You lookin' at me?

A friend of mine has a theory that people have 'taxi' lights. These lights work something like a second sense - a radar. Happily hooked up? Out goes your light. You become almost invisible. Looking for action? On goes your light. I should add that she argues men's taxi lights never quite go out - that they always flicker hopefully. I've grown used to invisibility so having people stare (and not in a good way) has been an interesting experience. I keep telling myself - remember this, as a writer nothing is wasted. Younger men and women have looked universally sympathetic - more interesting has been the oddly aggressive, narrow eyed reaction of older men. A stonking black eye can in no way be compared to disfigurement, but I've had a glimpse of what it is like to be looked at with a mix of pity and revulsion. Yesterday we bumped into a friend at the playground - I took off my sunglasses to talk to her and she recoiled, wide eyed in horror. The check out girl in the supermarket gasped 'Omigoditshorrible!' An old lady cheerfully asked me if I'd been fighting.

There have been times I've longed for a mask to hide behind. I don't often covet material things but we had dinner with friends a few years ago - they had travelled a lot, and on the wall opposite the dining table there was a beautiful Noh mask from Japan. They are works of art - so simple, but the tiniest alteration to the face completely changes its effect. Noticing these minute differences is what will set your writing apart, being tuned in to what goes on around you will bring your work to life. Maybe you've come across John Berger's seminal book 'Ways of Seeing'? It was written in the 1970s and cut through complicated postmodern arguments about The Gaze to lucidly deconstruct the loaded way we look at things. I found a yellowed copy on the bookshelf of a house in France I was staying in the summer I was 17, and it turned me on to a completely new way of looking - it literally opened my eyes. Become like Baudelaire's wandering flaneur - be the detached observer who wastes nothing. Open your eyes.

TODAY'S PROMPT: Why not take a good look at something you take completely for granted? Maybe something you use or see everyday. Really look at it. Are trees brown? Are black eyes black? (Ans: no they are purple, yellow, red, green). Are shadows black - or are they blue? What colour is the door to your house that signifies 'home' to you at different times of the day? What does your handbag/workbag really look like, feel like, smell like - do you remember how the marks and wrinkles got there, what is hiding in the bottom corners?