What if I pose a hypothetical question—the type attorneys are counseled not to ask and politicians not to answer? The kind anyone going blind and those they love are cautioned not to pose? What if I ask this hypothetical question—what if I could see again?
I’d like to see again. I’d also like everyone in Colorado to send me ten bucks—but that won’t happen either. Pondering this fat-chance prospect is not my escape into magical thinking. Rather, it’s a referendum on the quality of life I’ve constructed given forty years with RP.
But what if there’s a miracle? What of the patience, tolerance and resourcefulness I’ve attained as a blind person? Well, how about patient, tolerant, resourceful and…sighted! If it takes more character to handle good fortune than bad, I’d like to show how much character I could muster.
Born-again sighted, would I be Overwhelmed by TMI? No more, I suspect, than my current state of confusion. Blindness brings, not a paucity of stimuli, but too much info that makes no sense. While street corner encounters with Harleys and hot-rods now make my head spin, I’d like a shot at creating order out of chaos with the benefit of sight.
Why dream the impossible dream? I hear the wise say life is 10% what happens and 90% what I do about it. I am, if not happy with blindness, at least useful and, more times than not, comfortable in my own skin. Does wanting to see again mean I’m giving up the fight? What fight? Blindness is part of me and fighting it is fighting me. Acceptance is the key. I accept my role as a blind man; it’s blindness that sticks in my craw.
Lola tells me how green are the foothills, how snow-capped the Front Range peaks, how the azure sky holds cotton clouds. She asks if she should describe what she sees or if it hurts too much to hear of beauty I no longer see. I tell Lola to tell me everything, tell me of the beauty around us.
I tell Lola how, sharp-eyed and twenty-one, I helped build a log cabin in those foothills. I tell Lola how, around the campfire, I saw a million stars in the night sky. I tell Lola how I cherish this vision. I gaze toward the foothills, the Front Range peaks. And I gaze at Lola, whose sweet face I will never see. And I wonder how to tell Lola about this heartache.
Playlist:
“Persuasion” by Richard Thompson (with Teddy Thompson), from Action Packed (The Capitol Years) (2001)
“Change the World” by Winona, from Revelations (1996) and by Eric Clapton, from Phenomenon (soundtrack, 1996)
“Smiling Phases” by Traffic, from Mr. Fantasy (1968)
“Green” by Edie Brickell, from Picture Perfect Morning (1994)
“(I Can’t Get No) Satisfaction” by The Rolling Stones, from Out of Our Heads (1965)
“Ain’t That Pretty at All” by Warren Zevon, from The Envoy (1982)
“Unsatisfied” by The Replacements, from Let It Be (1984)
“Alright” by Electric Light Orchestra, from Zoom (2001)
“I Can See Clearly Now” by Johnny Nash (1972)
“Suddenly I See” by KT Tunstall, from Eye to the Telescope (2004)
“Young and Innocent Days” by The Kinks, from Arthur, or the Decline and Fall of the British Empire (1969)
“Persuasion” by Tim Finn, from Before and After (1993)
Jalapeños in the Oatmeal 