Eyes

Dear reader,

Even though this is my first piece of writing about eyes, do not expect it to be my last. Eyes can hold you captive or set you free... That is what inspires me about them.

I am an artist. Although, if you asked me about my opinion on art 5 years ago, I would've expressed how much I hated it. My love for art started with eyes. I drew them first. I called my piece 'Witnessing the past of the future'. Even then, at the age of 12, I knew eyes held so much meaning for me.

Eyes are the gateway to the soul, or are they? This question haunts me. This phrase lurks between the files hidden in my brain, which hold the memories of my favorite eyes.

As soon as I started drawing eyes, I memorized their details. This made me realize that, as an artist, the bigger picture does not matter until the details of it have been absorbed. Once that happens, I can take a step back to admire it. I adapted this to the people in my life: trying to memorize their details, inspecting each one carefully, starting with their eyes, ending by taking a step back and admiring them.

Up until a certain point, I hadn't seen a pair of eyes I couldn't analyze. Each one I had crossed paths with I knew I could read, I knew I could get past the gate, even if it was closed. As the youngest child with siblings who are much older, I learned how to read the room. I knew what a squint of an eye meant, depending on who it came from. I knew what wide eyes meant. I knew which eyes invited me to speak and which ones urged me to think.

There have been exceptions to my expertise, a set of eyes that enamoured me. I could not take in the beauty of their details because I refused to get closer to the brown pupils that inhabited this person's face. Was it because they were so familiar and I thought I could read them with no effort? Or maybe it was because I did not want to be disappointed by the reality of what hid behind the honey-colored doors of their soul? Anyway, I couldn't leave these eyes behind. I continue to admire them from afar, wondering if the expressions I'm reading hold the same meaning as the ones I have retained from others. Even though, that shade of brown felt familiar, I still believed it was different. I felt like those set of eyes begged me to admire them differently. In what way? I'm still waiting for the answer to this question.

I recently heard an author say something along the lines of "We write characters on a page who we want to interact with each other." As soon as this sentence reached my mind, I had an epiphany. If you know me, you know that once I have a pen, pencil, or brush in my hand, I will draw an eye. My notebooks hold random drawings of eyes that appeared in my mind over the past 7 months. Every single pair tries to imitate those certain set of eyes but they can't. They can't because I refused to move away from the bigger picture. I banned myself from getting too close. I chained the artist within me to a wall, scared she would get attached to the shades of brown that embodied the comforting pupils in front of her. I avoided those eyes like I was avoiding a truth hidden within my mind.

Instead of writing characters on a page who I want to interact, I draw eyes on random pieces of paper, hoping one of them looks like yours, so I can finally memorize their details up close...