If you’d stop and look…

I didn’t know what came over me today. With a Tom Holt novel freshly borrowed off the shelf of the college library, I was set to read myself home. Instead, I cast it into the bowels of my bag, stacking in under my bilingual dictionary and Dan Brown’s Deception Point after reading only one paragraph. It’s not to say that the novel sucks (or I wouldn’t have borrowed it), but somehow I thought I’d just stop -for once- and look.

Who knows the reason for my sudden change of endeavor to entertain myself in the long, lonely trip home in three separates commutes. Somehow the man with the newspaper looked interesting, and the college student leafing through his notes between disgruntled ladies fascinating. Perhaps I was influenced, inspired probably, by Amanda’s liking of looking out of the bus windows and observe as the world of humans and buildings unravels itself into a portrait of subtle magnificence. I found myself staring, staring at the people, their behavior, their looks and appearance, their attitudes, their gaze; every gaze is so different, so diverse that it borders beyond the comprehensible, beyond imagination or dreams. If you’d just stop, look and observe, the world is a gorge of depth and beauty.

And as you stare at every individual within my range of sight, it reflects upon yourself; how different are they from you? Beyond the faces (and masks, for certain people) lies a complexity so interwoven and varied that it gives an air of life and living, and I found myself inevitably learning, absorbing the light they reflect and asking the questions you asked. Every person here has a different tale, a different thread of fate.

There was that couple nearby, and they’re unusual; delightfully unique and beautiful. One is good looking; handsome and tall, a typical-looking entity among the likes of the la-la community. His partner, his lover, is short, plump and though offensive I am to say this, but truthful nonetheless, she’s what most people would classify as unattractive. Yet, this unusual coupling brims and exerts the warmth and affection, portraying love more than most that I had come to observe. The mutuality, the closeness, the affection, an understanding that between this two people their eyes between each other are staring at the heart and soul but not the misleading likeness of the face and appearance. The matching green t-shirts, the similar trousers design, the mutual act of brushing and tidying each other’s clothes, the comforting hold and contact of their hands, the pure sincerity of their smiles and the soft traces of their eyes among each other; within a society of superficiality and shallow sights, they’re the sun among the a sea of clouds.

Looking at them I questioned myself; could I be that lucky? My thoughts diverted to her, my affection, my love unannounced and unreturned, and I saw her face and smile and stare, and wondered how they would seem if I’m ever so lucky. To see them close, to feel her touch… it’s not fantasy, not longing. It’s passion, perhaps. Or simply put, a love. But could I ever attain such a treasure, a person such as me, someone with nothing to provide, someone who never was handsome outside or inside, someone bizarre. Perhaps time will tell, or luck, or fate and destiny. But I shall remember this couple, these lovers, and give the affection they give each other to her, if I ever will.

There was soon a pattern in my observation, a method of workings. I would study, and then ask questions that can never be answered, and as I studied longer I would look and see if they themselves can provide me with answers. In front of me was another couple, both beautiful people, but between them the compassion of the earlier couple of lacking. Somehow, it seemed, their gaze upon each other never bore deeper to the deepest depth of the heart. Beside them was a college girl, sitting with her head resting on the plastic barrier separating her and the people standing by the door as she stares intently somewhere on the floor in front of her, apparently lost within her forest of thoughts. Within her eyes bore a certain sadness, or remorse, perhaps, and a sense of wanting something (or someone) without having lingered among her looks. What is her sadness? Or is the look just a typical look of intense boredom and routine?

Beside me sat a married couple, the husband carrying a child of 1 or 2 years in his hands. A working man with a rough complexion but genial friendliness within his eyes sat beside him, and the man muttered something that the screeching sounds of the commuter tearing across the tracks drowned before my listening. The father replied, in an air of pride and happiness as he smiled at his baby while the mother stroked the infant’s hair. The working man started making faces at the baby, obviously a father himself, and his antics simple yet alive with animation. At one point the infant looked at me, wide eyed and curious (at the fat monstrosity staring at him). I gave him a smile. He turned to his mother bearing the exact same look, and she smiled. I wondered when I started hating kids. Oh, yeah. When they become obnoxious as they grow. Pity.

And everyone else is just as subtly fascinating themselves. The girl standing far down the carriage, casting a look around as though waiting for someone. The man with a weird haircut, and with clothing that make him look feminine despite its formality. A girl offered her seat to an elderly lady with a child, and then returned to her Mp3 player with a soft smile on her face. The lady I gave mine to said a soft thanks, and looked around the commuter with a gentle stare. Everyone else is brimming with life, and I have never noticed it before.

Obscured under my headphones, barricading myself behind a book, and dreaming past oblivion, I have missed out these little pleasures.

I guess moving at the speed of life, the surroundings becomes a blur of ignorance as people strive by without colliding, or facing a dead end, and yet these doings are what that exerts the detail and subtlety one can observe if they’ll stop and look.

I believe life is beautiful. If we’d only stop and look.