When I’m at work up on my drawbridge and the weather is nice, I often like to sit with the windows open. We get quite a few walkers and joggers on the bridge, and a few will wave as they go by, but more often than not people will look right at me and not really see me. It’s a strange phenomenon. They will chat about the most intimate, personal and shocking things with each other, as if they think I won’t hear them. I know more than a few secrets and scandals that I would rather not have become privy to.
When I tell people what I do for a living, they will frequently say they cross that bridge all the time and didn’t even realize someone was up there. It’s not like we’re hiding. And the bridge certainly does not open itself. Go figure.
It makes me wonder how many other people go unnoticed in this world. Can you describe your mailman or the person who rings up your groceries? Does the receptionist at your doctor’s office have blond hair or black? What was your toll booth operator wearing just now? Who just handed you that double hamburger with cheese?
I recently wrote a blog entry called “This is Who I Am” and mentioned that the older I have gotten, the more invisible I seem to have become, and I’ve gotten a great deal of feedback from people who share that experience.
We’re all unique individuals with lives and stories to tell, but it seems that a great deal of us wander about unseen, or at least unacknowledged and unappreciated.
As you go through your day today, look at the people with whom you cross paths, and really, really try to see them.
The Happy Donor by Magritte, one of my favorite artists.
The View from a Drawbridge 
We truly are invisible and I don’t know if that makes me happy or sad. A very poignant article.
Sometimes it comes in handy. 🙂 Experiencing it firsthand also makes me make more of an effort to see others, so that is good. And when I am acknowledged, it makes me appreciate it even more, so that’s good too.
That is true. Being more mindful is not a bad quality at all! Hugs.
Hugs! 🙂
Sometimes it’s safer that way. The students that sits back and off to the left, so that they won’t be called upon. The cashier that talks to the co-worker at the next register so she doesn’t have to make eye contact. The people that never volunteer, or raise their hand to ask a question. Sometimes they take jobs that don’t have a Supervisor looking over their shoulder every 20 minutes, or a position that has few employees and allows them breathing space so they aren’t pressured to open the privacy they cloak around their lives. But in most cases, it is the average Joe or Joann that is so engrossed in their own life that they never look up and see what is around them. Surely, then they would see that, that garbage man is more interesting than the Grand Canyon, the Drawbridge Operator is as intelligent as any professor, the window washer is as daring as any athelte, and the person looking out at them from any window is as colorful as any rainbow.
What a lovely sentiment, Carole. Thank you. I have to admit I’m guilty of the supervisor and coworker thing. The fact that I’m still a bridgetender after all these years is that I might see my supervisor about 30 minutes a month, tops, and my coworkers only 15 minutes a day at shift change. I don’t like drama. It’s not that I don’t want to see them or be seen. It’s that when I do, I see them all too well.
LOL, I have looked through a camera far too long to not see all that happens on the other side. A photographer becomes so invisible that the subjects let all guards drop.
We, that cringe at being micro managed gravitate to night shifts, and jobs that allow creativity, willingness to get the job done, and those that pride them selves on being self-starters. We are the balance people, that most employers are willing to accept our little quirks and leave us alone because we cause no problems and make their jobs so much eaiser.
Very true, although I have to admit the night shift is getting old.
A blog is a good way to feel less invisible…
You think so? I think I hide behind my anonymous words. But it does leave a legacy and reveals your thoughts and, like I said the other day, exposes your soft underbelly. But even though I think you and I have formed a friendship, for example, I doubt we could reliably pick each other out of a crowd (well, maybe I could if you were wearing your sunglasses or your striped footy pajamas), and there’s a certain comfort in that, isn’t there?
Uh… I am 6 feet 4 inches tall and look exactly like my pictures…
Exposing your soft underbelly, actually makes it eaiser to relate to you and others. Think, you have attracted over 17.000 views, and I imagine this will grow greatly as you continue to express what many of us feel, but do not have the power of your words.
I hope so!