Good, Clear Eyes
Hello and good day!
I spoke to a good old friend the other day.
I hadn’t talked to him in a long time.
In the middle of the call, I heard him whispering to his son off to the side.
“Is that Arnold?” I asked.
“As a matter of fact, it is. Do you remember him?” said my friend.
“I sure do. But I haven’t seen him in more than ten years. How’s he doing?”
“Why don’t you ask him for yourself?”
My buddy switched to a video call, and I saw 16-year-old Arnold.
I hadn’t seen him since he was 5 years old.
I’ve long remembered the 5-year-old version of Arnold with great fondness.
He was a cute and mischievous little bugger.
It used to crack me up that he had his father’s measure so completely.
“Stop that! Arnold! I’m serious! You’re going to be in big trouble!” my friend would yell.
Arnold safely ignored his father’s pleas, knowing full well how tender his father was, and how deeply it pained him to administer discipline.
Arnold knew exactly how far he could push the limits.
I spoke with 16-year-old Arnold for five minutes, and it was immediately obvious to me that he is a good young fellow with a healthy mindset.
Two things stood out above all.
He has a big smile that he willingly flashes to show lovely white teeth.
And he has clear, innocent, wholesome eyes.
Above all, I noticed his eyes.
It is nice to have good clear eyes.
When I was his age, my eyes were anything but wholesome.
At age 16, I hitched a ride to school every day with my buddy Eric.
Eric had a red Jeep and lived up the alley from me.
We had been skateboarding together for years and when he got his driver’s license, we agreed that he would drive me to school.
He used to come early, downhill through the alley that ran behind both of our houses.
He lived two blocks up.
I’d be sitting on my couch eating toast with butter when I heard him honking out back.
The honk sent me running to my room to grab my backpack and a bag of weed that I hid in my sock drawer.
“See you dad!” I’d yell out to my old man, who would already be in his home office, working.
Dad and I lived together near the beach after my parents got divorced.
I’d ride shotgun and roll a joint with a sheet of rolling paper pulled from a packet of zig zags that I kept in my weed bag, while Eric drove us down to cliffs in our neighborhood that overlooked the ocean.
We’d sit and stare through the windshield, listening to reggae, and watch a huge congregation of white seagulls swirling around in the air, forming an early morning feeding frenzy, and dive bombing down into the grey blue water to pluck out fishes.
I’d light up, and we passed the joint back and forth until we smoked it all the way down.
I’m not proud of it, but I got stoned before school every day of high school and every morning during my first two years of college.
And then I binge drank all weekend long every single weekend.
I stopped all that crap for good after I got kicked out of college junior year and my dad sent me to live in Peru.
Traveling gave me perspective and I met my wonderful wife who gave me something powerful to live for, true love.
If it wasn’t for Peru and my wife, things would have turned out very differently for me, and certainly much worse.
My favorite teacher in high school was my English teacher, Mr. Richardson.
He had a PhD in American literature and could have taught at a university, but he was idealistic, and thought that he could do more good teaching high school students.
Unfortunately, I did my part to disprove his theory.
He gave the most wonderful lectures about the books we were reading in class.
I remember that now, in retrospect.
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I didn’t have the ability at the time to appreciate him the way I should have, because I was sitting there stoned with my brain swimming in my head.
One day after class, he was collecting essays that he had assigned.
I didn’t have mine.
“Stay behind Adam,” he said.
Everybody else was gone and it was just the two of us, standing in the classroom, surrounded by rows of desks.
I remember how royally pissed he was at me.
“Look at me,” he said.
I knew from the way his voice was trembling that he was shaking with anger.
The thing about being a kid who is high is that you don’t like to look people in the eyes.
You feel paranoid in public because you know that you’ve done something wrong, and you know that your eyes will betray you.
I religiously applied Visine to erase the redness but there is nothing you can do to shrink dilated pupils.
Plus, I reeked, despite having doused myself in cologne.
I didn’t look up.
I didn’t want him to see what I was trying to hide.
I kept staring down at the ground, praying that somehow the situation would blow over and he would let me go.
“LOOK AT ME,” he commanded.
And so, I looked up.
He shook his head.
“Your pupils are bigger than pennies. What a shame. I like you more than anybody Adam. I know there is a good kid in there somewhere. But I can’t waste my time on a lost cause. If you don’t care, then neither do I. I’ll give you a C because I know you read the books. But I mostly just don’t want you in this class again next year. Get out.”
That was that.
Old Mr. Richardson, my favorite teacher, washed his hands of me, because of what he saw in my eyes.
I don’t blame him.
If we found out that one of our employees was coming into the chocolate shop high, we’d fire them immediately too.
There were many nights as a young man when I looked myself in the mirror after a night of heavy drinking, and I’d be wobbling out of control, and my face looked so blurry, that I could hardly make myself out.
When that happened, I only ever had one feeling.
Profound, heart wrenching, shame.
Because I wasn’t who I wanted to be.
I had allowed myself to become something that I didn’t like but I didn’t know how to change.
Here is why I tell this story.
I admire young Arnold.
He is a young man with good, clear eyes.
I have clear eyes now too.
Good, clear eyes are a beautiful thing to have.
When you are living right, and trying your best to be a good person, you can look anybody square in the eyes and let them look right back at you.
Let them look and search as long as they want.
There is nothing in your eyes that you need to hide.
When you are living wrong you have to look away.
And I never want to have to look away ever again.
I’ve already done it too much and it’s no good.
Thank you so much for your time today.
I hope that you have a truly blessed day!
Adam