"Ye shall indeed see, but shall never perceive."

-Matthew 13:14.

"What are you, fucking blind?"

-Agitated motorcyclist.

I was standing on line at Dairy Queen in Garden State Plaza, dead set on buying a large Oreo Blizzard. I’d just removed my glasses and whisked them away to what I thought at the time was a relative safe spot -- my pants pocket. I didn’t want to be silently judged by the Dairy Queen attendant for wearing glasses with only one arm. In private, though, I reveled in the condition of my spectacles, making sport of the matter. "I’m making a fashion statement," I’d say. "The statement? I’m POOR." And it was true: I’d only bought this pair a few months earlier after, yes, both arms broke off the previous pair. I’d found the weakness in both plastic and metal frames – protective goggles seemed like the next logical step. After all of this hardship, then, you can imagine my horror when I reached into my pocket and came back with an unattached arm. Alarmed but undeterred, I ordered the Blizzard in my usual fashion, ate a few spoonfuls to console myself, and considered my plight. I was twenty miles from home; I was blind (BLIND!); and I had a half-eaten Oreo Blizzard in my right hand.

There was only one decision, and it was laughably obvious. I’d drive straight to the optometrist’s from the mall and, instead of sitting down and finishing the ice cream before departing, I’d make a bad situation worse by consuming it while driving, as opposed to, say, using a free hand to hold the glasses to my face. It’s not like my vision is that bad. I mean, it’s pretty hard to hit a car or a person.

Hard, yes, but not impossible.

Part of my haste was due to the day (Friday), the time (3 PM), and the weekend (Labor Day). Along with a group of like-minded carousers, I was going to Point Pleasant for the weekend. Now, the beach is not without its charms – the water, the sand, and so forth, but I find it much more agreeable when my vision is intact and I’m able to, let’s say, sample its wares. It’s true, people seem much more attractive when, well, you can’t see, but if one entertains notions of singling one girl out for their affections, one may find themselves in an awkward situation if the number who caught their eye from afar gains ten years and seventy-five pounds when met face-to-face. Very clearly, time was of the essence.

On the Garden State Parkway, I swerved out of the way of a squirrel scampering across the highway. Upon further inspection, it was a small plant being blown across the thoroughfare. Maybe I should schedule an eye exam while I’m at it. The second epigraph above came courtesy of a motorcyclist whom I almost pancaked into the median. I’d like to chalk this up to not being able to see, but really I just wasn’t looking.

Twenty miles and several squirrel scares later, I pulled into the parking lot of the strip mall that contains Special-Eyes. I tore up the stairs and threw open the door. Just as I did, Dr. Dan arose from his desk, smiled, and with gleaming eyes said, "I’ve been expecting you."

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When you’re young, you’re at the mercy of your parents in myriad ways. It is they who construct the world for you and give you the eyes to see it with. For all one knows, as in my case, you really are the most precious thing in the world; the best-behaved, most beautiful, and smartest baby in the Western Hemisphere. If you’re my sister, for the longest time you believe that you were raised by monkeys and later found under a rock in a remote desert. Entering school, then, is like a collision of worlds, an encounter between facts and fictions that time – and standardized testing! – will ultimately sort out.

School has any number of means at its disposal to let you know how forthright your parents were with you. There are spelling bees and high-enrichment programs; there are checks for scoliosis and lice; there’s field day and gym class. If none of that distinguishes you, if your sole talent lies in a penchant for diligence and punctuality, there’s the "Perfect Attendance" award. After awhile, a kid knows where he stands.

And yet there are some things that can’t be measured, that won’t show up in tests or examinations; inner workings that are imperceptible to the eye. Math class had proven that I had an aptitude for the subject, but it wasn’t until high school when, to the shock of my guidance counselor, I added a long list of numbers in my head that I found it was unusual for someone to be able to do so. Similarly, I had a gift for drawing, but it’s only now, many years after the fact, that I look at things I’d done at an early age and notice how all of the people I drew, all of my athletes and comic book heroes, were knock-kneed, just like myself. Certainly no one ever said anything about it to me, and it would’ve been within my character to have not noticed what other peoples’ legs were like. Stepping outside of the schoolyard for a moment, I assumed every kid’s grandparents lived next door to them and that they stopped there first before going to their own home. I never visited the house next door to my friends’ so I just imagined that the adjacent homes were occupied by doting grandmothers baking up a variety of treats for their favorite grandchildren.

My internal world was very much of my own design and, to me, every idea was a verity. My thoughts were like structures, paragons of truth and beacons of accuracy. When a notion was contradicted, it was put on notice, and if independent verification came, it was taken down and destroyed, and in its place, a new way of seeing the world would rise. That’s where babies come from? If you say so. Some people can’t eat all they want and not gain weight? How about that! Diet Dr. Pepper really does taste a lot more like regular Dr. Pepper? Very well. As I grew older, many of the original constructs would fall, replaced with more precise representations. This mental landscape became quite populous, though the mark of its original architect (i.e., me) became less apparent.

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How did people begin to realize that they needed glasses anyway? Well, old people in 1000 A.D. were apparently a lot like old people nowadays: they cry about everything. Not being able to see so well, for one. The "reading stone," a prism of glass resembling our magnifiers, was invented in the 11^th century and so old people were able to read small print, and yet they were still suckered in by Publisher’s Clearinghouse. Soon, though, everyone wanted to be able to see better. Our modern spectacles were invented in the 16^th century, though the origins are still fuzzy. Europeans, the French and English mainly, were self-conscious about wearing glasses and would only do so in private. The Spanish, however, wore them with pride, believing that glasses lent them dignity and importance.

