Transparency Schmarancy

I wish I could see people transparent. Like a mist that only barely veils the morning sun, the skin could thin and clear and give way to lucidity, to light. When we reach for each other is that our subconscious desire? We pull, and clutch, and stroke as if to rub away a skin-and-bone barricade. Perhaps only ugly science lies underneath. Garish grinning skulls, careless organs flung together, pumping hearts that heartlessly extend existence. The intangible quality that we call our "inner light" finds no real space in our bodies. The soul remains undiscovered, supposedly trapped beneath ropes of intestines or quietly slipping in and out of cellular corridors. Like a forgotten monster from legend or an extraterrestrial being flitting amongst the clouds, we search for that essential wisp of a soul whose necessity became ingrained at infancy. Maybe before. Stories whispered like secrets at night , lines of poetry read by the fire, the repetition of song. "What a piece of work is man...in action, how like an angel." We have glorified man. Like the Greeks. Like folks from the enlightenment smoking and postulating on man's supremacy, we nod and agree that yes, yes, we must be something quite special. Yet how prone to darkness he is, too. Capable of the crippling degradation of his own species, and passive blindness to pain, he moves amongst the world like a villainous wretch intent on himself and his own pleasure. Yet there are gentle hands. Hands that smooth salty tears away from a sick man's cheek, that crack and contort after years of lifting, pulling, reaching for provision's sake, and that press themselves intimately into piano keys to send sweet music to listening ears. But who tells these hands where to go? What bids one man to cause destruction while another brings revival? I suppose each man is capable of each. How terrifying. Sitting in a café observing fellow diners and passersby, I see myself in each. The homeless man shuffling his feet, worn, each tired step like a lurch that could send him tumbling to unforgiving concrete. The waitress who is only keeping up, on the verge of snapping, impatiently clattering dishes and shaking her head quietly as if to ask, what am I doing here? The businessman buried in his newspaper, in his iPhone, in his sandwich. Avoidance of the world passing slowly by, he builds a construct of busyness around him, terrified that slowing down might mean just ending it altogether. The elderly widow sitting primly, like a solitary forgotten queen poised in front of her decaf coffee. She is alone, but her napkin is neatly folded and her jewelry has been recently polished. She is alone, but she will be alone and she will go gracefully. A girl my age passes by and I smile at her. She ignores the offering and lets her stiletto heels do the talking for her as she strides away. I don't blame her. I don't judge her pride, or his weary shuffling, or the impatient clattering, or the busyness, or her grace. It is, all of it, a carefully concocted way to cope. To get on with it. I'd like to tell them all, it's okay. I understand. You're going to be fine. We are all trapped inside, outside, somewhere, somehow. And the we that we wish we were, that we hope we someday could be, it could be the soul speaking to us, an inner light beckoning us onto higher heights. We may never know down here. We may never know the source of the quiet prod that coaxes us into becoming angels, or the shadow that sinks our hands into malevolence. Yet isn't it a comfort to know that we all have a choice between one or the other? Perhaps wishing for transparent people is silly. Maybe it would be best to grip the whole of someone in our arms, not excluding romance or science. We could wrap our arms around the flesh, and the soul, and the shadow. Because we know what's in us, too. And enlightened or not, pretty or not, we all have to get on with it.