“The writer should never be ashamed of staring.”
           — Flannery O'Connor

I want to write about how beautiful people are, especially in their cars when they think no one is looking, faces in repose at a traffic light, anonymous and unassuming, daydreaming, having made this trip so many times they don’t need to pay attention. I want to write about the small dry leaves on the side of the road and the smell of their decay, but I don’t want to say decay, or sweetness, or death. I want to write about my mother, but nothing very poignant. The man in the car behind mine stared at the same nothing I saw, and what was in his gaze, his face shaded, maybe he was thinking of pizza for lunch, or his hiking trip in the Sierras, or his recent diagnosis of cancer — but his face was peaceful, beatific, and I loved to watch him looking through the window. I like to stare at people, to take each face in, make them part of me for a while. My mother had the same talent or affliction, and many times I caught her staring at me, drinking me in, the way they say lovers do. What must it be like birthing children — not the actual act, but the fact that you are part of someone forever — you send them out in the world knowing you were their first, deepest love, their drinking in, their face of all faces, their thoughtless beauty.