Things Seen and Unseen

You’ve got to be prepared for the things you can’t see… I think back to a story from The New Yorker, one of those pieces of writing that just sticks with you for years, about people who had survived tiger attacks in the Indian subcontinent. They all began in the same vein, recounting how “it came out of nowhere…”

The broken silence of the woods in Alaska as my can of dried beans rattled on my back during a run – so alert I could hear my heart beating in my ears. The primal fear of being eaten by a larger animal inhabits a different and older part of my brain than the place that worries about a co-worker or a tax bill.

You’ve got to be prepared for the pounce. The moment of realization that someone you thought was a friend doesn’t even like you and might actively want to hurt you. The treachery of transaction – a car sale, a job promotion, sexual vulnerability.

Politics. The backstories that remain hidden, that you can’t seem to draw out.

You’ve got to be prepared for the things you can’t see. The blood runs through my glowing veins when I hold a flashlight to my hand. I wonder which cells could mutate, go wrong, and marvel at the daily miracle of continued health. The pea-sized cyst grew unnoticed until it almost killed me, invisible even on the first CT scan. Later, tiny cells split and grew into a fetus, then a child, the kicks and protrusions from my belly, begging to be let out, to be seen.

The unbridgeable separation of someone who is in pain from someone who isn’t.

***

The worlds we live in are so layered, and impossible to fully discern. We have our earthly realm that we believe we understand – the body and our everyday sensations of hunger and physical needs. But these are changeable too, shaped by the animal, bacterial, and parasitic worlds that uphold us, shift our behavior, and even alter our personalities.

The intellectual or artistic realm is the world I have found myself in so often – my thoughts at night swirling with music or sentences, ideas and quixotic projects I’d never have enough hours to complete. Thus I envy the carpenter, the doctor, the farmer who can get his hands into the dirt and produce something tangible. My Russian engineer friend calls me a “blah-blah” person, and it is true - I outsource most practical tasks.

The spiritual realm of angels and demons and blind faith. Hebrews tells us the world that is seen was fashioned from the unseen word of God. Corinthians promises that the unseen is the eternal.

The world of cyberspace is superimposed over the physical realm. With Starlink, the sky-train of satellites hovering over my campsite, it seems difficult to escape that level of access (or surveillance) even in the wilderness. On a subway in New York or in a grocery line, whole crowds slip voluntarily into that digital world. I miss conversations on planes.

I first wrote this on paper; now I’m typing it. Soon it will live in the digital realm.

***

I think of all that is unseen in our borderlands: maquila factory conditions; detention facilities; the cuartitos at the bridge; executive sessions and boardroom luncheons; the hidden interiors of bathrooms, kitchen cupboards, bank accounts. The invisible domestic labor of scrubbing, scouring, ironing, cooking. The hierarchies we internalize but rarely name—my ability to cross the border with ease as a white woman versus someone with a different skin color, nationality, or appearance.

The financial traps and dangers of our consumer society that ensnare the vulnerable, which I see nearly every day in my neighborhood. Addiction, violence, dreams, hopes, fears, all that silently shapes a person.

But I strive for abundance over fear. You’ve got to be ready for the things you can’t see, but also the things you don’t pay attention to. I try to make it a point when I am hiking to notice something that is on the surface unremarkable. And there’s a lot out there to choose from. Tiny flowers, camouflaging insects, or a bird very high in the sky that is just surfing a wind current, effortlessly.

I spy with my little eye.

There is a glimmer of recognition, a hint of worlds blending. A validation; I see you.

Something that has wings.

Something that makes an imprint in the arroyo sand.

Something brown that resembles a stick.

Something that begins with the letter T and means a long straw to drink from deep in the ground, where the water might run in a desert thunderstorm.

Answer: Taproot. Or a plant that knows how to survive.

(Acknowledgment to Annmarie for the writing prompt.)