Working In The Coal Mine

I think I camake you laugh at my misfortune. Well, not my blindness per se but rather my weird efforts to improve the situation. Some are downright comical.

I can see, sorta, but have visual impairments. These make life difficult and treacherous. I've struggled for months to conceive and craft practical solutions. Here are two examples. (There are dozens more.)

I've lost depth-perception: I can't judge how close or far away things are. This poses constant problems, the biggest being injury from bumping into things. Early on my legs, body and head were frequently bruised from unplanned collisions with stationary objects like furniture and walls. Equally perilous are stairs: I can't see which is the last step and, oops! down I go. You probably don't know but many staircases and escalators in public places have yellow stripes across the last step. They aren't noticed by sighted folk but are invaluable to me. They signal where stairs end and when to get off escalators. They save my ass regularly.

I came up with a way to avoid bumping into things from a terrific book I read last year ("An Immense World"). The book describes innumerable ways animals perceive their environment, many of which exceed our own physical senses, such as seeing lightwaves outside the human range. I thought, if I was a six foot tall insect with poor eyesight, how could I sense my environment other than through eyesight? The answer is obvious: I would use antennae.

I wasn't born with antennae but I can use my front legs (you call them arms) as such. I stretch them out in front of me, in a diamond-shape, to detect nearby objects as I move through space. Every day my arms brush up against something I'm glad I didn't slam into with my face or body. The maneuver saves me from injury. I use this technique in private settings to avoid alarming anyone but you can picture me as a tall insect with outstretched antennae and laugh. It's okay.

A second example is even funnier. My biggest visual impairment is darkness. What I see (with my one good eye) is only half as bright as what you see. Even when I add powerful lamps to a room the lighting is still not bright enough to see clearly. Peering through darkness is my constant curse. I have, however, discovered a partial solution.

A headlamp. The kind coal miners use. They sell them today to hikers and outdoorsy folk for nighttime activities. Using one (at maximum brightness) I can suddenly read labels on file folders, see contents of boxes and get shit done. Before I found this I was stymied in doing the most basic tasks. Now, looking like a coal miner, I'm productive.

This, also, is something I do in private. If you walk into the room and see me using one, you'll laugh. How can you not? The sight is inherently funny. Particularly since I'm singing coal mining songs while I labor. (My favorite is "Dyin' To Make A Livin'.")

It's important to enjoy humor wherever we can find it, especially in hard times. When I see myself doing something odd (but effective!) I laugh. And so should you. It's healthy.