On Something (or am I just paying attention)
By Diego Rodriguez
*Editor’s Note: It is recommended you view on desktop to experience the artist’s intended page layout.
Every time someone says, “on God,” I giggle in my brain. It’s meant to mean something along the lines of “I’m serious”, but I can’t help but think about Formal Writing, or some type of scholar writing an article “On God.” This colloquial use of “On God” and the potential of it to be taken more seriously causes my brain to bounce up and down with small laughter.
I grew up Catholic, meaning I didn’t grow up religious at all. I used to go to church with my dad for the sole purpose of eating snacks that the Mexican ladies would sell outside. In line, waiting for my chicharrones one day, a man in front of me dropped a $20 bill. He didn’t notice. I picked it up. Handed it to him. I’d like to say that this was when I started paying attention to small things, and that would fit soo well into this narrative, but that’s a lie (and a sin apparently).
My dad praised me for being honest - because obviously, “God was watching!!” It was outside of a church after all. Maybe he was, maybe he wasn’t, I didn’t know what was true. Maybe I still don’t. The thing is, I was looking, and paying attention, and just happened to notice this moment.
My parents often say, “gracias a dios” and I’ll jokingly interject “ya, if he exists!!” I say this like an angsty teen, trying to rile up their parents. I say this in Spanish of course, but in both languages, this means I’m doubting – or maybe, to put it more nicely, questioning. I think my parents take this as me not believing in god. (Do I capitalize the word god if I only sort-of believe in the idea? What does the whatever-style-writing-manual say about this?) But do I not believe in God, or do I just not believe in their specific idea of god – or anyone’s really? Durga Chew-Bose writes in Too Much and Not the Mood, “Or how staring at the ocean water so blue, it leaves me bereft. In postcards, I’ll scribble “So blue!” because, what else?” This innate amazement and wonderment of the world (and not being able to fully describe it) is what I often feel as Godlike.
Durga Chew-Bose’s bereavement reminds me of an experience I recently had at the new Monet show. I don’t like impressionism, and I don’t like Monet, but I found myself tearing up at “Branch of the Seine Near Giverny (1897).” It’s this purple-ish, blue-ish, gray-ish, blurry painting, (impressionism, I guess) and standing in front of it made my eyes well up. I couldn’t describe why, and I still can’t. I don’t mean to equate Monet to some godlike experience, but nonetheless, it happened.
I often see and feel beautiful things in the everyday that can’t be explained and are just an experience of the moment. Like when the wind gets under your shirt and causes it to vibrate like waves of fabric against your body, or how someone’s hair can perfectly blend into the post-rain-sepia-sky, or the very particular shade of orange you see when you close your eyes while staring at the sun. Is this what being faithful and believing is like? There’s a sense of comfort in not knowing. What I do know is that I’m paying attention. These moments of the sublime and appreciation – however they’re formed. Maybe there isn’t a formal idea of God and this piece is not “On God” but there’s Something. Maybe it’s inside of me, maybe it’s just the world Being, or maybe I’m just paying attention. Mary Oliver said, “attention is the beginning of devotion” and for now, I think I’m somewhere in between those two.
