# He Fa on Looking Back

After Turning Your Head, You Still Have to Walk On

Canonical: https://hefa.p4theater.cn/en/hefa-on/hefa-lun-por-03
Language: en

The images and texts were developed collaboratively by He Fa and AI. The first-person voice belongs to an experiment in character; costume, posture and props are used to develop creative arguments, not as quotations from or summaries of the thought of the figures referenced.

![He Fa on Looking Back: city at night, generated character image](https://hefa.p4theater.cn/hefa-on/media/97cf1eabcfce70a99d4a.webp)

The street after rain stretches the blue-gray night into the distance, with a little warm light left behind. I wear a long dark coat; my body faces down the road while my head turns back. This pose lends itself to being called a farewell, yet the photograph does not tell us whom I am leaving. I would rather begin by treating the backward glance as a bodily problem: for the moment, my head and feet want to go in different directions.

If the whole body turns, looking back becomes going back; if the feet keep moving forward, the neck bears the disagreement. The hem still hangs along the body, without following the gaze into a dramatic turn. This small stretch of conflicting directions interests me more than the streetlights. It allows something to be over while acknowledging that its ending has not yet reached the whole body.

I can imagine an everyday use for it: after leaving a conversation, I remember something I did not quite hear. Turning back to check can make my next response more accurate. But repeatedly looking to see whether the other person is watching me leave may only be a demand for one last reassurance. The action is the same; the cost differs. The first kind of looking back adds something to the relationship; the second may keep either person from truly leaving.

Walking too quickly is not necessarily wiser. Calling every hesitation a weakness can make us miss things scattered behind us. Yet warm light can give the past too complete a glow, and rain can turn an ordinary street into a scene worth longing for. I put this slightly sleepy face into the night scene to let a little of the practical side show through a beautiful departure: I still have to find my way and notice the pedestrians ahead.

So this turn of the head need not be extended forever. Once I have clarified the meaning I missed, my feet must recover their direction. The coat may carry away a little dampness, and the streetlights may stay where they are. Looking back need not take the whole road along.