| I've considered the fact that maybe I'm too young, too naive, too sporadic to write all this. Maybe I'm just another Scarlett O' Hara pining on the portrait of Ashley but ultimately not really knowing to whom or to what her heart belongs. But one thing I'm sure of, rare as that may be, there is a picture of a boy staring away lost in a world of his own forever imprinted in the back of my mind. It's like when I went to my friend's photography class. The real way you develop pictures, you know? Not digital or anything. You put the picture into the solution and watch as the shape and the form and color slowly start to appear.
The picture I'm talking about is like that. At first the picture itself didn't exist of course. I didn't see the real one until late of last summer. But it was there still, in my mind slowly developing. The tossled hair, the rough visage, and the eyes. I think I some fascination with people's eyes. There's a quote that says the eyes are the windows to the soul and I believe that to its most literal meaning. Most times I see someone's eyes and I'll say hey, you have nice eyes in a physical sense. But these eyes. Boy, they were, I mean they are, a little of something else. They're like the ocean, a deep blue, where you can see out and beyond. Beautiful they are, really.
And so it's funny, because I think ultimately to appreciate how awesome this boy really is, you'd have to see the picture that I have with me in my head- that I'll always have with me. But since that's nearly impossible, I will have to describe how it looks to you in words. The way he sits, slouching but still holding himself upward, is like how he's lazy, somehow always trying to evade responsibility and work. Yet he knows when it counts. And when it counts, he'll be the first one to run at the sound of the gun. He's holding his finger to his mouth as if he's about to say something but somehow can't find the words. And most times, he doesn't and is silent.
And last, his eyes. They're lost, but they seem to be searching for something. And I think that can be said of him and of all of us. From the cradle to the grave, we are in some perpetual search that only ends for the lucky. Only the lucky find in the end what they were looking for all along. The rest of us, meanwhile, content ourselves along the way with something a little more easily obtained, something a little less ambitious that what we had planned. Or we never figure out what we were searching for and die with a question on our lips that will never be answered. For many people, the search between right and wrong, just and injust, good and evil has been a popular theme. So popular, that from it religion was born from the minds of men. Whether God exists or not, is up to each individual- I will not preach. But some people spend their lifetimes searching for the line between right and wrong and the certainty that what they're doing is right. But in this picture that I have, there is a person for whom that search ended long ago. There is a moral and truth in him that I have never seen. You see, I get this feeling of hope and despair with him. On one hand, he is human like the rest of us, and while he lives, we all have something to learn and something to strive towards because after all, being good wasn't all that hard. And yet, it seems if he should ever go away, if I should ever forget, or anyone of us for that matter, it would be like a light has been turned off. Ironic.
What he is searching for, if not morality, I don't know, and probably I never will. Maybe it's love. Or maybe it's what love represents. Acceptance, partnership, trust, faith, stability, and the riddance of loneliness. Because the boy in the picture is sometimes very alone for the very same reasons that makes him so strong and good. He may never find someone who will match his integrity or if so, who can deal with his arrogance and blunt nature. But I pray to God, that he will be one of the lucky who find what they are searching for. He deserves to be lucky. More than anyone.
The boy is my best friend and whether or not our roads ever cross again, I don't know. But I will still have if nothing else, that picture, which hasn't stopped developing. And it will keep doing so until, well, his eyes have stopped searching. And when that happens, it will be a good day. A damn good day. |
