The Eyes of Time

First, watch this video – I believe it’s a clip from the movie “The Artist is Present” which is about the life and works of Marina Abramovic.

The minute where the two meet eye to eye is amazing and beautiful, stunning. I know I'll never forget it, because I know the experience.

It doesn’t really need a history, but here it is: Marina Abramovic and Ulay started an intense love story in the 70s, performing art out of the van they lived in. When they felt the relationship had run its course, they decided to walk the Great Wall of China, each from one end, meeting for one last big hug in the middle and never seeing each other again. At her 2010 MoMa retrospective Marina performed ‘The Artist Is Present’ as part of the show, where she shared a minute of silence with each stranger who sat in front of her. Ulay arrived without her knowing and this is what happened.

As I’ve watched this, and I’ve watched it many times now, each time I am moved, and each time I find something new.

As with Marina and Ulay, it seems like a tale of love and loss, perhaps it is, perhaps it isn’t. While we as humans may feel a deep loss after a love ends, another idea  is simply that love has only changed form. Personally I’ve loved and lost. Even to this day it’s bittersweet as I remember the profound love between us, but rarely enough expressed. The loss is just as bittersweet with the grief of the separation and the knowing that it probably was in both of our best interests. For me, the love and loss as been one of my greatest gifts in this life. To know and feel both and how much they are so much the same.

One minute, it’s a rather short period of time, all things considered. For these two, time didn’t exist, it was a flash and an eternity. So it is in the real world as well. Time is relative, as Einstein was so keen to discover and point out to us. I love his quote, “Put your hand on a hot stove for a minute, and it seems like an hour. Sit with a pretty girl for an hour, and it seems like a minute. THAT'S relativity.” Time is only what we make of it, especially when in the company of others. How will you be with your time?

The most profound facet of this is the eyes, the gazing. Have you really ever looked into someone’s eyes? Without talking, without moving, without distracting yourself. Just being there with that person. It doesn’t matter for how long, it can be a few seconds or an hour. If you really let yourself fall into it, open to see and be seen, it’s one of most amazing experiences. It can be planned, to just sit with someone and gaze. It can be spontaneous – perhaps at a restaurant and conversation stops, eyes settle, and you’re just there. Or as happened to me just a few weeks ago, in the middle of a grocery store on a lunchbreak meeting the eyes of a friend. You don’t even have to know each other that well – you might just tear up as you greet each other in a whole new way.

Just watch again and see what stirs in you.