I was flipping through Facebook when a little red flag popped up, followed by another and another. Notifications! They seem to come few and far between to the college student who finds it as a method of procrastination. And to get three at a time - red letter day! They were identical: a friend of mine had tagged three photos of me. Curious, I clicked on them, and then was taken aback. Friday the 5th of March I had gone to the opening of a friend's art show. I was writing about it for my college newspaper, so I was sauntering about trying to catch snatches of conversation, opinions, photographs of the art. I had seen another friend 'o the artist about with a bulky, lensed, professional-looking camera snapping photos of the art and guests looking at the art. Her camera put my point-and-click Kodak to shame. She must have been a photographer snapping shots for one of the other newspapers among the other campuses. I didn't know that this art show was big enough to attract attention from other campuses.
When I clicked on the photographs, I realized my mistake. She was no rival photographer but a friend documenting an auspicious moment in the life of our mutual artist-friend. And I happened to be in the photographs. Before going to the art show, I had brushed my hair, but my mirror was still covered. Did my hair really look that bad? Did my clothes fit that poorly? Okay, the photographer had gotten my nose at an angle that made it look really cute, and which I can't see looking at myself straight- on, but still. I didn't want to face the reality presented to me by those pictures. I clicked ahead, finding it a safe sanctuary to look at other people. In the photographs, they looked the way they did in real life. I had been trying to run away from that reality by not looking at myself in the mirror and was confronted about reality in an image on a computer screen.
I have since looked at the pictures again, forced myself to look at them, and in doing so I realized that they're not that bad. Yes, I could have brushed my hair a little more before the show, but I didn't; even if I had, the messy clumps were in the back and I probably wouldn't have gotten them straightened out anyway.
I still don't like the fact that I have to see myself as other people see me. However, these three photographs were a good reminder that I cannot hide from that mysterious Other or see how that Other sees me. While on the article for my newspaper, I wanted to be the unseen one, the invisible reporter whose voice everyone would hear, not the interpolator in the photographs, in the art show. It would be like I wasn't even there. Looking back with clearer vision, that is a very frightening thing. I am not just a voice, but I am a body, a mind, feelings. And because I live in this physical world, which connects me to everyone else, I have to take the consequences of being seen as well as heard. Even if that means seeing myself sometimes.
I feel like I should have learned something, but I'm still not happy about whatever it is. And okay, I admit it again - the pictures really weren't that bad.
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