Through the Looking Glass: What If?

We souls come wrapped in fairly predictable packages, bound by tough skin and brittle nails and things like hair that, well, really don’t matter. I see a colleague with his wing-tipped, shiny black leather shoes or the store clerk who wears an old pearl necklace every day and I immediately come to conclusions about them based on how they show up on the exterior. I hate that I do this, and make a mental note to work on this character defect of mine. The truth is, I’ll never really know either of them, even if I spent a lifetime trying. And you’ll likely never really know me. Although we’ll all keep trying

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But what if things were switched up? What if we could literally see past our exteriors and didn’t have to try to figure out where each other were coming from? What if I didn’t have to guess about the shame you hide, or the joys that fill you up so full you cry because the power of it can’t be contained?

What if. . .

• Instead of seeing your feet, I could see the roads you’ve walked and the rocks that have stumbled you along the way?

• Instead of your hands, I could see the burdens you’ve carried and the lives you’ve touched?

• Instead of your ears, I could witness the stories you’ve heard and the sound of that old blackbird that sat outside the window of your childhood bedroom?

• Instead of your eyes, I could clearly see your perspective?

• Instead of your heart, I could see how past experience has made you shy away from saying ‘I love you’?

What if on the top of your soft left shoulder, sat an expiration date that told the world exactly when your time here would be over? Would we treat each other better? Would you treat yourself better?

Life is full of what-ifs, heightened and illuminated today by a global pandemic. While hugs and kisses and handshakes have been replaced with gloves and masks and six-feet of separation from you, I hope I’ll come out of it—I hope we’ll all come out of it—with less judgment and an increased ability to see who we all really are.

Be well.