Think about a face. Any face. Is it your mother? Your brother? A man you've never met? A woman too old to move? Too fat? A tiny insect? A happy dog? A chimp?
Now think about a woman. Any woman. One with hands made of silk. Or one who dances and sings with joy. One that loves without reason. One that reaches for something just out of reach, every muscle working toward that desirable thing. But leave her face blank. Empty.
Now take whichever face you made at the beginning and place it upon the body of the woman you imagined. Meld her, grow her, change her so that her face and her body are connected, as one.
Imagine her soul. Can you see it in her face? Does she let you in or shut you out? Is she dark and terrible? Do you want to know her, to see her every day? Is she a friend? An enemy?
My woman dances. She moves her body intensely. Her eyes grow from an old man's. They stare with the wonder of the past and the astonishment of falling in love. Her cheeks are smooth but know well they will someday fall to wrinkles. She's a lover. Her soul slips through her eyes, but her face holds it in. There's something lost in her. Something she'll always search to find.
In looking at Judith in Caravaggio's Judith Beheading Holofernes I learn to see. The intense indefinable expression upon her face beckons to search for understanding. To find what is beneath. Her head sits so detached from the rest of her body, as if suddenly thrust into the situation. Her body has had time to adjust, but her face just had time to react. This moment is the perfect reflection of her disjointedness. Her imagination jumps instantly to something else. Searching for just what it wants. It looks elsewhere for the answer, leaving the room, her body continuing on without her. She doesn't understand. How did she get here?
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