2012 08 27 Molecularly Speaking

Molecularly Speaking

 

Who am I? Who is the guy staring back at me in the mirror? Am I the same person I used to be? Have I changed? Am I still changing? Haven't I changed enough already? Have I molded the life that surrounds me to suit me, or has the life that surrounds me molded me? Isn't that like a wicked fine line? Is that a perfect balance, or are they both one in the same?

I suppose that these questions have raced through the minds of many a man smarter than me. Women too. Smile. I imagine the questions have pondered the poignant perceptions throughout the coggles of time. What the hell is a coggle anyways? Is there really such a thing as a coggle, or did I just make it up so I could slide into a parallel, non related burst of unrelated nonsense?

Who really knows, why would they care, and here we go.

Makes me think of the Jetsons. I wonder if Elroy grew up thinking about this stuff. I suppose if you threw a Spacely Space Sprocket into a couple unsuspecting coggles, you would probably have a futuristic galactic mix of something that's out of this world, off the charts, and off the marble. . Wouldn't that be ironic?

I was sitting out back on the picnic table yesterday afternoon, and I could hear a siren off in the distance. It grew closer, and then faded away. I wondered if it was coming down our road, or if it was heading down the next road over, across the valley from our house. I wondered if it was a cop, or an ambulance, or maybe a fire truck.

I guess I'll never know.

As I was sitting there, on the table, I suddenly, and again, realized just how small I am. Now don't get me wrong. I am a big guy, and I take up quite a bit of room, but that's conveniently according to my own perception of space. Yes, when I step off the pool ladder and into the water, the incurring wake does displace some of the water. Probably more than I care to admit. It's just a small pool though, in the grand scheme of things that have to do with pools. It's just a little container of liquid, with a little spillage. Ok! A lot of spillage, but then again, according to my own perception of matter displacement, and it is my perception, so, back off!

It's such a big world out there, and there's so much space being taken up by so many things. I would like to think that my space, my volume of matter, well, I would hope that it matters somehow. I would like to think that by having continuously propelled my molecular frictional structure  of molecules across this molecularly structured marble, that I have somehow benefitted gratefully, and gracefully enhanced said molecules that constantly swirl around me, molecularly speaking,  by my doing so, indeed. I had to go over this last sentence several times before I could wrap my head around it. What the heck am I talking about? How come my fingers do stuff like that? It's got to be preprogrammed or something, I mean, really? Are you kidding me? Who in their right mind types stuff like this?

Still thinking, and wrapping.

Too deep. Way too deep. I guess I'll be moving on then.

Sometimes when I listen to the news, and hear all of the commotion going on around the planet, I wonder if it all matters to me. I wonder if it has anything to do, with me. I wonder if it ever will. I know that in the grand scheme of things, everything relates to one another. What I pay for this is determined by what someone did to that. How I feel about this, is swayed by what someone else said about that. What I buy and use, is related to what I heard or saw someone say or do about something.  Such a tightly woven array of happenstance. Such a delicately balanced cycle of events, one after the other, day after day, and still, there I was, sitting out back, on my picnic table, wondering if at that particular point in time, any of it really had anything to do with me. I sat, in silence, wondering if anyone was wondering about me, as I was wondering about them. I sat in silence, trying to listen to anything that was going on, out there, away from me, and then, out of the blue, all of a sudden, a jet airliner passed overhead, from west to east, apparently slowing down to land in either Hartland, or Bangor. Probably Bangor. the goings on in the world smoothly shifted my way, and again, I felt connected to it all. I felt like a piece of the action. A small piece, but a piece, none the less.

As I sat there, and the jet liner quickly slid out of sound, towards somewhere where I wasn't, I heard a blue jay in the trees surrounding our back yard, and a woodpecker over near the other side of the lawn. The woodpecker sounded like he was having a woodpecker of a time, again, hanging upside down from the suet cage that was hanging near the dog pen.

I tried remembering if I put a new brick of suet in the cage that morning. By the sounds of the woodpecker, hollering out his short, sharp, playful chirps, he was apparently, very glad that I did.

