The dream is always the same. I’m stuck in the tsunami called The New Computer. I’m caught in the Riptide of Cluelessness. I’m pursued by the Kilobyte Shark. I’m sucked into the Dark Web Undertow. Suddenly, a Siren called Lola tosses me the Bluetooth Lifeline.
“I’d love to hang around and help you click your cursor,” calls Lola, “but I’m late, I’m late, for a very important date with my hair dresser. I’ll catch you when my do is done.”
And that’s the way it ends…low tide…high noon…on Tuesday…in June.
On land and at sea, I’m grateful for Lola’s electronic lifeline. And I’m lucky to live in the age of adaptive gizmos and gadgets, apps and accessibility phone lines. From a historical perspective, times were when I’d have been handed a white cane and a tin cup. Had I been really lucky, I’d have been taught Braille and how to tune a piano. But this Tuesday in June, marooned with my hysterical perspective of technological inadequacy, I want what I want when I want it.
With blindness comes the moniker, “special.” Special is a convenient label applied to the disabled, the different. Special Education. Special Olympics. The extent to which I internalize being special generally leaves me feeling deficient rather than special.
On bad days or in bad dreams, being deficiently special infects me with an inflated sense of importance, with the notion that my problems are more compelling than yours. To hell with your screaming kid, my computer won’t talk to me. Too bad about your sick puppy, I can’t find the can opener. Rather than being told I’m special, there are times when what I need to hear is, “You’re not that damn important.”
We live in a world of rampant entitlement. Everybody’s got an angle, a self-justified excuse for butting in line, for parking in the handicapped space. Everybody thinks they’re special, special by their definition. But just because everybody’s doing it doesn’t mean I have to.
I am not proud of being special at your expense. I see it as creeping self-pity. So, here and now, at high noon on Tuesday in June, I’m fessing up to my part, getting right-sized with humility, claiming responsibility, facing problems with curiosity not catastrophe. I’ll begin at home, with Lola, with hope that I come to see what is obvious to all save me.
Playlist:
“Wise Up” by The Waitresses, from Wasn’t Tomorrow Wonderful? (1982)
“Brass in Pocket” by Pretenders, from Pretenders (1980)
“Wicked as It Seems” by Keith Richards, from Main Offender (1992)
“White Rabbit” by Jefferson Airplane, from Surrealistic Pillow (1967)
“Last Night I Had a Dream” by Randy Newman, from Sail Away (1972)
“I Want Everything” by Cracker, from Kerosene Hat(1993)
“Simple” by Collective Soul, from Collective Soul (1995)
“Special Care” by Buffalo Springfield, from Last Time Around (1968)
“Joseph’s Coat” by Quicksilver Messenger Service, from Shady Grove (1969)
“White Room” by Eric Clapton with Sheryl Crow, from Sheryl Crow and Friends Live from Central Park (1999)
Jalapeños in the Oatmeal 