Laughing at My Limitations

When I was six, I had an accident that took me years to understand.  Like all kids I knew to look both ways before crossing the street.  Yet I still became the victim of a run-and-hit accident.  You read that correctly:  I ran into the back fender of a car, though I was sure the car was past me. The driver was beside himself, unable to fathom how he hit me.  Of course, he didn’t.  I hit him.    

At eight, I played – and loved – baseball.  In the outfield, however, I regularly ran in on fly balls that sailed over my head or ran back for balls that plopped in front of me.  At that age, they let you keep playing, but my assigned spot was right field.  Hardly any kid ever hit it there.

My best friend and I played Wiffle ball for hours in his backyard.  My problem was, literally, painfully obvious there too.  Running to catch the plastic fly ball, my head met an obstacle not found on the typical ball field – a tree. 

At 10 I was excited to see my first 3D movie. I donned the cardboard glasses with the thin plastic colored lenses and prepared to be scared.  Yet, when the other kids screamed as monsters jumped out at them, I just sat there wondering what the big deal was.  Why did anyone need those glasses? It looked like a regular movie to me. 

At 13, my baseball career took an irreversible downward turn.  Pitchers figured out how to throw a curve ball.  My batting average plummeted, but I did have one stellar moment. I hit a single that won a game.  How did I manage that?  I closed my eyes before the pitch arrived.  Despite diminishing returns from playing, I struggled on. In my last season I asked that my jersey carry a new number on my back: 00.  I might as well have my batting average on my shirt.

At 18, I applied for my driver’s license.  Yes, 18 is two years later than anybody else.  Perhaps I instinctively understood I had would have a problem. When the DMV tester asked me to put my head against the device with a little glass window for each eye and read road sign number seven, I said “Yield.”  She said “What?”  I suddenly realized that each eye was independent of the other, each had its unique view of the world.  The road sign numbered seven using my left eye was not the same one numbered seven that my right eye saw. I recovered instantly, switching eyes and shouting “the sign says Stop.”  I passed the test, though I felt an ethical twinge about that day for some time.   

Closer to discovering the truth of my situation, I went to see an optometrist.  When he said “Tell me when the red dot goes above the green dot” he waited – and waited – and waited.  It never did.  Diagnosis?  I was born without depth perception.  Cure?  None.

So how do I drive safely (I’ve been asked this, of course, by people who ride with me!)?  While I can’t see depth, I compensate by using other objects to judge where I am in any physical space.  Also, because each eye works and moves on its own, I also have great peripheral vision.  I can use each eye to see things almost behind me on either side (which means people can’t do something behind my back, because I can probably see them doing it!)  

If this sounds like I sometimes laugh at my disability, I do.  It’s a far better coping strategy than cursing that I could never be good at baseball, drive easily at night or enjoy movies like Avatar.  Sure, I still bump into doorways, sometimes even street poles or retrieve something that fell under the kitchen counter and then hit my head on its underside when I stand back up. My texts are also interesting since I think I’m hitting one key only to find the one next to it appearing on the screen.  Still, laughter gets me through.  After all, in the encyclopedia of possible disabilities, I’m very, very fortunate.   Most people have far more to contend with.

My lack of depth perception has always been my companion.  For me, it’s also become a metaphor about part of living.  My eyes tell me that nothing is assured, that seeing depends on how and where you look, that what you can’t do is an invitation to creativity and that I should be thankful for what I can do.  These were unexpected but not unwelcome gifts.

On the playground one day at middle school, a kid said “Hey, do that funny thing with your eyes.”  I didn’t know what he meant, though I do now: each eye occasionally takes its own path.  Yet I laughed when he said it.  Why not?

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