 

 

2012 08 18 A Fort Full Of Mobility

As my son, grandson and I climbed down the stairs of Battery A, I could feel the warmth of a hot summer's day leave us behind, and the coolness of two hundred years of hand placed, sub-level  stone wrap itself around us. It had been roughly seventeen years since I had been to Fort Knox, with my son Matt, his cousin Sarah, and Gyver, a Fresh Air boy from The Bronx. It had been what seemed like a life time since I had placed my hands along the coolness of the darkened stairwell that led down to an artillery battery. I had all of the memories stored deep in the video vaults of my mind, as I banged away on the stone steps with my white cane. As I slowly moved down the dark stairwell, I was flooded with electric charges that raced through my aged, billy goat body, causing my heart to race, my palms to sweat, and my anxietty levels to go through the roof.  I had finished up with my mobility lessons two months prior to the field trip to the state park, and I had no idea that I was embarking on one of the most difficult mobility lessons of my life. I had no idea that I would have to pull out all of the tools that I had learned over the past two years. I had no idea that I would have to rely on being able to maneuver through and around all of the obstacles that were testing me, and giving me the options of leaving, and never coming back. It was one of the best, and hardest days I have ever lived.

As we arrived at the bottom of the battery stairs, and realized that there was no way out, except back up the stairs, I knew I was in for a long, grueling day with my cane, and a whole lot of stairs and stone. I knew that I would be put to the test, and somehow, it all seemed ok. I really didn't mind. I really had no problem with a head jam packed with uncertainty. I didn't have a problem with the crowded halls, the uneven stone steps, the spiral staircases, none of it. It all seemed ok with me, and I was smack dab in the middle of it all. Me, my cane, my son, my grandson, and a head full of hours of orientation and mobility lessons that were coming into the forefront, one at a time.

We climbed back up the long, dark stairwell of Battery A, and started walking along a stone path, that led to the Battery B stairwell.

"Oh, how lovely!" I thought, as I started smacking my way down the stairwell. I could hear the excitement in Jack's voice as we again, travelled down into the coolness of the battery. I smiled as I swept back and forth along the wet, stone steps of the stairwell. I smiled as I ran my hands along the cool, wet stone of the stairwell walls. Their coolness felt good as the day was very hot and muggy. I wanted to crawl between the cracks and take a nap, but I was urged on by my grandson's exuberance. I stood on the floor of the battery, just barely able to see the dim daylight shining in through the gun turets. I was caught up in the thought of what it must have been like for the soldiers of the fort, two hundred years before. How different it must have been for them way back then. How different it must have been indeed. I could hear my son Matt, and Jack, running around the enclosed stone chambers of the lowly room, playing hide and seek. All of my anxieties, or worries, or fears of the unknown didn't matter. They didn't seem to have any place in the day's events. All that mattered was what a wonderful day I was having, and how much it meant to have the chance to spend it with the two most important men in my life.

"Let's go Nunno! Come on!" I could hear Jack hollering to me as he started back up the long stairwell, back up to the heavied air of a hot, sticky, summer day. Again, I started smacking and sweeping my way up the stairs, feeling it get hotter with every step. I wanted to turn around and go back down to the coolness of the battery floor, but I also knew that neither of them would have anything to do with that! I was on a mission. We' were on a mission, and it would be completed, no matter what.

Earlier, we had been over to the observation tower of the new Penobscot Narrows bridge. That, in and of itself, was a mobility lesson and a half. From the top of the elevator, on the forty first floor, we had to go up two flights of steps to get to the actual observation deck at the top. The steel stairs were wrapped around the outside walls of the tower, and I really had to take my time with it all. Matt told me that the views were spectacular. I could picture them in my mind, and that seemed to be good enough for me. I knew the area, and could view the scenes in my mind, pulling out all of the scattered scraps of video I had been saving up. Thank God I have a lot of room up there. Smile.

Well, there we were, stepping back out into the sunlight from the battery stairwell, just in time for the firing of the cannon. There were park employees dressed up as militia, with one of them explaining a bit about the gun, and what purpose it served. the "Ready, Fire!" order was given, and the shock wave concussion of the firing cannon went through me, like a knife through butter on a day similar to that same hot summer's day. I jumped, and shouted, and screamed like a mad man, then I laughed as they readied another blast from the cannon. I could hear Jack laughing, and all of the other people surrounding the area were noisily chattering about how loud the cannon was.

"Ready, fire!" Another concussion wave of awe inspiring cannon blast flew through me just as easily as the first one had. Matt had managed to capture the second blast on his camera, which the video of is on my facebook page. It was loud. It was incredibly loud, and as the echo from the blast came back from the opposite river bank, all I could say was, "Wow!"