Regarding the last matter, my sympathies lie with the French & English. A quick perusal of the yearbook proves that kids who wore glasses were utterly bereft of dignity and importance, kids like Jerome Wong. True, he was saddled with many other problems – severe acne, gray hair, an awkward manner, not to mention his very name – but the glasses were the capper, the finishing touch, the piece de resistance. So maybe glasses didn’t make the nerd; maybe the nerd made the glasses. In any event, I was in no hurry to find out.

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One particular incident brought this way of looking at myself into focus. It occurred in the nurse’s office at my junior high school and it hinged on this question: Is the apple on the table or under the table?

As in previous years, I expected to pass my eye exam with flying colors. It’s no secret that I had contempt for the school nurse. There’s an old adage that goes, "Those who can, do. Those who can’t, teach. Those who can’t teach, teach gym." Where this leaves the school nurse is anyone’s guess. They’re in a class with mall security and Arena League football players: If they’re any good at what they do, why don’t they become the real thing?

I can’t remember the woman’s name now: for the sake of this piece, let’s call her Nurse Ratchet. Everything about Nurse Ratchet was short: her height, her hair, and especially her temper, which always led me to wonder why she got involved a) in nursing and b) with kids.

The vision test was a part of the standard physical. It required the student to look into a viewfinder and take a battery of tests. There was, of course, the standard line reading, but one also had to look into these chromatic circles and answer what number they saw in the heavily shaded orb. I had an uneasy feeling during this section; I was reduced to guessing by process of elimination by test’s end. My hesitancy couldn’t have helped matters any.

In hindsight, I believe that my undoing was the "apple" test. What the student saw was a table and a beam of a light ("the apple.") The nurse would press a button and the apple would alternate between being on the table and being under the table. The light was a blur to me. Nurse Ratchet would not accept my answer that, "it was half-on the table, half-under the table." She called this "fudging." She said I needed glasses. I cursed her a fool.

I was twelve years-old and my social life was over before it even began.

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I had a professional exam done at Lens Crafters, the results of which confirmed the rudimentary test conducted by the Nurse Ratchet. I needed glasses. My best friend Paul was having a sleepover for his birthday that night. I had little interest in having my debut, as it were, on such a grand stage. So great was my anxiety that I was giving great consideration to phoning up sick.

After a half-hour or so, the doctor came out with my glasses. I put them on and looked around. All of the anxiety I had been feeling, all of the injury done to my vanity, all of it was cast aside when I saw just what I’d been missing out on. I looked out the front window, onto the highway and out into the mountains. I remember how brilliant the color of the turning leaves on the distant trees seemed to me. I could see a small house on the mountains with smoke coming from the chimney. The world extended far beyond my line of normal vision. I didn’t want to take them off even though I only really needed them to see the blackboard. All of a sudden, I couldn’t wait to show them off. I looked at myself and thought, "How dignified! How important-looking!"

My vision loss was so gradual that I never once suspected that I was missing out on so much. A victim of my own youthful solipsism, I simply believed that everyone saw the world as I did. I don’t think it’s a coincidence that I’m myopic, near-sighted. To be myopic, in a non-ophthalmological sense, means to possess a narrow view of something. My view of the world was limited to what I saw through the prism of my mind. I was like Oedipus, only without the cruel, ironical fate, not to mention the incest and patricide. I did not possess insight until I could see better.

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The last time I saw Dr. Dan, several months ago, I said, "Nothing personal, but I hope I don’t see you for awhile." It was nothing personal: Dr. Dan is a very helpful person; he always tells me which pairs of glasses look best on me. (He may be gay, or he may just be fey. Not that it matters, because like all self-conscious liberals, some of my best friends are gay.) And he’s mindful of my financial situation: he never, for example, opens up The Case, a treasure trove of designer "lenswear." But I’m also mindful of my financial situation and anytime I see Dr. Dan, it always costs me at least $100.

This new pair I bought seems good, sturdy. They’re pretty sharp looking, I guess, with their reflective frames that in direct sun can take out every eye in the room. Dan heartily approved of them, though his heart was set on me buying the heavier-framed black pair. When I took my leave of him, I repeated what I said above about not wanting to see him for awhile and now, several months later, I’ve held myself to that.

The novelty of wearing glasses has long since worn off. I don’t possess a sentimental attachment to the horrid things. I’d hate to lose them, but losing them – and having to buy another pair – would only make me hate them more. Ten-plus years have done little to cultivate even the remotest affection for them, and, in all of this time, I still haven’t conquered my vision impairment. Oh, I can see just fine, thanks, but I’m still learning, still receiving edification. I’ve tried to stop being short-sighted, but I’m amazed at how often I still come to find that something I always held to be universal is purely personal. And I really don’t mind being wrong. When I was young, I would cling to my opinion, no matter how off base, quite intransigently. New towers of thought would rise above my mind’s landscape only after great effort and with high personal cost. Now, I really don’t mind; I’m actually grateful to have my head turned-around on any given subject. I imagine, and I hope, that the only thing that will end this process is death, but even then, who knows what one might yet see.