I was born the fourth child in a family of five. Fourth child characteristics fall under the ‘middle child’ category and they are generally characterized as a conversationalist. I must have not checked off the communicator checkbox because as a child I picked up the ‘mute’ gene. I enjoyed bringing a smile to my family’s faces (kind of like a mime would and only within the walls of my home) and I liked to sing harmony around the piano with my siblings. Other than that I stayed pretty quiet and I watched the world around me. I watched the people closest to me and I observed conversations, I easily picked up on others emotions, and I was in tune to others’ body language. So looking back at mini-me I was a good communicator. I just happened to be more non-verbal for the first 20 years of my life. My happy emotions were communicated through funny faces and my pain was visible with the way I held myself. I learned to analyze others, examine people’s emotions, study how they held themselves, and scan their face expressions. Only a very small percentage of what we say is communicated through our words. Body language is a large part in how we communicate effectively with one another. 

At this time I untie the back of my dirty white apron and I throw it on top of the laundry basket that has been piled high with used towels and dirty aprons from the use of the day. Chef calls out “Have a good weekend, we will see you on Tuesday.” I walk to another room and I take off my chef’s hat and place it in my locker. I take a well used legal notepad and pen to write down instructions for my next class. I am running late for my first day of design class. Oh well. This is the first week of my last semester on campus. I am going to take my time feeling the sun on my face as I walk around the outskirts of the buildings. I watch the man on the mower cutting the tall thick grass. The fresh cut grass invigorates my senses and it helps me to tackle one last semester. I take in the landscape of the trees and flowers hanging on to the last days of summer. I notice the cracks in the cement as I linger along the sidewalk. My feet ache from the long day in the kitchen and so my desire to rest them outweighs the prolonged walk in the afternoon sun. I pick up my pace and I walk up the long sidewalk to the building. I pull the door open and walk down the wide hallway to my design class. 

I stop at the open double doors and look at the students that I will spend the next four months with. I carefully walk around the large portfolios bags and I walk quietly up to the professor’s desk. I look over my art teacher’s posture, clothing, and mannerisms. She sits behind a tall desk on a standard black chair that swivels around. Her hair is colored red and she smiles and says in her thick Slavic accent, “Hi, how can I help you?” I notice how she holds herself and her eyes are meeting mine as she waits for a response. My articulation of words sound very differently than hers, “Hi, my name is Dari, I signed up for this design class. Is this the right room?” She looks up at me with a formal smile and says, “Yes! Go ahead and take a seat wherever you would like to.” I quickly scan the room and find one seat that is empty on the second to last row of long tables. 

I sit at my table and I plop all of my stuff down on top of the table. My mixed media drawing pad takes up a lot of space on the long wooden tables. I soundlessly place my personal items underneath my chair. I look around at the different people and ages in the room. They are mostly younger than I am. No one is overly friendly around me and I don’t necessarily offer my friendship either. I am here to learn and gain an understanding of design, placement, and colors. I look to the student on my right and she quietly nods back at me. The student on my left is quiet and keeps to herself. I hold my gaze on her a little longer to see if she will turn and look at me. She stays hunched over her drawing board and her body is turned away from me. As a woman, a mom, and a fellow student I wonder to myself if she has dealt with some unspoken struggles and has suffered in her young life. Her head remains down through all of the class and her body language is closed off. I would offer her a smile but she never looks in my direction. 

Our professor continues to give instructions to find an object with holes and design and draw it in a large proportion with organic drawing on the left and geometric on the right side of the paper. I look to the bottom of my purse for an abandoned keychain and I check my ears, wrists, and hands for jewelry. All I have is my watch on my left hand that keeps track of my steps accumulated through my day. I take it off my left hand and decide to draw the band with the holes along with the watch buckle. I open my tin case that holds my graphite pencils and I stare at all the numbers on the pencils and I hesitate to pick the correct sketching pencil. The art teacher makes her rounds to me and asks, “How are you?” I look at her confused and say, “I am not sure what the numbers mean on my pencils? She quickly explains, “the HB pencil is for sketching and the numbers on the pencils are for shading from light to dark.” I say with more confidence than before, ”Oh! Okay. Thank you.” I start to eagerly sketch my ideas out on the large paper now that I comprehend my new graphite pencil kit.  

Oftentimes when out in public my husband will catch me staring at other people. I like to configure in my mind what their home looks like, visualize their relationships, and scrutinize their body language. I take all of these puzzle pieces to a passerby’s life and I quickly determine what kind of person they are. Sometimes I get caught probing into their lives. yikes!-Embarrassing. My husband usually taps me on the shoulder, “Are you enjoying the show?” I respond, “Ahh, yes!” Then I give him a recap on the people in front of me on my personal stage.