The fort was never attacked, and it's probably a good thing, because I would pity anyone who had the false notion that anything could ever survive a fort full of those cannons. My god! What an awesome display of power!

Well, we soon found the entrance of the fort, and although I told Matt to go ahead in without me, which he declined, I found myself winding in, around, and through the narrow halls and stairwells of the fort. I could still vaguely remember the layout of the fort in my mind. I could remember the two spiral stairwells on each front corner of the fort. I could remember the grassy rooftop that surrounded and wrapped around the rear of the fort. I could remember the rear hallways that needed a flashlight to maneuver through. I could remember the dungeons and barracks rooms, and the officers quarters. I could remember it all, and as we went through it all, I remembered it all again. Many times, I could hear my grandson's voice hollering, "Come on Nunno! This way!" So many times, he would come back to me, and grab my free hand, so that he could lead me into the darkened abyss. I cringed as I smiled uncontrollably. I was laughing while I was pleading to get through the next turn, or up the next set of stone stairs, or around the next uneven corner of the back tunnels. It was all magnificently scary, and unbelievably electrifying. I felt more scared and alive than I had felt in some time.

My son kept asking me if I was ok. He said a few times that he would try to slow down so I could take my time more with my surprise mobility lesson. That usually lasted about thirty seconds, then, there we were, back to the pace of a six year old boy. Every time I heard Jack shout out, "Cool!" or, "Wow!" I smiled and chuckled to myself. It's as if I was seeing the fort again, through his eyes, and I was loving every bit of it, except for the few times that I had the tootsie rolls scared out of me. Just a couple times though. Smile.

I must tell you again, this was one of the most difficult, and rewarding mobility lessons I have ever been on. I kept picturing my mobility instructor, Rosemary, behind me as I wobbled through the caverns and stairwells of the fort. I kept hearing her words of wisdom, just fifteen feet behind me. I kept wondering if she would have been as pleased with the days developements as I was. Thanks Sarge.

My son Matt did tell me that there were quite a few times that people would see us coming and see my cane smacking away, and they would make room for us to get through. I would like to personally thank you all for helping me to have a fantastic day, and if I stepped on anyone's toes, I apologize fully, and hope you are getting used to walking abnormally for as long as it took for the flat toe to pop back to life.

Fort Knox, thanks for staying exactly where you are. Thanks for guiding me through your magestic beauty and echoed dignity. I will always remember you just as you were, oh so many years ago.

Thanks Jack for helping your dusty old Grampa through all of those twists and turns. You are such a big help.

Thanks matt for a wonderful day, and I hope we can do it again real soon. Having a day full of you two guys is the best mobility lesson I can ever hope to have, ever!

Now then, as I smack and sweep my way through to another sunny day, where's the next fort at? Let me at it, I tell ya!

2012 08 16 I Wonder...

As I pound down the sidewalk, careening around the onslaught of shadows coming at me in frenzy, I think to myself how wonderful it must be to be able to see. I think to myself how easy it must be to be able to get around without worrying about stepping in manholes, or tripping over curbs, or falling over trash cans, or walking into street signs or telephone poles, or guide wires, or bushes with thorns. I think how wonderful it must be to be able to have both hands free while you walk. I think how convenient it must be to not have to scour the dull and murky waters for any kind of a visual clue. I think how easy it would be for me to just say to hell with it, throw my hands in the air, my cane to the sidewalk and just stand here , waiting for someone to coddle me to the nearest convenient pity pot, so that I might make myself comfortably insufficient. I think to myself how foolish that would be, and continue pounding my cane against the sidewalk, dodging the shadows, and scouring my less than poor sight for the vague hints and clues that I have grown so fond of.

The old phrase, "It is what it is," comes to mind as I make it to the next corner, and hang a right. I again think to myself how wonderful that I didn't have to take a left, or go straight ahead and maneuver a street crossing. I smile though, knowing all to well that I can, infact, handle the street crossing. I can stand, and listen, and wait until the time is right, then cross the sea of moving metal non-tranquility. I have the tools, and I have the knowledge of how to use them. All I need is the patience afforded me by my own intellect.

