Love, To Be Known

In writing we always talk about finding your "voice."

There is a presumption that everyone wants to be heard.

John Berger in his classic, Ways of Seeing, considers, among other propositions, the concept of wanting to be seen, as well as needing to see.

These wishes, or needs, to speak, to be heard; to learn, to be taught; to feel and to be felt are universal, presumably, although they certainly vary by culture, not to mention gender, age, and personality.

That is a word I rarely use -- personality. Why do I shy away from it, when it is so clear to everyone that we have widely varying personalities.

Of course, "clear to everyone else" might be a better way to put it when it comes to our lack of ability to perceive our own personalities.

The other night, after I finished guest lecturing at a class at a local university, the professor, who is also a fellow journalist friend, and I discussed interviewing, one of the journalist's main tools.

He talked about how hard it is for anyone to truly understand the effect they have on others. Thus, he asks his students to stand before a mirror and talk, to try and gauge how their facial features and expressions might impact people they are interviewing.



All of these thoughts came rushing in on me yesterday when my youngest son gave me a gift from Mexico -- a hand-made model car, made out of scraps of metal, screws and spark plugs.

He said he knew the minute he saw it that I would like it; that it was the perfect gift for me.

And, of course, he was right -- in fact, I love it.

My father would have liked it too, for the same reasons I do, which is interesting.

My son therefore knows not only me and my tastes but those of the grandfather he never got to know. (My father died when this boy was not yet three.)

Anyway, today, as I was showing the car to my friend, I felt a wave of gratitude to my son for knowing me so well.

Whatever else can be said about us, we -- he and I -- have our understandings of one another, on deep levels, and those include the types of things either of us like.

Recently, I gave him a book I knew he would love, and he does.

This reciprocity, so simple in one way, is profound in another. It's one of the components, in my book, of true love.

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