Friends with Strangers…

I meet someone new. I know this person does not know of anything or anyone from my past. I look at the person and find her interesting; sufficiently pleasant to overcome the prejudices that dictate my behavior. I admit; for me the first impression of a person is solely their looks.

We are both in a place with unfamiliar people and so I initiate the process that aims to form friends from strangers. I find my interest reciprocated; the reason however is unknown to me. I seek her companionship; partially from interest in the person she is, and partly to satisfy the desire to engrave an expression of my self upon her. I hope the reasons for her amicable response also include, at least some part, of the former of my reasons; an interest in knowing me.

Actions speak better than words, but our situation only gives us the device of words. And so through words we set out to understand each other; whether through the desire to do so, or through the unconscious process of our minds that paints upon itself the portrait of each person we come to hold memories of.

I take joy in the fact that her portrait of me starts upon a blank canvas. I try to pose for her without pretense. I sit in the most revealing light while she sketches; I look at her with my eyes unguarded to the secrets of my soul while she mixes the dyes on her palette.

But maybe she does not trust my openness. Maybe it is my fault that I pose in too rigid a posture; that my eyes do not catch the right light when she paints. Maybe I exhibit some peculiarities that need not be seen, and hide details that are essential. Or maybe she realizes that I too am painting my portrait of her and our consciousness of the other artist’s work distracts us. Perhaps the strokes of her brush are only a half hearted attempt at capturing what she sees. Nonetheless the portraits are painted.

In retrospect I am certain of one thing; I, because of the emptiness in my life, was overzealous in this endeavor. I am ashamed not of my desire, because such solitude as is my own would beget the same for all but the exceedingly introvert, but that I gave in so completely to my vanity.

Normally, for so it is with such portraits, the subject of the portrait only catches glimpses of themselves as the artist has captured them, through means of words or behavior of the artist. But through some whim of fate I, in this case, chanced to glance upon her portrait of me in fine detail; written in words more naked than most words are.

And it was as when Dorian Gray set eyes on his portrait which he had not seen for years; it was hideous. Although my self demands me to deny what she has painted of me outright, I cannot decide which is riddled with more falsities; my portrait of myself or her portrait of me. Hers contains misunderstandings because of my fallibility in expressing what I have wanted to shown her. It contains judgments based on things that are still not completely visible to her. It contains certain presumptions of her own and misses out certain qualities that were there to see.

But it also contains truth. The portrait is of me, maybe reflected in some cruel light, but it is me. And so I accept it, and redo my own portrait of myself by looking upon this image of me. I paint wrinkles that I must have know were there but never painted them, I sketch blemishes on my skin where I imagined it was clean. The finished portrait is what I now think of my self; but it is not what I want myself to be. Nor is her portrait of me what I want her to see of me.

And so now I rededicate myself to change. To change so that she understands the need to redo her portrait without me having to ask her to do so; to change so that I can be justified in painting my portrait of me as I want it to be.

I have a portrait of her. It is unfinished; there are parts I have not seen, some that I do not understand, and there are parts I do not like. I feel as if it is the portrait of a stranger. But the subject of this portrait interests me immensely, and I hold a degree of affection for it. If she caught a glimpse of what I have painted she would know by the way my brush has flown across the canvas. This stranger is a friend to me.