Writing with Juliet Iwelunmor

I have been thinking lately about seeing and being seen. Photos for example, are moments in time that enable us to see, the subject, their stance, their worldview, whether good or bad. All of it are captured in an image that enables the eyes to see. It’s an art form too that illustrates a certain kind of silences or certain kind of death. We die with each photo. Being seen is different. An image may reflect joy or pain, being crushed and beaten down, or in profound celebration, all while doing so with clarity and precision. Yet for all its power, there are still so many invisible things hidden and out of view with any image captured in a photo. Those invisible things, all of which shape our realities, allow for the possibility of being seen, the possibilities of freedom. The stories we write, all of them celebrate our joy, reflect our hurdles, our missed roads, the right turns, the things that propel us forward, those that bring us back to the beginning, every single time we connect all our stories together, we live, we choose to be seen, we are also free. That’s how important it is, an experience with a freedom worth fighting for.

The struggle to be seen goes on when those capturing any image stop seeing. Pacts are drawn between people and themselves, about what they see, how they wish to be seen, which in turn have consequences for how they are seen. Where eyes only see what we reflect, where images are a products of one’s mind often not in relation to another, where perceptions of being seen are lost or never even reflected, then it would seem that the same capacity to being seen, to feel, imagine, or even dream must be restored by any means necessary. The images or stories we write for ourselves first, those that point the way to being seen, even if for ourselves first, are all we have, all we keep, to survive a day, remember yesterday, while we plan for tomorrow. We keep them, keep them, for those of us, all of us, who will awaken one day, to the life moving within us. We are reminded too that how we choose to be seen are inseparable from how we live. Being seen recuses us from just seeing, that which may be in the single image captured, to the experience, restoration and transformation even of our collective existence.

We have the power to actively engage in storytelling, the hopes and struggles of daily living. All the ways we live, the mistakes we make, the conflicts we harbor, the people that make us cringe, those that make us laugh, the things we learn that speak to us, the seasons that enable us to change, the things that matter, we keep, that becomes a life thing of its own, all this with a plan, is what we do, when we choose to be seen. Choose to be free. The freedom, the possibilities, the art, the dreams, the energy, and so much more will pour out from you, when you begin with the stories you tell. People who do not choose to be seen, not in a single image, or a single frame, are dead. You only need to look at them and see for yourself what death looks and feels like. Also, where seeing has been left to some, with their single snapshot too that becomes dead when their camera shuts, the stories for ourselves, all we keep, all of them that illustrate all the ways we choose to be seen, are how we live.

I am in a space where stories are my vehicle to being seen, that space where dreams of who and what I am, where I plan to go, with whom, and why, are my own to write, all of in complete freedom, whether understood or not, misused or not. These stories are patient, constantly being defined and undefined, like the magic of being seen. We have a right to be seen. To tell our stories, our way, starting from our beginning, down through all the motions between, the actions and reactions, the worlds we shape, the people we reach, the things we learn, the gift of change, the sense of what we have right now, and worthy of keeping, all of this enables us to see ourselves, and all the ways we begin again in freedom. It’s this magic of being seen that I choose to keep this season of dreams.