Flotsam

Most of the time when we see each other we see skin and bones and names. We don’t see all the stuff beneath, within. Hundreds of times a day we do this. We see faces and bodies and we make subconscious assumptions. We do this in the car. We do this on the street. Lives flow by us like so much flotsam down a river. 

But every one of us has a story and that story is what makes us human. In each story there is something to relate to, something to love and although we can’t stop and learn every story, we can recognize that the stories are there. We can look at each person like an ocean, with unknowable depths.

Rivers, oceans, bodies of water are handy metaphors for what we are. Moving, changing, varied below the surface. A portrait is just the top of the lake. The reflective part. A photograph shows only a thin slice of the surface. We cannot see our way past that. It takes a heart to know someone, not a pair of eyes.