Dec 4, 2021
"I wish you a very 'get extinct,'" I scathingly tell the Ichthyornis that's been plaguing my house for 20 minutes.
seen from Malaysia
seen from Venezuela
seen from Australia
seen from Türkiye
seen from Philippines
seen from Türkiye
seen from United States
seen from China
seen from United States
seen from China
seen from Türkiye
seen from United States
seen from United States
seen from United States
seen from Iraq
seen from United Kingdom
seen from Malaysia
seen from Kyrgyzstan
seen from T1
seen from Norway
"I wish you a very 'get extinct,'" I scathingly tell the Ichthyornis that's been plaguing my house for 20 minutes.
Capt. Jack #cockatiel #cutebird #jerkbird #birdonshoulder #birdsofinstagram
What Happens with Blindness and Sight and Blindness Again
So.
Maybe that should be the name of the title of this whole blog or website or whatever it is: "So."
"So." isn't really a grammatically correct sentence. Not a question. Not a declaration. Perhaps it is a dare. A challenge. A sigh. A smile. A smile when there's only one thing to do but smile because why not? So. So what?
Even though it is so absolutely cliche in Texas to complain about the weather or even remark about the weather, and even though it would be totally stupid for any kind of future technology director to not know the key commands for underlining text without a button up on the toolbar to do it, I will remark that today was clear.
Taking the cliche further but to emphasize the theme here which is this quote which is from a title of a 1929 musical turned 1970 movie, "on a clear day, you can see forever." For a few moments today, at an unusual height for a Thursday afternoon, the day was clear, sky and clouds both blue and bright white, and there you go and you're welcome that on a clear day, you can see forever.
As even clear days go, descending from great heights likewise feels like a return to earth. Not much is visible on the ground, after all.
I didn't go back to work as I'd planned, even though I'd left my office pretty wide open. (thank you--ducklings!!--for shutting everything down) Even though I left my coffee thermos up at work. I drove home and only realized as I pulled into my garage that I'd driven home in complete silence. Not a sound. In aural darkness.
All the way home, I'd been thinking about how the city skyline looked so much different from way up high. I'd been thinking about how I couldn't see it at all when Jane and I turned back onto the slow-moving freeway. I'd been thinking about the episode of LHotP when Pa goes down to the creek to tell Mary that, guess what, you're going blind and it isn't going to get better. And the Internet hasn't given me the usual "perfect clip" of the moment and so then I found all of these really really touching moments from LHotP which include quite a few having to do with Mary and blindness and oh my god I'd forgotten about where she loses her baby....ahhhhhhhh and yeah oh my god. So much the story of my grandma but I'm drifting.
But yeah. So. Most of the time I feel like I'm pretty blind. Everyone is pretty blind. Or totally blind. Functional, maybe. Adaptive, maybe. Creative, sometimes. But blind, nonetheless. We're amazing little creatures skulking around in our darknesses, at least I am.
Skulking. I love that word and hate it at the same time.
But think of being blind, like Mary. Or like Stevie Wonder. Or like one of the guys in the Bible stories who gets the seeing-eye-mud-miracle. Suddenly sight. Suddenly on a clear day being able to see forever. Colors. Textures. Depth perception (maybe, that doesn't apply to everyone). Field of view. Light.
So yeah. Behold. Sight. The Dallas skyline from so many stories up actually seemed beautiful for a few moments. Then right when your eyes start to focus rather than squint at the first acquaintance or remembrance of how to react to light at all. Poof. Down once more crash the shutters.
Effortfully I had allowed myself, via ascension to a higher vantage point, to see things differently for awhile. Then after imminent descent (snap) the loss of perspective to the endless sky felt like a loss of vision and blindness. WHY OH WHY ARE ALL THE SAD MOMENTS OF THE SHOW SO WONDERFUL AND SAD ALL AT THE SAME TIME. Maybe there's comfort in that kind of torture. Who knows.
Either that, or I have it backwards. Maybe vision is more accurate on the ground than high up in the air. Maybe there's a blindness that comes with airy altitude. I don't know.
So.
To be continued.
What a jerkbird.