Being Seen

The other day I was on a Zoom call.

Weren’t we all?

As we sit inside our homes inside a pandemic.

I was one of 78 people on the call,

All these eyes on me.

And I know eyes on me.

I’m an actor and I’ve stood on stage,

In front of eyes. Lots of pairs

Of eyes. Taking me in. And I love

The feeling of eye attention. It also scares me.

Being seen. Even with the trappings of a character.

But these Zooming eyes?

They were looking at themselves. Not me.

As if they were in front of a mirror,

Like the one in their bathrooms.

I heard someone say that we’re living in an

‘Attention Economy’

And that makes sense.

Giving ourselves all the attention.

The ‘look-at-me’ availability that the Web provides.

These 78 people were looking into my living room.

They’d come into my home uninvited,

And could now see me seated in my dad-chair,

With the bookshelf behind.

Intruders in my home.

I thought of going to the windows of my sunroom

And cranking open a window.

I imagined the same 78 people standing there in a cluster,

Spilling out onto 36th Street. Waiting to be invited in.

Staring at me and me back at them.

Cows in a field.