Page 8 of It's Me They Follow
“Nananananaaaa,” said The Shopkeeper. They both laughed, and she wondered if the teenybopper knew that song. “And no thanks on the receipt. But thanks for the recommendation. Peace.”
The Shopkeeper didn’t do crowded elevators. So she waited until she could ride back to class alone. This took a considerable amount of time, and the books only grew heavier.
She rushed in late from break with books piled to her chin.
“For me?” The Good Doctor welcomed her back. “Generous, but you shouldn’t have.” She motioned for The Shopkeeper to put the books down and get back to work.
“It’s a long story.” She wanted to explain.
“It always is.” The Good Doctor rolled her eyes. “Write it down. Okay, now that our resident book lady is back from break, late again with—ding, ding, ding, yeah, you guessed it—an armful of books, let’s go on to the final activity of this evening. For this one, you’ll need a partner.”
The Shopkeeper looked at Ray. Ray looked at The Shopkeeper and stuck out his tongue. The Shopkeeper gave him the middle finger. They both laughed.
The Good Doctor said, turning toward The Shopkeeper, “You’ll be my partner.” The Shopkeeper did not want to be The Good Doctor’s partner, and everyone knew it.
The Good Doctor started. “This is called mirroring. Each of you will stand facing your partner, and for one whole minute, you will practice giving each other eye contact. You and your partner will feel the desire to giggle and wiggle, because nervous laughter helps to reduce fear, but eventually you will relax.”
As instructed, The Shopkeeper stood in front of the room of writers, her chest still heaving from carrying the books. And now stood eye to eye with The Good Doctor. The Shopkeeper immediately had the giggles and the wiggles. It felt like they were meeting for the first time. Like she was in grade school. She could not look The Good Doctor in the eye, and she could not control her twitch. The Good Doctor was calm. She’d obviously done this many times before and had no problem connecting. Eventually The Shopkeeper started trusting in The Good Doctor’s eyes, her skin, her high cheekbones. She leaned in her teacher’s direction and found her stillness.
They stayed that way for the longest minute.
“Thank you,” The Good Doctor said with a bow when time was up. “There’s a reason why they say the eyes are the window to the soul. How did that feel?” The Good Doctor asked, so The Shopkeeper would share with the group. “One word.”
“It felt... intimate.”
“And on a scale of one to ten, how were you feeling before the exercise?”
“Like a three. My heart was racing, my head was pounding, I was hot...”
“And now?”
“An eight.”
“Because...”
“Because I felt like I did myself a favor by looking at you...”
“Exactly, and you did me the same favor. Everyone else in this class also felt favored. That is what we mean by... touch. It is not all physical, it starts in the mind.
“So, can you commit to finding one person outside of class this week to do that exercise with, someone you’d like to be more in touch with? And then writing about it?”
The Shopkeeper did not know anyone outside of class she could do that exercise with.
“Only if the opportunity arises,” The Good Doctor assured her.
“Only if,” The Shopkeeper agreed.
She was more relaxed than she’d been in years after that. It was like taking off that tight logo’ed hat in the university bookstore—a release.
“Now your turn.” The Good Doctor pointed at the class. They stood up and assumed positions across from one another all around the room.
“And to up the stakes, I am going to invite you to take a step closer to your partners.”
The class wiggled and giggled, but they did it. “Find your stillness.” Andafter a few seconds, the room fell quiet, silent, still. Even outside noises stopped. The Shopkeeper stared in wonder as her writers’ group touched one another using just their eyes.
Rose was standing across from the six-foot-six stoned kid, and they were both feeling something—she could feel the heat coming off them. “Okay, and now thank your partner using just your eyes,” The Good Doctor said after a minute.
Folks nodded and smiled around the room.