I wonder what the people, driving the cars, must think as they watch me make my way through the busy streets. I wonder what they talk about that night around the supper table, and if I enter the conversation. I wonder if they realize that just a few short months ago, I was sitting in their car, with my hands on their wheel, steering down their road, not thinking about me, with a cane.

I am the first blind person I have ever met. The only other time I had seen a blind person, or noticed a blind person was on TV, or in a movie, or in a book. Anywhere, but in person. I wonder if the people I meet during the course of the day are also seeing or meeting the first blind person they have ever seen. There are a lot of us over here, but there aren't a lot of us, out there. I don't know about all of the blind folk, and I never would ever think I know what they feel. I just wonder if they think and feel the same ways that I do. Every blind person, or visually impaired person that I have met since July, 2010, is someone that I probably would have never met, or seen, or noticed. I would have gone on, living my life as I saw fit, unsuspecting that there were even any blind people out there. It just never crossed my mind. It just never entered my day, or my week, or month, or year, or life. It just never did, and I unknowingly, was not the better for it.

I write about a lot of things, and I think about a lot more. Being blind and seeing as how it is still relatively new to me, I find that it consumes a great deal of my day.

Who am I kidding? Being blind consumes 100 percent of my day. It never lets me sleep, or relax, or get away with not being blind. It is all consuming, and ever present. It is what I have become, and I am who I am today because of it. I suppose I should rephrase that last remark. I might just be who I am today, in spite of being blind.

I can not go more than fifteen minutes or so without thinking about it. The only time that I do, is when I am in one of my daily routines, and everything is going according to plan. I weave, bob, dodge, and feel my way through it all sometimes, and I don't even think about the fact that I can't see. I suppose that certain things I do, on a normal basis, I am able to do with fluid familiarity, and I don't have to worry about any of it. None of it. It all just flows drifts and floats by me in a gentle, peaceful calm that I somehow find relaxing as hell.

This usually doesn't last long though, as the variables of the day come banging in upon me, reminding me of their ever present force. It's almost as if they are all in it together, coming up with a plan of attack that will certainly, and definitely pull me out of my wonderful and free state of mind, and rapidly propel me back into the on guard status that I know all to well.

Now, where was I? Oh yes, I took that right at the intersection. No, that was way too easy. Let's twist it up some. Reverse direction, and hello Mr. Intersection, how are you doing on this find day in Central Maine? You sound busy as the dickens, as I am sure you are. Now, where is the push button for the audible crossing helper thing? There you are. I love that beeping sound. Funny, how a beeping sound can bring such a dramatic level of anxiety back down a couple of notches

I wonder what the people driving by are thinking about as they see me standing here, with my cane, waiting for the street crosser pedestrian thing to help me. I wonder if they even notice me. I wonder if they know that my heart is pounding out of my chest. I wonder if they can see that I am ready to jump out of my shoes. I wonder if they know how out of place I feel? I wonder if they know just how uncomfortable I feel standing here with this cane. I wonder if they know just how fortunate they are. I wonder if they're going home, or to work, or to the store, or are just out for a nice, relaxing ride. I wonder if I will be able to find the opposite street corner, and not make a fool out of myself. I wonder if I can make out the faint lines of the crosswalk to guide me along. I wonder if I am standing tall, or all bent over in a huddled question mark.

I hear something, "Main Street walk signal is lit, Main Street walk signal is lit."

Ok then, that's my cue, and away we go.

As I pound across Main Street, I hold tight to my cane, and I wonder.

2012 08 05 Non-Conditional

Non-Conditional

Ok, ok, here I come! Grab the kids and get the heck out of the way! Large wandering, poor sighted billy goat with cane smacking tendencies approaching! Hard a port! Starboard side! Battle stations! Battle stations! Dive! Dive! Dive!

I always wanted to type that stuff. Smile.

Some times I feel like a large cargo ship, coming in through the outer banks, or the sounds, or the bay, floating aimlessly, looking for somewhere to port. Looking for a tugboat to tie onto and lead me in through the narrows. Looking for a visual cue that would pin point my exact location, so that I can update my internal mapping system. Some familiar hint of a silhouette, or an outline of a door, or the faint glow of a window, or the dull shimmer of a steel handrail. Anything that would shout out, "Hey! I'm over here!" All I usually need is just one, small, little, miniscule tad of a facsimile of a shard of a clue. That's it. That's all I need. Nothing more, nothing less.

