Watch For Gesture

“At such moments one imagines that one stands on some spot of a small planet gazing in amazement as the cold and yet profoundly moving beauty of the eternal, the unfathomable. Life and death flow into one, and there is neither evolution nor eternity, only being.”

~ Albert Einstein

The idea of noting the gestures people use as a springboard for characterization makes me ponder the physical versus the mental world I find myself inhabiting, the world of thoughts, ideas and dreams.  I often rub my head or run my fingers through my hair as I think as a way to stimulate my brain perhaps, through my scalp.  I am spending many hours thinking now, planning, and problem solving, in my empty nest for the house is quiet and outside the rain is coming down more loudly, the fountain is trickling and occasionally the whir of the heater fills the room with sound.  I am basking in silence and really don’t feel much need for noise from television or even music at this point.  My thoughts are noise enough and the click of the keyboard as I type, the rhythm of my more solitary life.

People develop gestures early in life and the children in my class already have definitive gestures that make them unique, the twirling of hair, the sucking of fingers, playing with their shoelaces or those who are anxious to please, folding their hands and sitting at attention.  I remember my mother’s gestures, the way she folded her hands, her tilt of the head as she thought about something, the gestures I knew and made me comfortable through familiarity and consistency.

How do I appear as a character?  I imagine myself with a furrowed brown, thinking of a way out, my shoulders heavy but my eyes looking up, looking forward, ever hopeful and optimistic.  I sit somewhat comfortably but feel the need to get up and move, as if my movement will allow the chi energy to move too.  The energy needed to push things along, to move things forward, and to allow progress.