macq

Early morning Monday with a cup of coffee. The cat is still asleep.
I had a strange but enjoyable experience on a bus yesterday on the way to work. Each morning I take a short shuttle from the train to work. Each morning during the week a young man who is blind gets on with a woman that obviously knows him, as they chat and she helps him on and off the bus. They sit in the same seats all the time.

Yesterday being Sunday, I wasn't even thinking about them and set in the seat that the woman normally occupies. As the bus is getting ready to leave, the driver opens the door one last time and the blind gentleman gets on alone. He sits in the exact same seat as usual and I self conciously try to scoot closer to the window to give him more room..

The bus lurches off and the young man turns to me and starts talking about a presentation he is putting together..I wait a polite second or two and then tell him that I'm not who he thinks I am. He smiles and asks who I am then...I introduce myself and he explains that the woman I've seen him with is a co-worker that insists on helping him when she's around, but that by no means is the meeting planned. He asks me what she looks like as they apparently not intimate enough for him to ask her or to be able to touch her.

I tell him and he nods his head and smiles. I tell him she's a redhead and her basic features. Then he says that's funny, because he sees her as brunette. He also says people usually jus let him go on when he talks to someone on the bus..as though they are afraid to correct him or fearful they may frighten him...I say, maybe they like you talking to them. he wonders why I spoke up..??? I tell him I thought the redhead and he may be friendly and I didn't want a blind man feeling my thigh...we both laugh.

He goes on to tell me how it has always been easy for him to imagine the world as he sees it through his blindness...how he can change the color of trees or change a freeway overpass into a bridge over a magnificent river. I chuckle and tell him that that seems harder than just accepting the world as it is and becoming familiar with the sounds and forces around you. He wonders how I can get along in a world that translates itself to my brain in the same way all the time. That seems a burden to him.

Writing this now, I know I'm not doing justice to the emotional impact the short encounter had upon me, but in a nutshell maybe my sight prevents me from being able to live in the world as I would like it to be. This sounds silly I know but if a blindman can be happy thinking I'm a voluptuous redhead then why can't I bend my own situations into a more pleasing reality??? Is this delusional?? Or is it that I depend too much upon my interpretation of the world and let my emotions be swayed by my vision?

Not everything in ones life is based upon sight...emotions, interpersonal communication, etc all play a role in shaping my reality BUT if I were able to change out my well worn rose tinted glasses that no longer work for some blackout shades...what would I really see????

Oh well, time for work...and another cup of coffee...