Experiment Month: Eye Contact 3

I have not done this correctly! What I have called eye contact thus far indeed is not. A lunch with one of my students today revealed this.  What I have called eye contact this entire time may more adequately be defined as upper nose contact. Although, contact at the upper nose would make any relationship more intimate than it needs to be.  I have been focusing my eyes on the upper-nose, near the eyes of the people I have encountered the last 20 days. It truly is no wonder nothing too interesting has come of my experience thus far. For a moment in our conversation this afternoon, I actually looked into his eyes. I felt caught. The moment was so drastic, I felt a sense that I had violated or been violated. I actually felt the vulnerability I have already reflected on with assumption before. There appeared to be a connection on some mystic level. There was a sense of a connection at the soul where you rarely see or recognize in a person. 

There are few words to explain what it feels like to not only look but to actually see beyond a face into a person. Two people, barely more than acquaintances, were connected in an instant at a level difficult to explain.

I wanted to know more. I wanted to see more. I wanted to hear more from him, but not just hear the words he was saying. I had seen…him. I wanted to hear more from…him. I wanted to hear more from that place I had seen into.  You see more and hear more than you could imagine when you look into a person through the eyes.

All of this in a second of true eye contact! A SECOND!

It came and went in a matter of one second. A rush of insight came at me like drinking from a pitcher with a loose lid. For the last week, I have not reflected on much as there has not been much to reflect on.  Was this experiment really worth so much attention? Had it run its short-lived, non-blogworthy course? Wonder had begun to set in with a tinge of disenchantment.

Then came lunch at a hole in the wall Chinese restaurant! A moment of true intentional eye contact revealed to me that the experiment was not over, but what is more, it may have just extended itself beyond a week.