To be Seen

What does it mean to be seen?

When I was young and it was not safe to be seen, I used to run barefoot through knee high grass, past slowly chewing cattle and solitary staring bull, and past the cottage of old Elsie and Brian, who sometimes gave me mugs of creamy milk still warm from the cow. I followed a songline from home. I'd run until farms gave way to bottlebrush and eucalyptus and gnarled shrubby tea tree. I'd perch by huge boulders. Trace stories in the dust. The only sounds were the distant caw of crows and the wild tales beating in my blood.

When we moved to the suburbs I ran in ways that were different, yet still the same.

"Rob only uses red pegs to hang up his washing," I scrawled in a notebook while peering over a hedge. I ducked down when my neighbour fished out another red peg from his basket.

"but his socks are two different colours."

My school report cards echoed polarities: I was friendly yet aloof, eager to please yet detached. I created whole worlds with my words, and yet didn't seem all that interested in a world comprised of addition or spatial reasoning or speaking to other children.

"Emily's written work is bursting with creative talent," wrote my grade two teacher Miss Biddle. "Her vivid stories and illustrations are a delight to the readers eye."

"Emily is fluent and beautifully expressive," echoed Mrs Hill in grade three, but "she sometimes becomes engrossed when she should be concentrating on other things."

Eventually, I learned addition and spatial reasoning (sort of). I spoke to people (sometimes). But I never quite learned how to concentrate on other things. I cobbled careers that allowed me to write in spectacular and abysmal ways. I published a novel. Made magazine covers and won awards. Read my work to crowds. I wrote about coffee beans and stationary orders and waterproof hiking pants and dog friendly motels in New York State. I wrote for universities, tech companies, real estate companies, and marketing agencies.

I didn't write the story. The one I traced in the dust that day, and all the days before it, and all the days since.

We all have a story.

Being seen is to give that story life.

We don't have to write it.

We can sing it.

Dance it.

Speak it.

Make music or make art or make buildings or make our lives a monument to that wild tale beating in our blood.

In small ways, in big ways, we write the story.

Now that I'm old I've learned there's no such thing as safety, not really. I live by my traced story, and my world has blossomed in unexpected and incredible ways. I am happy. I am fulfilled. I am writing. I'm still not concentrating on other things, but I follow the songline. It takes me home.