29 December 2012 nonfiction, "Eye Contact"

Eye contact is one of the most influential moments in meeting a person.

You know from the moment you make eye contact with someone what kind of relationship you will have with them. It’s all depending on how long your eyes meet theirs, whether your eyes stay trained on each other’s, (or whether one of you flicks your eyes over to somewhere else.) I have had a personal experience with eye contact that I swear I will never forget. It was with me, a sweet sixteen year old, and a boy I had never spoken to, never seen before, but who changed something in me. He stared in my eyes, and I, the gentle little girl who never had the courage to really use her eyes for their natural power of soul-staring, was able to pay back the favor and stare right back.

I think the strangest thing was that I couldn’t look away. There was something in me that wouldn’t let my regular rationale take over, and my eyes searched his hungrily, as if looking for treasures hidden in a place only staring could reveal to me. His deep brown eyes mirrored mine.

It didn’t last too long at all, since we were at an intersection and the moment could last only as long as there was no gap in the cars passing. And I remember wishing I could have made the moment last, if just long enough for me to figure it out.

But let me backtrack.

That day was one full of busy sightseeing. We had seen Dachau, arrived in Munich to see the Olympic stadium, and now we were entering a park that had been recommended as “worth seeing.” Given a ticket to enter by a “shaggy hippie” as my father humorously and fondly labeled the man working the ticket booth.

From the moment I saw what was happening to my right, I knew that my experience would be a special one.

I don’t know the entire technical description, but basically water was entering a river of sorts from some sort of underground tunnel. There was a water wall, and the entire thing formed an “endless wave” effect. And with an endless wave, of course there would be an endless plethora of surfers, greedy to take their turn to sufficiently show their skills to a crowd just as mesmerized as if they had been watching aliens landing right there on earth in front of them. We didn’t really watch them at first, instead we walked through the park and were flashed by bikers’ lights and nudists alike. And yes, there were boys there who did stare at me, but this situation and the one aforementioned could not have been more different. This was what I was used to, the flicking over of eyes, the staring that shoved my eyes to the ground in an embarrassed movement that showed my shyness and thanked God for granting me beauty, all in one smooth sweep. This was how it always was, and I was happy with it.

But when we returned from our walk around the park, a large place indeed, we watched the surfers, and immediately were pulled in by the simple entertainment. It really was always the same thing. Just some guys, trying to look the coolest, have some fun, and surf the wave until they were swept away, only to jump right out to get in the line designed for beginning anew.

Yes there were a few that caught my eye. One I thought was really cute, a couple I thought were pretty talented. A boy with a green surfboard caught my attention and held it because he satisfied both criteria, being cute and talented. He was kind of short, had dark brown hair cropped close to his head, and he seemed to just have a natural connection with the waves. He went back and forth and back and forth, submerging only when he tried a trick that was too hard or when he felt it polite to let others take a turn. I was mesmerized.

I was sad when it was time for us to go. I had wanted so badly to interact with these surfers, this strange population of teenage boys that were as passionate about conquering the river wave as any regular ocean surfer aspires to conquer the ocean. No matter if they weren’t that good, they had the drive, and with enough persistence and testosterone, the fear was flushed right out of their systems as quickly as the water was flushed out of the tunnel and into the endless wave.

But alas, the time had come and we were forced to part with the teenage boys that had finally satisfied my craving for an experience with my peers. Yet the evening was not quite over.

As we drove out, and ended up at the intersection near the tunnel, I saw one of the surfers, the infamous boy with the green surfboard, standing feet away holding a conversation with an unknown man. Of course they were speaking German, we were in Germany. My poor American mind could not understand.

But this moment, this little interaction between me and a boy I had never met before, it screamed all the words we two were not able to communicate with each other. It was strange, mystifying, beautiful. It was something too slippery for my rationalizing mind to grab ahold of, and perhaps I like it that way.

I don’t know what he felt, but I definitely felt something. Something stirred in the back of my mind, and I will always remember this day. Remember how we left and I could not stop thinking about that moment. The moment that left me wondering whether I had just lost my mind, or caught a small glimpse of that rare beauty the critics call love at first sight.