“The soul, fortunately, has an interpreter – often an unconscious but still a faithful interpreter – in the eye.”
Charlotte Brontë, Jane Eyre
By: Gabriela Yareliz
For some, our identities are complex and odd things that have layers upon layers. Some layers are closer to the heart. Some stick together. Others hide. Some layers are loud, while others are dormant. Not everyone has many layers. I’ve met people who are quite one or two-dimensional. And there is nothing wrong with that. Perhaps, it is a gift. They are polished and branded. They are neatly wrapped– the kind of box that has ribbon. But to those of us who have been thrust into the unfamiliar repeatedly and often, we find ourselves with worlds inside. We are the messier, unconventional boxes. The ones that may look plain on the outside, but once opened, create more questions than answers. Enigmas, a respected mentor of mine, Bob Lang, would say. That word always reminds me of him.
I watched Jane Eyre, tonight. It has been years since I came back to this story. I can’t even begin to describe what the text means to me. It’s one of those manuscripts that is a wise friend. The gorgeous film took me back to the British countryside– a world I so often visited and revisited as a child and young person, in books. These books were like drops of water than would expand into every corner of my being, the stories and lessons filling me like an ocean. Revisiting this particular story filled me to the brim with an emotion I hadn’t forgotten but had been absent from me. As the film credits rolled, my sight was blurred by tears. I was so moved. I am not sure why, but I know I felt it, and it mattered. Sometimes, that’s all we can really articulate. We live our lives so structured, guarded and public that we forget to allow ourselves to wander.
There are things that can evoke such emotion in us. They remind us of the things we once knew, the people we were and are, the people we have lost who haunt us ever so slightly, and the love held deeply there, in the breast pocket of the soul.
Once in a while, some kind of alchemy brings us a gift that the soul yearns for. It draws our mind at the time it is needed most. We sometimes are afraid the gift is too messy or unconventional to accept it. However, if we decide to accept it, it can revive a little acreage of heart and turn it green. Like a struck match, it illuminates dark corners and sparks the eye and reminds us that we are home.
GABRIELA YARELIZ 