The Weight of a Glance

I keep a small, rusted iron key in a velvet pouch, though I have long since forgotten which door it once opened. It is heavy for its size, cold to the touch, and carries the faint, metallic scent of a house that no longer exists. We spend our lives collecting these fragments—the keys to rooms we have vacated, the names of streets we no longer walk, the fleeting expressions of people who were once strangers. There is a particular kind of ache in being seen when we are not yet ready to be known. It is the instinct to retreat, to pull the world close like a shawl, and to hide the softest parts of ourselves behind the sturdy structures of our daily lives. We are all, in some way, holding onto the bamboo poles of our own making, waiting for the moment when the gaze of another feels less like an intrusion and more like an invitation. If we let go of the support, do we fall, or do we finally learn how to stand in the open?

Abbas Jambughodawala has captured this delicate hesitation in his beautiful image titled Shying to Camera. It reminds me that the most honest parts of our history are often found in the moments we try to hide. Does this quiet retreat speak to you of a memory you once kept hidden?