Besides being in design class I take a little time while I am drawing to scrutinize the characters in the room. Sometimes it’s with harshness and other times it is with empathy. I silently watch the body language of the girls in the front of the class. There is a lot of laughter and chatter and they seem to be very comfortable in the class and comfortable with each other. On the second row I watch how the students hold themselves. Some of them are uncomfortable with who they are and they seem to be fighting a battle within themselves. They are more quiet and reflective with an occasional conversation. On my row the students are all business and they are here to complete their work and then return to where they came from. The last row in the class is very interesting. Their conversation floats into my ears but yet I seldom get to glance behind me. I don’t want to seem rude. Their language and ideas are often offensive but yet they are different from me and they pique my interest for some reason. Every so often I glance behind me to peer at how they hold themselves and the movements of their bodies. It leaves me like a blind person only open to their words and their sounds and I am left with only the pictures in my mind. 

Although I am starting to create a friendship with the professor because of her kindness and her encouragement of my own work. Overall I feel a little uncomfortable in my own skin each day as I enter into this class room of budding artists because as I look through my communication lens I feel so different from them. Their choices, their lifestyles, and their upbringings leaves me feeling like I entered a world that I don’t belong in. A world that I have never been in or been a part of. I start to make judgements about the people in my surroundings. I block my ears with headphones so I don’t hear the conversations behind me and I heavily concentrate on the 18×24 space I am allotted to. 

Everyday I come to class I mentally separate myself from the other students around me. I start to feel uncomfortable as I sit on the third row back and glance over these strangers that convey differing of opinions, shyness, or oddities. I continue to study their mannerisms. Their lives contrast my own and yet sometimes their gestures still intrigue me.     

Finally the last week of the semester is here and we are all presenting a compilation of pieces for our final. I have chosen to show my projects first to get it over with. My project consists of a mural about my ancestry and my children stand on each side of the mural in warm colors. My second piece is a water color of the Twin Falls temple, My third piece is complimentary colors of red and green, and my final piece is drawn in cool colors using pastels. I have worked really hard over this semester to pull together my final pieces with the help of my professor who guided me along the way. I feel accomplished as I stand and talk about my art and what they represent. After my presentation I sit in the front row and listen to the rest of my classmates give their demonstrations. 



Design Presentation

Several students get up and talk about how their art represents sexual and verbal abuse. Others speak about anxiety, depression, and loneliness. Some talk about personal experiences with the effects of war and overuse of drugs on the frontlines. A few talk about authoritarian parents who ruled with an iron fist and pushed religion in their faces. One or two display their pieces of art who have struggled with mental disorders and or hospitalizations of a family member. At last some art pieces symbolizes culture, coming to a new country, and overcoming.

I sit here with tears in my eyes, my heart about ready to burst, and a little shame as I sit and listen to and  watch each student walk to the front of the room with their art. These people, teenagers, students are all children of God who have suffered with a lot of pain in their lives. Shame and guilt enter my heart like it has so many times before. I ask myself, “why didn’t you ‘read’ their body language differently, why didn’t you analyze them the way Jesus would have analyzed them? Why did you sit back in judgment for three months and not extend a loving or kind word?” The class finishes up their presentation and I walk down the white hall to the exit through the double doors and I can’t stop the tears from falling. My mind goes over and over the pain and the heartache that most of those kids are experiencing. Throughout the semester my brain logged and categorized things about these people that were mostly negative or annoying. Today I saw what God needed me to see. I wasn’t just watching their body language but I saw their tears, I saw them bow their heads in sorrow, I heard their personal struggles, and I saw some of the anguish in their drawings. My tears are not just for those students but they are also for my own guilt that I sunk to a level of debasing and damaging another person on my personal stage in my head. 

I am allowing God to teach me and to walk beside me a little bit today. I drive home and I cannot stop thinking about the final design exam. Their stories of hardship and overcoming replays in my mind. I have a desire to be a better human being, I want to love others more deeply, and I want to stop being so overly critical and fault finding. The next time I see a person and I do a quick analysis on them I want the thoughts and feelings inside of me to be positive and kind. 

I am grateful for the lessons I learned in my design class. I gained an understanding of important art techniques that I use every day in my life. The most important thing I learned that semester was how to see others through God’s eyes. I acquired a knowledge of quality non-verbal communication. When we try to communicate better we can have a better understanding of a situation and recognize what is happening around us. It will always benefit us if we practice and try to read others non-verbal, verbal cues and also learn how to pick up on context clues. 

Here are three things you can try to become better at reading someone’s non-verbal communication:

1. Listen an individuals tone of voice. We can become really good at understanding someone’s emotions when we listen to their pitch in their voice. Their tone of voice can indicate happy and sad moods.
2. Discern an individual’s smile. Their grin can speak volumes: irritation, happy, annoyed, angry, elated, intimidating… etc.  
3. Note an individual’s body movements: Fast and uncontrolled movements are usually a sign of anger or tension. 

Resources:
https://www.medpsych.net/2021/08/19/what-your-sibling-birth-order-reveals-about-your-personality-traits-even-if-youre-an-only-child/

https://www.masterclass.com/articles/how-to-use-the-7-38-55-rule-to-negotiate-effectively

https://www.mindbodygreen.com/articles/how-to-read-people