A colleague asks a question in a meeting. You know the answer. Or think you do. The question reminds you of something you read, a framework that fits, a solution you’ve used before. Your mouth is forming the first words.
Then: a half-second of silence. Not strategic silence, not the pause before the perfectly crafted response. Just pause. The question sits there, unresolved. You notice you’re about to answer a question that isn’t the one being asked.
The understanding you were ready to offer would have been accurate, relevant, helpful. It would have closed something before it opened.
——
At CAM, the Gulbenkian’s modern art museum in Lisbon, a room of Paula Rego paintings. Dark, disturbing, late work. A woman stands in front of one for a long time. Just looking. Her companion arrives from another gallery, reads the wall text aloud, explains the feminist context, the critique of power, the childhood references.
The first woman keeps looking. She hasn’t yet decided what she’s seeing. The painting is still painting, not yet lesson.
Understanding transforms experience into possession. The moment you know what something means, it stops being able to mean anything else.
——
A child brings you a drawing. Scribbles, really. Colours everywhere. Distorted shapes. Strange dimensions. You’re about to say “That’s beautiful!” or “Tell me about it!” or “Is that a house?”
Before you speak: what if you just looked? What if the drawing didn’t need to become anything—didn’t need to be beautiful, didn’t need a narrative, didn’t need to represent?
The structure of parenting tells you to respond, to engage, to encourage. Fair enough. But there’s a moment before the response, a fraction of attention when the drawing is still becoming, when your interpretation hasn’t yet closed off its possibilities.
That moment is so brief you usually miss it.
——
