Godspeed
The Ethics of Observation
A woman reclines in the airport terminal, her feet up on a weathered valise. She is tired, her breath shallow and arrhythmic, her gray-black hair tousled, nest-like. In her appearance, there are elements of both fatigue and anticipation, as if she has traveled from a remote and distant place, and must now endure one more flight—a quick puddle-jump—to reach her final destination.
The thing I notice about her that intrigues me is this: either believing that no one is watching or believing that they are but not caring, she drops her head, lifts her right arm and sniffs her armpit. She wants to know if she smells. After she exhales, her expression is so flat, so neutral, that one cannot tell if she has detected a disagreeable odor.
From her lap she lifts a woolen camouflage jacket, threadbare at the elbows. She puts it on and flips the collar up over her neck. The jacket is worn, and her ease with its condition is evident—and I imagine that she and this jacket, together, have spent many decades, traveled the world, enjoyed the most transcendent adventures and escaped great peril. Perhaps, I think, she is a war correspondent or an archaeologist.
I wonder why the woman has decided to put the jacket on at this time. Maybe, despite the terminal’s stifling heat, she has a chill. I consider the possibility that this woman has the flu, that she must wrap herself in wool to keep warm. And I imagine taking care of her, nursing her back to health. “There, there,” I think, “your fever’s about to break.”
As I am immersed in this caretaking fantasy—condescending, even paternalistic—another thought occurs to me. Rather than a reaction to a chill, has this woman instead covered herself with her jacket to deter my intrusive gaze? Did she notice me looking at her, and has my observation somehow made her uncomfortable? (My delusion of relevance has taken yet another silly form.)
I spiral into obsessive thinking, as I often do, and conduct an internal debate about the ethics of observing people in public: what is allowed and what is not. I wonder if we are all free to observe strangers as if we are admiring a sunset or a powerful sculpture or a roaring campfire. I wonder how we—men and women alike—can observe the beauty of people, the beauty of life, really, without harming those same people. I consider how an innocent observation may, for some of those observed, cause harm—and for others, result in satisfaction, even joy. And I think about that dividing line between what is natural and what is aberrant: perhaps that line is not the conduct in question (the duration or context of a gaze, for instance), but instead the psyche, the outlook, the values, the needs (all ever-shifting) of both the observer and the observed at that precise moment in time.
The attendant behind the counter announces the boarding of my flight. Passengers leap from their seats and rush to form not an orderly line, but rather something amorphous and chaotic. I look over to see if the woman stirs, to see if she too will be on this plane—but she remains still. Her destination, her destiny, is elsewhere.
I trudge along with the mass of boarding passengers—some animated, happy, some sad and tortured—and take one last look at the woman. I watch her move her left hand under her shirt and down into her right armpit, where it remains for a few seconds. She removes her hand and smells her fingers. And this time I believe she has detected something, for there is a slight wrinkling of the nose. With the sleeve of her jacket, she wipes her damp brow. She is sick, I fear. She is sick, and she is trying to get home—to her friends and her family, to her bedroom and her books and her photographs. She is trying to get back to what is familiar.
As I prepare to show my boarding pass, the woman rubs her hands together, creating warmth. She twists her body until she is comfortable and closes her eyes. A few moments pass, and her breathing becomes deep and rhythmic. The woman sleeps, her body heals. I step onto the plane, my destination uncertain.