Clarity (1044 hits)
Category: NoneLabels: crap:non-fiction
Rating: 1.94 on 25 reviews (Rate this item) (V)
Submitted by Circe <fickle_muse.at.hotmail.com> (View user info) at 2004-08-28 11:45:33 EDT
My children live in a world that is very different from my own. The things they see are not the things I see. Where my jaded eyes pass over and neatly categorize everything, their eyes widen, and focus, and stay fixed for endless moments as they see every angle, every surface, every color and texture, a universe of contrast and light and detail in something so simple it eludes my notice.
When I see Cadie staring, enraptured and attentive, from the window, I sit beside her and look where she's looking. The trees outside stand where they have ever stood and the world goes about its business as it always does. But there is something in her eyes that makes me sit and stare with her, hoping for whatever she sees to break through and show itself. I look until what I'm seeing fragments and breaks apart into a senseless jumble, and still I see nothing that would hold me captive in wonder as it does her.
I look back at her. That rapt fascination is still in her eyes. Her focus is unwavering, her attention is total. But the direction of her gaze has changed. It's me she looks at now; my eyes, my hair, my face. She reaches out her tiny pink hand, still so clumsy and so oddly delicate, and touches my cheek. She grins and it lights up her whole face. And for a moment, one tiny second, I'm allowed to see her as she sees everything. I see the way the quality of the light changes when it hits those three blonde eyelashes, stark and obvious amongst the dark ones. I see the green in her eyes that haloes the pupil. I see the tiny perfect shells of her ears, translucent in the sunlight. I see her, and everything that is her, everything that makes up the totality of her.
She pulls on my bottom lip and the spell is broken. She's Cadie again, cute and grinning with biscuit crumbs in her hair. The incredible, awe inspiring clarity of a moment ago has been filtered out. It has to be; you couldn't see the world that way, all the time, and stay sane. But she does. She won't forever. That protective filter will come down and reduce the spectacular to commonplace. Her eyes will age and she'll forget that the world is an utterly magnificent, endlessly beautiful place to be.
Until then, I'm going to sit at that window with her. I'm not going to do it because I want to see what she sees; I won't. I can't. That part of my mind faded into obscurity as I grew. I'm going to sit with her not to know what she sees, but to know that she sees it. I'll sit there because those moments when I watch the world cast its spell on her are the closest I can ever come to grace.
User Reviews
Submitted by Doodles (user info) at 2006-12-15 23:13:16 EST (#)
Ranking: 2
I take full credit for Coyote's review.
I wrote it in my head, he just stole it, went back in time and posted it first.
Submitted by DyingBreed (user info) at 2004-09-04 06:28:04 EDT (#)
Ranking: 2
awesome. i envy the pure sight of a child.
there are two paths to that state of mind, and you wont go mad if you stay there too long :)
....one is to look at something, and let all labels fall by the wayside, not attaching a word to its existence......and the other is to label it til it no longer makes sense. both paths lead the same place.
Submitted by Snark (user info) at 2004-08-30 11:04:27 EDT (#)
Ranking: 2
Beautiful!
I was watching my daughter play the other day and getting a little bored and I started to wonder at what point I lost the innocence you describe so well here.
I came up with the answer to how I lost it, how I can get it back and how I can teach the solution to everyone else in the world.
Later that night I got drunk and now I can't remember.
Oh well, it was worth a shot.
Submitted by Impassive-Digressive (user info) at 2004-08-29 19:44:59 EDT (#)
Ranking: 2
Submitted by GlitchCowman (user info) at 2004-08-28 12:05:37 (#)
Ranking: 2
Awww.
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Nuff said.
Submitted by RouteTwo (user info) at 2004-08-29 02:12:55 EDT (#)
Ranking: 2
Submitted by Coyote (user info) at 2004-08-28 15:34:57 (#)
Ranking: 2
I want to say: "If I lived with you and got to look into your eyes every day, I'd think the world was an utterly magnificent and endlessly beautiful place too", but that might embarrass us both in front of all these people, so instead I'll say:
Remember this post in two years when she's telling you you suck and she hates dinner and her REAL mommy would take her to McDonald's again instead of making her eat that magnificent, beautiful salad.
Submitted by Kristen (user info) at 2004-08-29 02:06:59 EDT (#)
Ranking: 2
I'm looking forward to this.
Submitted by electrictoothsyndrome (user info) at 2004-08-29 01:54:52 EDT (#)
Ranking: 2
Funny, though - I make a serious rating full of depth and unfathomable meaning (at least for me), and another rating that is completely stupid even for a junior high school retard, and which one gets focused on and taken seriously???
Story of my life.
Question is: will you take this rating seriously when you read it? Either way, you will be wrong.
Submitted by The_Walrus (user info) at 2004-08-29 01:53:55 EDT (#)
Ranking: 2
Nice.
Just wait till she's a teenager ; )
Submitted by electrictoothsyndrome (user info) at 2004-08-29 01:49:55 EDT (#)
Ranking: 0
Submitted by Circe (user info) at 2004-08-28 22:00:56 (#)
Ranking: 0
Submitted by electrictoothsyndrome (user info) at 2004-08-28 15:59:39 (#)
Ranking: 0
Submitted by professorfuckface (user info) at 2004-08-28 11:49:00 (#)
Ranking: 0
nah
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Do me this favor for that Gmail account...be nice to Circe.