I'm ok around my house. I know where most everything is. I know what to kick, what to bump into, what to knock over, and what to slam into. I feel right at home when I kick the dog ramp, or trip over a dog toy, or hunt for the top step, or search for a door knob. It's all home, and it's all mine. I never use my cane when I'm around the house, inside or outside. My wife wonders why, and for the life of me, I can't really tell her why, because I'm not really sure myself. I suppose it's a male thing. My home! My castle! Really? I mean, really? Typical male stubbornness? Probably.

I guess that when I am around home, and I get into my normal daily routines, I tend to sometimes forget that I can't see to well. Too well? Hell, I can't see too good either. Fact is, I can't see much of anything. But when I am up and about, around the home, I tend to not remember some times that I need to use my cane everywhere else. I tend to forget that without my cane, outside the home, I am pretty much, completely blind. I forget all of that crap, and my cane is a million miles away. Even when I am walking the dog out back, I would rather stop and send up mental flares, or patiently wait for a car to go by to reset my bearings, then use my cane. I would rather stand outside in the rain, hunting for a visual cue of any size or shape that would guide me back to the house, than run around my back yard with a white stick.

A friend of mine, jokingly, said that people of sophistication, call it a cane. They never use the word "stick".

I got your stick, right over here honey! Smile again.

No, really, it is a manifested male ego swell, manufactured out of sheer little boy pride that would, and will, eventually, I am sure, lead me towards a cliff somewhere.

That doesn't matter though. All of the variables and unknowns and around the next corners, just out of sight's, they don't matter when I am home. None of the uncertainties matter, and as a matter of fact, they just seem to clog things up, and get in the way.

I am still trying to convince myself that I do not need a cane, and that I can see just fine. Most times, my memories fill in what I can't see, and I think that they trick me into believing that what I am imagining is actually what I am seeing. A made up reality of past recollections and stored data that takes shape and presents itself in an orderly fashion. For the most part, I actually believe what I am seeing, and use it to the best of my ability. It's turned and bit me on the ass a few times, and I usually end up calling myself a handful of wonderful names, but then I turn right around and pull the reels of film back out and reload the projector.

I always did love a good movie. Especially the ones with a twist to them.

I suppose I will hang on to my manufactured independence around the house as long as I can. I suppose also, that there will come a time when I will be able to totally accept my "condition". Somewhere out there, a lady that I know just read that word, and is cringing, along with calling me a few names of her own. Using the word "condition" slams me into a category that reflects on nothing more than being what the condition states, and nothing else. No relevance. No unchartered waters. No around the next corners. Just me and my condition.

I don't want to be limited to the rules of the condition. I don't want to be hampered with limits and boundaries of the condition. I don't want to be labeled by the name tags of the condition. I am unconditionally, non conditional. Man, that's a mouthful.

My cane, I suppose, represents the "condition", and I am very afraid that I might find myself in the same long line, with all of the other 'Conditionally' inflicted, which would put, for the most part, and end to my typical male independent state of mind.

Man, if there was ever anything I did that was for the better, it would be to finally be able to put my misguided male ego to rest. I think nothing gets in the way, at times, more than that. Over inflated, swelled beyond recognition, over used and totally abused. You women must look at us dude fellas sometimes and just shake your head. Giggling under your breath right now, aren't you? It's ok; you can go ahead and laugh out loud. It ain't gonna matter much, cuz we're just gonna go ahead and do it anyway. Too much damn typical male patterning going on! Is patterning a word?

I need my cane. I don't like my cane. I depend on my cane. I hate my cane. I realized the other day that if we leave the house, and I am in the car, if my cane is on the floor at my feet, I get a comfortable feeling of being able to handle whatever comes down the road. How can I hate something that brings such comfort to me? I don't like to have to rely on it, but I am glad I can. I am in a constant tug of war with this blind thing. I am desperately clinging tightly to what ever I can muster up of my vision with one hand, while I reluctantly clutch my cane with the other. I continue to subconsciously tell myself that I an not blind. I continue to, blah, blah, blah.

Through it all, I continue to be blessed every day. I continue to focus on the things I have in my life. I continue to struggle with it all, but I do manage to keep on continuing.

Well, here I go, off on another tangent that was totally unpredictable. I guess I'll take my tangent, and run with it.

Probably better take my cane with me.