roll off the tip of my tongue like Lucille Clifton's verses often do. That all being said, I would never knock you over the head with a copy of the Bible or How to Carry Water. So holding all that, I share this verse that lives in me:

“Now faith is the assurance of things hoped for, the conviction of things not seen.” Hebrews 11:1, NRSV

But some part of how I write here is in conversation always with some aspect of a past life, where my primary form of Bible-thumping was spoken word. So in me are theologies I remember that felt like a blender: things would go in and be hit by the blade into a smoothie.

I now stand before the forms I cannot blend—so many years of schooling overwhelmed that system. I must take them in their whole form and deal with material realities that refuse a good whipping.² As I learn to move through the world and hold the complexities life has thrown at me, I am learning to have faith and to practice hope.

At one point, I closed my eyes, as the only girl with three brothers, and I prayed for sisters. I open my eyes to now, that I have four sisters, all of them emerging into adulthood. If I keep looking, I realize I have had many more sisters in different places. In this season, I am also finding my brothers…and learning more about the ones I already have.³

I am still dreaming now. I keep opening my eyes to take in more things I can be unashamed to love about who I dream I am and who I actually am—the gap is closing, by the way.

I can hope to love myself even more—especially if it means I find more of myself to energize me as I love others.

I am looking ahead in gratitude:

It means so much to me that 800+ of y’all hit “subscribe.” My writing is been seen and held in such a great light. Like-minded folks are gathering around the gentle landings I am imagining and I am…just so grateful. I am excited for the community that is growing here.

As someone who is routinely overstimulated, I take breaks from social media and apps on my phone when it gets too much. Notifications stay disabled and my phone is always on silent.

Sometimes, I’m so lost in my thoughts, the only way to get my attention would be to knock on my forehead and ask, “is anyone home?” But as I parse out which sensations are the peaceful and beautiful kind that energize…vs. the ones that sound like “security alarms going off,” I find myself coming out of my shell more.

I find myself wanting to see when I know I can expect to find love looking back. More often these days, I am lingering in the light and taking selfies to post. If only because I have known the shadows so well—I feel finally okay to spend time following the contours of light.

So if I look a bit wide-eyed lately, I am simply making more room for all the joy that I am finally letting myself take in. But I guess, you’re always free to simply say, “Damn, Rose. You got some pretty soulful eyes.”

🐦‍⬛Landing Tracks

• Journal/Conversation Prompt: What is something you’ve been told about your eyes? Where have you inherited habits of gazing?

• A Prompt for Daily Noticing: Where do your eyes fall when someone speaks affirmations over you? Where do they fall when you are being critiqued? Are they the same or different places and why?

• Integration into Care Work: What does it mean for you to “look after” someone or something precious to you? How have you, dealt with a gaze that looks away? Return to the section on “looking away” and consider what concerns might have been at play.

• Join the chat! Feel free to keep discussing what is moving you, as you venture to Stay Sensitive.

• See the footnotes for places you can go and find informative and/or fun landing tracks.

1. If you are new to that language/this term and something about it sounds like you…start here. If you are a Black HSP, hey we’re not alone. 👋🏾👋🏾

2. I am finding my love of scripture coming back to me slowly these days. If you are on that journey and want a companion for spiritually expansive thinking alongside Biblical analysis—and let’s not forget good humor and pop culture references to boot—check out Trey Ferguson’s book & newsletter.

3. For a conversation that explores this thought more, please see this conversation between Robert and myself on the Black Coffee and Theology podcast. A conversation that inspires this one is between Nikki Giovanni and James Baldwin, talking about issues between Black men and Black women as they navigate life in a racist society. Just seeing those two sitting in each other’s gazes, held in love as their perspectives are shared and heard….so inspiring. Here’s a link to the YouTube video.