The Art of Noticing
I put my name through a Wu-Tang name generator once. Legend has it, it’s the same one that famously gave Post Malone and Childish Gambino their names. The internet looked deep into my digital soul and decided I should be called Mighty Observer.
I didn’t love it. It didn’t sound dangerous. It didn’t sound cool. I wanted something cinematic. Something that sounded like it could kick down a door. Why couldn’t I be Ghostface Killah? Wicked Overlord? Something with a little menace to it. Last night I finally understood why the generator chose that name for me.
Yesterday was my best friend Ellie’s birthday. I’ve talked about her before and I’ll probably talk about her again.
For the last few weeks I had been quietly coordinating with a mutual friend trying to put together a little birthday gathering for her. Messages were sent behind her back. Schedules were negotiated. A venue shifted once or twice like a chess piece being reconsidered.
Then at 9:26 AM her partner texted me.
This is the dark side of surprise parties. The temporary emotional damage they cause before the reveal. I love surprises, personally. Some people do not enjoy the hours leading up to them where they believe they’ve been forgotten by everyone they know. Cruel things, surprise parties. Probably best not to schedule them on the actual birthday at 6 PM. That’s a long emotional runway. So we spilled the beans.
Many people had been invited, but life did what life always does. People ghosted. Babysitters vanished. Last minute work functions suddenly appeared. The final headcount was six of us sitting around a table. Which, in the end, felt exactly right.
Dinner was at a buzzy Spanish restaurant by José Andrés. The kind of place where every plate looks like it came out of an artist’s studio and the bill quietly climbs toward bankruptcy.
At 8:14 PM the edibles we had all taken began to make their presence known. That’s when things got interesting.
The evening started to unfold in front of me like a Hallmark movie cast by someone slightly inebriated. I didn’t say very much after that. Four hours at dinner and I mostly just sat there watching.
Friends from Ellie’s creative world mixed easily with people from her professional world. Little cameos from different chapters of her life. A crossover episode. Her partner made appearances from the other end of the table, reaffirming himself to be significantly more goofy than Ellie.
There was laughing. Food kept appearing. Drinks kept being poured. Plates came and left the table like an alien mothership. Somewhere along the way the bill crept up to nearly a thousand dollars. Nobody seemed particularly bothered by it. Time, when it’s spent well, has a way of justifying itself.
By 9:52 PM the candles had burned low and the table looked like the aftermath of a very happy culinary storm. Ellie was smiling. Stories I had never heard before were being told. And I realized I had spent most of the night doing exactly one thing. Watching.
Watching Ellie laugh with her shoulders. Watching her partner grin as the glow of the restaurant sign lit the left side of his face red. Watching the little shifts people make when they lean toward comfort around each other. Little moments like that pass quickly. Most people miss them entirely. They happen in the half-seconds between sentences. A glance. A laugh that arrives late. The way someone softens when they realize they’re among friends.
That’s when it clicked. The Wu-Tang name generator got it right. Mighty Observer.
Not the coolest name in the clan. But probably the right one.
