Faces

When I work in photoshop I am constantly working in layers and transparencies. Bringing in a new look and fading out the old look is a common trick in the computer program. When I look at someone I have known for a long time I see them in layers and transparencies.

It is weird.

I saw this in people before I ever used photoshop but I didn't know how to describe what I saw.

For example, when I look into the face of my mother or father I see their faces and expressions that I have seen through-out many years. A smile today makes me see the million smiles to that point. It is almost as if I began fading the layer of their current day face I would see their face that I knew as a teenager and then fade that face and find their more youthful face I knew as a young child. I never just see their face of the current day.

With my children I see the layers of faces from the day they were born.

These are the faces I love and know so well. They are the faces I trust.

I feel like Dorothy at the end of the "Wizard of Oz" when she awakes from her adventure and sees surrounding her the faces she knows and loves. These faces were with her in every aspect of her journey just as the faces in my life have been here for me in every aspect of my life's journey.

I am grateful for this gift. It fills me with a rush of warmth and love and with a perspective of life that overwhelms me.