Writing my way through the A-to-Z blogging challenge, I’m sharing my thoughts and reflections on a lexicon (vocabulary specific to a certain subject) of unusual, obscure, or simply charming-to-me words. Ludic is defined as “playful, in an aimless way” and that’s my plan for approaching this challenge – keeping my feet on the joy trail and meandering wherever the daily word takes me.
F is for…
Flâneuse – the French word for a woman who saunters around observing the world.
A tip of the chapeau to my beautiful French friend Valerie Jégo Marsh who introduced me to this word.
I feel such kinship with this word and truly delight in the idea of sauntering around the world observing. Sauntering is the perfect pace, and observing is one of my favorite states.
Today I’m musing about eyes. Blame it on a dream – a garden of eyes pointing me in the direction of a lone tree in a meadow – a tree with eyes in its bark. I’ve been contemplating that dream for days. And thinking about all the ways eyes have always intrigued me.
Back when I was a teenager I was obsessed with color. I was forever painting my bedroom furniture and dyeing my sheets and clothes. One day I was working with a dilute bleach solution and happened to splash it in one of my eyes. I rinsed and rinsed and rinsed, and thankfully no damage was done. But I had the craziest thought that maybe when I next looked in the mirror my once brown eye would be a curious shade of tan.
I have a thing about mismatched eyes. Ages ago an onine friend commented that she had noticed in one of my papercut self-portraits my eyes are slightly different. Since we’d never met in person, she was wondering if that was really the case, whether it was artistic license, or what the scoop really was.
In reality my eyes are pretty much the same. But it’s true I always deliberately make them slightly different in my self-portraits. I do this as a tribute to my older sister who died when I was in my 20s. She had amazing eyes. Color-wise they were an artist’s dream (or nightmare) – that unnameable shifting gray-green hue that no amount of paint mixing can capture. But even more intriguing to me was the fact that there was a slight, but noticeable difference in their shape. I found it utterly fascinating.
As I got older I began to take to heart the metaphorical message of looking at things with different eyes. And I always counted on my sister to see things differently – to be able to offer me the slightly variant perspective. Was it the wisdom of an elder sister? Perhaps. But there’s no disputing she was seeing with different eyes.
Now when I do altered-eye self portraits, I do it as a tribute to her. A reminder of my connection to her, and a little inside joke that I’m keeping my eye on her and know she’s watching me too. But mostly it reminds me to honor the fact that I see things differently.
John Dalton certainly thought we saw differently based on the color of our eyes. Back in 1794 he published a paper entitled “Extraordinary Facts Relating to the Visions of Colours.” In it he posited that because he had blue eyes, he had lens liquids in his eyeball that were tinged blue. He further thought that because of this people with blue eyes couldn’t see the color blue in nature exactly the way others who didn’t have blue eyes could.
Another color curiousity: after my mother had a stroke, one of the cognitive impairments she suffered was quite peculiar – she began seeing crows as white.
My father had a different vision issue. He had very severe macular degeneration – the condition where the center of the visual field is affected so images become blurred beyond recognition. It’s like having great holes in one’s field of vision, so in time only peripheral vision exists. Because he also later suffered from Alzheimers, I came to wonder exactly what he was seeing, and began to think of his holey vision as perhaps holy vision.
My dream about the eye flowers also had me thinking about potatoes. Yeah, I know – what can I say? My brain loves to meander over a whole lot of ground. Why are potato sprouts called eyes? And doesn’t it make you wonder if potatoes are busy keeping an eye on things underground? What do you suppose they see?
Sauntering back to the more serious, I love this quote by Hafiz and thinks it’s a fabulous invitation on how to walk in this world.
“Why not become the one who lives with a
full moon in each eye that is
always saying,
with that sweet moon language,
what every other eye in
this world is
dying to
hear?”
What do you see? What color lens are you using? What are you keeping your eyes on? Do tell – you know I love to hear.
Love the meandering, and sauntering
LOL – it’s definitely one of my superpowers.
When I taught middle school art we’d do self-portraits, and I’d tell the kids that basically no one is perfectly symmetrical… and then they’d get mad at me because they’d never before noticed they were asymmetrical, and once they saw it they couldn’t unsee it! But I like that you embrace it.
Black and White: F for Faerie
I can imagine doing self-portraits in middle school was amazing!
I love the word flâneuse. Even the verb it’s derived from flâner, to wander aimlessly, to stroll is so beautiful. Lovely post.
Thanks for the kind words. It really is a beautiful word and concept, isn’t it?
I love the words you have been finding and your writing is beautiful as ever – you exhibit yourself as a Flâneuse indeed…
What a lovely compliment, Andrew – thank you.
Hmm, j’adore flâner ;))
Quilting Patchwork & Appliqué
Making me laugh, Frédérique. And I must say I love immersing myself in your blog, even if I can’t read French. Still, I’m grateful your posts are bilingual. I wouldn’t want to miss any of the wonders you share.
Wow, I love this! I am so glad you came by and commented on experiencewriting.com, drawing me over here. What a great post! I love your story and all of your thoughts about different colored eyes.
Thanks, Maria. The challenge and getting to visit one another is great fun isn’t it?
