On the Sydney train, I sometimes like to play a quiet game with myself, where I imagine each commuter through the eyes of someone who adores them. The oil-stained man becomes a gentle, loving father. The teenage girl biting her sleeve becomes someone’s irreplaceable best friend. The elderly woman with the fierce stare becomes a widow whose late hus... See more

A recent Banksy piece, I want to be what you saw in me , completes the thought. Between Karlsson’s shaping and the reality of our becoming lies the quiet work of intimacy: to hold someone so they can grow into the silhouette your love sketches for them, and to feel your own edges soften and bend beneath the steady pressure of their gaze.

We all carry endless hidden selves and latent worlds, waiting for the right gaze to bring them to the surface. I’ve felt this in my bones: relationships that have remade me, expanded me, taught me. Time and again, people have been the most transformative engine for becoming I’ve ever known.