Beyond Words - by Sandra Yvonne - Sunday Candy

In the heart of a fluorescent-lit lecture hall with clinical white walls, my fiction writing professor, an ex-punk Buddhist, introduced our class to an intimacy exercise that completely challenged our relationship to vulnerability. It seemed simple on the surface: In pairs, spend 5 minutes gazing into a fellow classmate’s eyes. Then write about them. Around the room, everyone squirmed in their seats and a rush of anxiety went through me. This exercise went against the typical dynamics of a university lecture, where everything felt scripted, guarded, and reduced to intellectual discourse. Each student partnered up with whoever sat next to them, including me. More than a decade later, I still remember her face. Mostly because her irises glimmered so intensely bright blue that it scared me to look at them. Before that moment, I never looked into anyone’s eyes so intentionally. Eye contact made me nervous. I hated it. But in that sterile lecture hall, with the timer set, the room of about

In the heart of a fluorescent-lit lecture hall with clinical white walls, my fiction writing professor, an ex-punk Buddhist, introduced our class to an intimacy exercise that completely challenged our relationship to vulnerability. It seemed simple on the surface: In pairs, spend 5 minutes gazing into a fellow classmate’s eyes. Then write about them. Around the room, everyone squirmed in their seats and a rush of anxiety went through me. This exercise went against the typical dynamics of a university lecture, where everything felt scripted, guarded, and reduced to intellectual discourse. Each