I am enjoying your A-to-Z theme — I find words to be one of the great delights of life, so to say your ludic lexicon appeals to me might be an understatement. 😉
I particularly enjoyed your analogy in an earlier post about flowers only taking up the amount of space they take up and that’s the end of it. A rose need not be a tulip nor a daffodils be a peony. 🙂
The forest of eyes you describe from your dream feels a little scary, honestly. I remember from my childhood an older girl (she would have been a teen when I was in elementary school) who had two different colored eyes: one green, one brown. It was just an everyday thing to me, because she was someone I’d known my whole life, and then one day another (new to the neighborhood) kid commented about it — it scared her, for some reason — and suddenly I saw this ‘normal’ trait (normal = something I was accustomed to) as being DIFFERENT.
Funny how that works.
It IS funny how that works. As a child, I have such a clear memory of the first time I experienced someone seeing something about me that I hadn’t seen/known. While I never would have been able to express it that way, it certainly was an existential crisis. I felt thrown into such a vulnerable state, and distrust of everything I believed about myself. Sigh. Sometimes I’m not sure how any of us survive childhood.
I love the word Flâneuse. I shall go out today and saunter, looking at the world. I have to buy my husband a birthday present but will make sure I have a good look at everything around me. I really appreciate sight as I was very short sighted with astigmatism. I had laser surgery which helped a lot but now I wear glasses again and apparently a little cataract is growing. Ugh!
That’s a lovely plan, Linda – I hope you have a wonderful time.
I like your idea of an eye garden. Eyes and our vision are so important to us. I can’t imagine a worse tragedy than being blind.
It’s true; I would be quite sad to lose my vision. But the world is so generous in its gifts to us for all our senses.
What a great word! Sauntering is definitely the right pace to move through and observe the world. I love that you intentionally create slightly different eyes in your self-portrait. What a nice, personal touch and tribute to your sister.Weekends In Maine
It’s such a delightful pace, isn’t it?
Vision is one of the most subjective of the senses; what we look at is not necessarily what we see. Looking is passive, while seeing is active with our brains and feelings involved. It makes me think of that darned dress that took over the internet and which two colors it was. Much as I tried, I could only view it one way and that bothered me a lot. You’ve finally picked a word that I know, although I’ve mostly used the verb form.
I thought of you when I picked a French word Margaret – I knew you’d know it.
I’d forgotten about the great dress color debate. That was a very literal demonstration that we don’t all see the same thing. Even if we can agree on a color, I’m still absolutely convinced we’re each seeing our own interpretation and can have no idea what someone else is seeing. I’m utterly fascinated by that.
one indigenous story here tells of the crow that changed to black after starting out as white.
and again in indigenous telling – the crow or raven as we often call it is known as the eyes of Biami ( the creator) –
love how you flaneuse around in your mind and bring us offerings
thank you deborah
Oh, Sandra, those stories light me up! Crow/Raven is a beloved ally of mine, and I love hearing tales about them from other cultures.
Another thoughtfully composed post. If you don’t mind my asking, what happened to your sister? The eyes looking at a tree dream is so full of questions. I know that dreams like to speak in puns.
My “F” song for the day is here:
http://tao-talk.com/2021/04/07/a2z-2021-jethro-tull-songs-day-6-family-back-to-the-from-stand-up-1969/
I’m not entirely sure what you’re asking regarding my sister. She died of a rare form of ovarian cancer; but as to why her eyes were different, that’s a mystery I don’t have an answer to.
Dreams are such rich treasures – full of questions, full of invitations, filled with the unique language of one’s soul. My dreams are often filled with language play, including puns.
I love the concept of flâner, to stroll, aimlessly wander. Quite describes me in any city. I love walking and discovering new places as I go. Lovely post and choice of word.
It’s always a delight to find kindreds, and it seems lots of us enjoy this state of meandering and observing. I love that.
Such a wonderous word. Thank you for sharing.
Every post of yours I read, I become a little bit more of a fan of yours.
The way you look at your ‘losses’: your sister and your parents’ health, makes me renew my view of loss and disease.
BTW, we’ll have to have that flower-tickle match over ‘Flaneuse’ too:)
Thank you for your kind words Arti. And I’ll happily engage in a flower tickle match with you anytime. After we finish laughing, we’ll have to recover with a saunter worthy of any great flâneuse,
What a wonderful word. I find eyes fascinating, too. I agree with the saying that they are “windows to the soul”. Nowadays, with everyone wearing masks most of the time, I find that I rely more on reading people’s eyes. I am not good at noticing other details, but I do notice those subtle expressions.
My daughter and I both have greyish, ocean green eyes. My husband’s seem to change between brown and green depending on the light.
I agree eyes are wonderful windows. I’ve been curious about masking, too – will we collectively find our observational skills have shifted so we’re better at reading eyes?
Your family’s eyes sound wonderful. I once thought about doing a paint swatch project, mixing colors and painting as many eyes as possible. It still sounds fun to me.
“Flanieren” is used in German as well. It’s what you describe. Sauntering, window-shopping, people-watching, showing off your new clothes…
Thank your for visiting my blog – and leaving your link!
How interesting – thank you for sharing that! And I love the added component of showing off your new clothes. It makes sense that while one is sauntering one offers the perfect opportunity to be seen. I may need to up my fashion considerations now. 🙂