Wishful Seeing

Dear Divinely-inspired Work of Art that You Are,

I wonder if you can relate to Josie’s dating story below.

First, some background:

We’re a few weeks into a drawing class I teach at the Portland Art Museum. One of the students — I’m calling her Josie — identified herself as a complete beginner, even wondering via email, before the session started, whether she should give up her spot to someone “more qualified.”

I told her the class is for all levels and welcomed her to join us.

She did, and each week she is full of questions: Am I doing this right? How would you start this section? What’s the best way to get that specific effect? She asks for feedback about drawings she’s done outside of class as well.

Low-Stakes Wishful Seeing

I chose a portrait gallery as the location for our first few classes, and Josie showed a knack for drawing people right away. The faces she creates in her sketchbook are lovely — more lovely, in most cases, than the paintings on the museum wall that she’s using as source material. We’ve been talking each week about how she can be more true to the subject, as she has a tendency to draw what she wished it looked like, rather than what is actually there.

(I focus a lot in my class on learning how to see. It’s harder than you might expect.)

Medium-Stakes Wishful Seeing

One week during a similar conversation, Josie laughed and said, “I do that in my life, too — sort of sugar-coat things. I’m recently dating again, after being widowed for many years. I’ve noticed that I tend to enhance the online profile of the men I’m interested in, hearing what I want it to say. It’s backfired a few times, so now I’m trying to be clear-eyed about seeing what it really says!”

We chuckled. Yes, exactly.

But isn’t that the way many of us move through the world? We put a glossy sheen over the things we don’t want to look at, or explain the messy parts away. It can feel easier, cleaner, and even kinder, when in fact it often contributes to confusion and conflict (or worse) down the road.

I was quick to point out to her — because I’m so impressed with the fluidity and details in her drawings — that I don’t want to undo or erase that natural ability she has to create beauty. There’s definitely a place for it. I guessed that she’s someone who can find the silver lining in any situation, and likely helps others put a positive spin on things. It’s true, she confirmed.

We need that.

However in the drawing class, as in many areas of life, honest observation and representation are more useful than wishful seeing. Chances are, we could all use a little more practice dealing with the Truth of what’s in front of us.

Sometimes the Stakes are High

Take our schools’ history curricula, for example. Right now many conservatives, from politicians to parents, are working to edit out the hard stuff, like the fact that our country’s very foundation was built with stolen labor on stolen land. The Truth is that the United States would literally not exist, would not have been able to grow and thrive economically, were it not for that enormous accumulation of “free stuff” our government and it’s privileged classes of people gained by theft, deceit, and brutality.

Do kindergarteners need to be presented with every gruesome detail? No one is arguing that they should. But when grown-ups, who are unable to handle the Truth themselves, decide that the solution is to hide the Truth from everyone, well, that’s trouble.

Truth is a Pre-Requisite for Healing

In last month’s podcast, called What Makes Healing So Hard, I used the analogy of a car crash victim, and I think it holds up here.

Say a person is all banged up and bruised from being in an accident, with cuts all over their body and likely some broken bones. Covering them in bubble wrap and sticking them in a dark closet will do nothing to help them heal. Nor will downplaying or distorting what happened. (“You’re lucky you had a car to drive!”) Nor will putting their arm in a splint when the fracture is in their leg.

Any first aid course — and common sense — directs us to first find and examine the wounds. We clean them gently, applying appropriate salves and supportive protection like casts or slings or bandages, if needed. Eventually we expose them to air circulation again, letting the wounds breathe in the light of day and scar over.

We know that physical wounds heal this way. I argue in the podcast that our emotional and psychological wounds would benefit from the same gentle, truthful handling, and I gave some suggestions for locating the buried wounds.

Today I’ll also add that our national wounds — racism, sexism, the way patriarchal rights to power- and wealth-accumulation are privileged over the well-being of the collective — are no different. They’ve been festering in the dark long enough. It’s time to muster our courage and take an honest look, for everyone’s sake. It’s the only way healing can begin.

Intention and Attention

One huge difference between Josie’s actions and those of the conservatives I mentioned is that she wants to see the Truth. She is asking for ways to hone her seeing skills, actively uncovering her blind spots and re-training her eyes. She’s also beginning to discern when it’s important to pay attention to the Truth of what is in front of her, and when she can feel free to let her imagination run wild. ⚡️Both are important and useful, depending on the situation.

Florida’s governor, by contrast, is exclaiming to the world that he will keep his eyes firmly shut and continue sleepwalking indefinitely. Denial appears to be his superpower. How else do we interpret a slogan like “Stop WOKE”?

My Wish For Us All

May we all learn to distinguish between creative imagination and willful ignorance. Then may we grow wise enough to handle, with care, the difficult Truths of this world. Only then can we be made whole.

With big love,
Pam

P.S. If you want a gentle guide for starting to unwind some of your deeply ingrained habits (we’ve all been trained in patriarchal white supremacist thinking — don’t take it personally!), I recommend my book, Doodle Your Way Out of Stuckness. It’s meaty yet whimsical, sprinkled with humor and delight. Take a gander here. It’s also available in a digital version, and as a gift set, complete with colored pencils and a sharpener.