______________
ETS, on of life's greatest Catch 22s is this: Anybody worth standing up for doesn't need it.
I don't need anyone to be 'nice' to me; it would defeat the purpose. I know when I post things like this that not everybody's going to like it, and I'm okay with that.
You're a sweetheart, but please don't tell anyone to be nice to me. They can rate how they want; it's the whole point.
---------------------------------
If they can rate how they want, then it should follow that I can ask them to be nice...right? I mean, they don't HAVE to be nice! I didn't say "on the condition of death". (Which I mistakenly omitted.)
Don't tell me you don't get when I am joking either, Circe! Sure, it was a lame-ass joke, but it was a joke none-the-less! I'll try and be funnier next time so it's more obvious. =)
Submitted by Bigmike (user info) at 2004-08-29 00:42:56 EDT (#)
Ranking: 2
I know how you feel.
Our children are our pot of gold at the end of the rainbow.
Submitted by Circe (user info) at 2004-08-28 22:00:56 EDT (#)
Ranking: 0
Submitted by electrictoothsyndrome (user info) at 2004-08-28 15:59:39 (#)
Ranking: 0
Submitted by professorfuckface (user info) at 2004-08-28 11:49:00 (#)
Ranking: 0
nah
---------------------------------
Do me this favor for that Gmail account...be nice to Circe.
______________
ETS, on of life's greatest Catch 22s is this: Anybody worth standing up for doesn't need it.
I don't need anyone to be 'nice' to me; it would defeat the purpose. I know when I post things like this that not everybody's going to like it, and I'm okay with that.
You're a sweetheart, but please don't tell anyone to be nice to me. They can rate how they want; it's the whole point.
Submitted by Wish_I_Were (user info) at 2004-08-28 20:07:37 EDT (#)
Ranking: 2
For some reason...this brought a tear to my eye.
Submitted by shandythedog (user info) at 2004-08-28 17:05:55 EDT (#)
Ranking: 2
i like this, though i'm not sure i agree with the protective filter, can't be this way forever or you would go mad stuff. i think there's a pretty strong argument that we adults are in fact suffering a form of madness in our defensive blind lives.
this bit particularly struck a chord with me (i had been thinking similar thoughts just last night when isaac and i were reading a picture book together, and i was wondering about how his child's eyes saw it):
I'm not going to do it because I want to see what she sees; I won't. I can't. That part of my mind faded into obscurity as I grew. I'm going to sit with her not to know what she sees, but to know that she sees it.
drugs can help, btw.
Submitted by electrictoothsyndrome (user info) at 2004-08-28 15:59:39 EDT (#)
Ranking: 0
Submitted by professorfuckface (user info) at 2004-08-28 11:49:00 (#)
Ranking: 0
nah
---------------------------------
Do me this favor for that Gmail account...be nice to Circe.
Submitted by electrictoothsyndrome (user info) at 2004-08-28 15:57:12 EDT (#)
Ranking: 2
"(Savor the ignorance that it might be a window to the nature of everything.)
Contrary to the standards of society, we are not limited by ignorance; rather, it is when we know too much that we are most dependent upon limitation to offer for us some 'logical' ordinal of existence. (That child in the crib neither knows, nor cares for what Daddy does in his computer chair, and Daddy does not care to see how his child is lying dumb and free.) Not as long as I'm in this world will I ever have as much knowledge as the day I was born, for even now I grasp for the air, whereas before I simply did not grasp."
- Yep, I said that!
Submitted by Pentameter (user info) at 2004-08-28 15:43:28 EDT (#)
Ranking: 2
Charming.
Submitted by Coyote (user info) at 2004-08-28 15:34:57 EDT (#)
Ranking: 2
I want to say: "If I lived with you and got to look into your eyes every day, I'd think the world was an utterly magnificent and endlessly beautiful place too", but that might embarrass us both in front of all these people, so instead I'll say:
Remember this post in two years when she's telling you you suck and she hates dinner and her REAL mommy would take her to McDonald's again instead of making her eat that magnificent, beautiful salad.
Submitted by BoogieFevuh (user info) at 2004-08-28 14:47:50 EDT (#)
Ranking: 2
Awe-inspiring. Awe-some? Awe-full? Full of awe...you'd THINK that'd be a compliment.
If anyone finds a good compliment to use, be sure to let me know. Otherwise, back to my usual,
"This kicked ass!"
Submitted by Can_Always_Trust_A_Liar (user info) at 2004-08-28 13:41:27 EDT (#)
Ranking: 2
No Comment
Submitted by ParlorTrick (user info) at 2004-08-28 13:17:29 EDT (#)
Ranking: 2
Seeing again through our children's eyes...
Submitted by I_Have_a_Kristen_Fetish (user info) at 2004-08-28 12:52:21 EDT (#)
Ranking: 1
No Comment
Submitted by Ainkara (user info) at 2004-08-28 12:26:12 EDT (#)
Ranking: 2
Again, I love you. I should probably come up with a different comment.... Ah well.
Submitted by GlitchCowman (user info) at 2004-08-28 12:05:37 EDT (#)
Ranking: 2
Awww.
Submitted by FilthyAssistant (user info) at 2004-08-28 11:50:59 EDT (#)
Ranking: 2
Beautiful.
Submitted by professorfuckface (user info) at 2004-08-28 11:49:00 EDT (#)
Ranking: 0
nah