Contact
July 13th, 2009 | Published in Creative Essays | 1 Comment
by Sanaz Ghajarrahimi
A modern girl’s weary quest for worldwide connection.
This week, from Leeds.
In an attempt to begin a discourse, I shall commence with what I have found to be one of the greatest challenges that sneaks up on every human being at some point in their young lives: the art of contact. I am at this very moment on an expedition across the sea, hoping desperately for a great meeting of some sort… or several for that matter. Romance is not the right word. I seek contact. To look into the soul of what seems at first alien and find myself, even if for a passing moment, reflected in another human.
What is it that makes the art of contact so extraordinarily daunting? Perhaps it is the fact that at its core it is uncontrollable as it begins with an impulse, a physical response of the body. Rapid beating. Palpitating pulses shake the heart. Wetness seeps through the pores. The eyes dilate to 100 times their normal size. The irrepressible urge some call desire seizes the body, at once thrilling and overwhelming. And all this often merely from a sideways glance in an unassuming direction, a miscalculated locking of eyes, a brief moment of connection… perhaps on a windy British day… perhaps in a crowded pub – that leaves the body aching for more.
What is the root of this absolute need for contact? Be it emotional or physical – contact – a touch, a tension line across the room that creates gravitational pull, can leave one in an epic state inside what is (from the outside) a mundane experience. In one’s mind that mundane can instantaneously be transformed into a creature of fantasy, with the hope that this fantasy has the possibility of being reciprocated and moved into the real.
With the advent of technological romance in our modern world these mundane situations turned epic begin to hold in them more hope, more gravitas if you will, than previously possible. Countless online websites like “Missed Connection” make possible the search for that spark between eyes that got away. Being the master of collecting these lost sparks myself, I could fill volumes with these hit and misses:
Dear Leeds Bartender Man,
Two drunken lesbians were hitting on you last Saturday night when I looked up and found your eyes for a brief moment. Perhaps not so brief? Perhaps you remember this? I was wearing a blue sailor jacket and a mousy expression hidden behind The Guardian… You had short glorious blonde hair and an amazingly bold tattoo on your right arm – which means you can handle pain… I find that incredibly sexy. I should have told you that but I had to write it down and think about it first…
Dear Bicycle Salesman,
We met in a club two weeks ago. You slapped my ass and accidentally dropped me on the concrete outside trying t kiss me. I think your name was Chris… or Danny… or Ben. At the time I ran away due to your frisky nature, which now haunts me. Where are you?
Dear Art Friend,
We were both at the Leeds Gallery last Sunday. I was watching a documentary on German communism. You came and sat next to me. It was dark so I’m not sure how to describe you except your hair was tangled and I felt there was sexual tension. What that a first date perhaps?
Looking at just a few of my own missed connections as of recent makes me wonder: How often can we let these chances at epic romance go by before they run out? These daily glances, these moments that often rule our daily daydreams could be moments of greatness in real life if acted on.
As the world wide web can attest, what we have on our hands is a plague of missed connections. As we drink our loggers and eat our peanuts, smoke our cigarettes and read our newspapers, ride the train to work and fill out paperwork at the post office, buy eye cream and pick our produce… who is watching? Who is falling in love with the crossword puzzle you filled in at a bar two hours ago, or the adorably drunken picture of a shoe you drew on today’s Independent Life Magazine? Well for one, I am. I just did.
I am the mouse who lives for the images strangers write on bathroom walls and inside little newspapers, but never has the courage to actually take action. In that sense I must come to terms with my own cowardice. I lack the willingness to put myself out there on the line, to give it my all, full well knowing it may turn out terribly. The risk of contact also comes with the risk of awkwardness and rejection, neither of which I am good at. But isn’t that a risk worth taking when the outcome could be something epic and heart stopping? Comes back to that old expression, better to feel something than nothing at all I suppose.
Another night in Leeds. Another beer. A final bag of peanuts before I head out tomorrow to London, Manchester, and beyond! And what have I learned about the art of contact in the five weeks I’ve been here? In the five weeks I’ve been counting down to return to a larger, glossier city? Something that is clearer to see inside a small town where the microscopic is more easily magnified. Inside a small gesture, a turn of the head… a flicker of the eye… or a carefully chosen seat… lies the possibility for contact. But possibility is energy wasted if I constantly stands in the corner, behind a computer, in a state of perpetual potential that is not acted upon. Sometimes the most terrifying thing in the world is to allow oneself to be in the center of it all reaching out. The corner is easy. Aim for contact.
August 9th, 2009at 5:45 am(#)
bullet-proof vest exist because they protect your vital organs, and although it would suck hardcore to get shot in the crotch, you have a much better chance of surviving than if you were shot in the heart. although it is a friggin good idea.