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Mar. 18th, 2009 06:16 pmWell, she said, I suppose it's good that I've never been overly invested in the body-as-self thing.
My glasses broke last night, and so today I've been wearing prescription sunglasses all day — it's a long story about why I can't get a new pair until Friday at the earliest, and I'd be surprised if Monday weren't pushing it — looking at the world through a glass darkly, frustrated with the warping of color and how damn heavy the lenses are. I can read print without my glasses, I can walk, I can write and type, but I can't work on code. Guess what I'm working on for the next week? yeah. But that's not the important thing.
The interesting thing is how my near-blindness divorces me from the world; I can see color and movement, some amount of depth of field — I'm not legally blind, I don't even think I'm that close to it, but I am barred from participating in the world without technology, assistance, aid. Which I'm used to, I've worn glasses since I was seven, I feel more naked without my glasses and wristwatch (which I've worn every day since I was eleven) than I do without clothes. But I rarely identify myself with glasses; I tell people, I'm the woman in the white shirt with the laptop along the back wall, you'll recognize me, I have a turquoise messenger bag and a big red coat. You'd think I don't have a face.
And to have something so valuable brought home as so vulnerable — it is hard to function without being able to see except in great swathes (she says, from her position of usually being able to do so without overly-complex machiations), and I can't rejigger the world to function better for me while I wander through it. All I can do is hope not to get hit by a car.
But I wrote some good code at work today despite how hard it was to see the screen, and I don't feel broken; I feel irritated that the kitchen full of my roommates' dishes, pleased that I have time to do laundry tonight, achey in the good way along my shoulders (it is possible to use the erg without being able to see what you're doing; stupid, but possible). It's the minutiae, the practical details, that get my attention and my concentration — I am left to ...I can't even think of a verb. What does it mean, to carry a common symbol of deficeit with me always? My vision is not connected to my depression, not exactly, but they both come (at least partially) from the same genetic source, and even if near-sightedness has no moral resonance in the modern world, it shapes my world just as my anxiety attacks do. I can't be a pilot, I can't spend my morning taking the phone calls off my to-do list; these things are so far outside the realm of possibility so as not to even exist for me. I barely even think of them as limitations, boundaries, something that separates me from other people.
When I wrote about depression, my body is a metaphor, not a location. And yet — I live in my body, I'm attuned to and aware of it, I respond to it and demand things of it. I'm a dancer, have been since before I've worn glasses — and yet.
My glasses broke last night, and so today I've been wearing prescription sunglasses all day — it's a long story about why I can't get a new pair until Friday at the earliest, and I'd be surprised if Monday weren't pushing it — looking at the world through a glass darkly, frustrated with the warping of color and how damn heavy the lenses are. I can read print without my glasses, I can walk, I can write and type, but I can't work on code. Guess what I'm working on for the next week? yeah. But that's not the important thing.
The interesting thing is how my near-blindness divorces me from the world; I can see color and movement, some amount of depth of field — I'm not legally blind, I don't even think I'm that close to it, but I am barred from participating in the world without technology, assistance, aid. Which I'm used to, I've worn glasses since I was seven, I feel more naked without my glasses and wristwatch (which I've worn every day since I was eleven) than I do without clothes. But I rarely identify myself with glasses; I tell people, I'm the woman in the white shirt with the laptop along the back wall, you'll recognize me, I have a turquoise messenger bag and a big red coat. You'd think I don't have a face.
And to have something so valuable brought home as so vulnerable — it is hard to function without being able to see except in great swathes (she says, from her position of usually being able to do so without overly-complex machiations), and I can't rejigger the world to function better for me while I wander through it. All I can do is hope not to get hit by a car.
But I wrote some good code at work today despite how hard it was to see the screen, and I don't feel broken; I feel irritated that the kitchen full of my roommates' dishes, pleased that I have time to do laundry tonight, achey in the good way along my shoulders (it is possible to use the erg without being able to see what you're doing; stupid, but possible). It's the minutiae, the practical details, that get my attention and my concentration — I am left to ...I can't even think of a verb. What does it mean, to carry a common symbol of deficeit with me always? My vision is not connected to my depression, not exactly, but they both come (at least partially) from the same genetic source, and even if near-sightedness has no moral resonance in the modern world, it shapes my world just as my anxiety attacks do. I can't be a pilot, I can't spend my morning taking the phone calls off my to-do list; these things are so far outside the realm of possibility so as not to even exist for me. I barely even think of them as limitations, boundaries, something that separates me from other people.
When I wrote about depression, my body is a metaphor, not a location. And yet — I live in my body, I'm attuned to and aware of it, I respond to it and demand things of it. I'm a dancer, have been since before I've worn glasses — and yet.
