Everything but that which I seek most

I was digging through my clean laundry this morning searching for one item, and I must have handled every sock and undergarment fifteen times without ever seeing the purple embroidered object of my affection. This missing link led to an entire ensemble change at 8:12 a.m., which kind of set the course for an odd day. 

I got in my car and forgot I had put that c.d. in the disc changer earlier in the week, so the first words I heard were perhaps the most honest, albeit unwelcome. "I will be your best memory, the one that you won't forget; I will be your haunting. As good as it gets, I'll be gone through the door. You'll be lucky if you get third best – you'll be a begger but not a chooser." I don't know if I'm haunted by things of my past per say, but I'm certain it is in my nature to remember things a little rosier than they were and long for things that will never be mine. 

Again and again. The scenery is new each time, but the situation remains the same, as I am the culprit of my own frustration. "Be still. Cease striving." The words are embedded in me. "Give up your backseat driving; rest in the passenger's seat."

I am the horrendous, shrieking, tantrum-throwing two year old in the candy store. What I want is sticky and sweet; the sugar will rot my teeth and cause my glucose levels to soar. It will not gratify my hunger, and I will be far worse off having it than if I had been content.

It's apparent, to me, the cause of my dissatisfaction, but I find myself too stubborn to budge. When I'm working, I want to be home painting and when I'm painting, I want to be out running and when I'm running, I want to be laying on the beach, and on the beach, I want to be writing music . . . and so on.

She said that I will never find what I'm searching for in the places I'm looking for it. She referred to this as "the ultimate elusive pot of gold at the end of the rainbow," and I will never say it better. It seems that amidst all my searching, digging, rifling, prodding, kicking, screaming, clawing and gasping, I find everything but that which I seek most

Spaceships and Chickens

We must have been in an upscale furniture store, that morning in '87. I remember the way the après-midi sunlight melted in through big picture windows and made everything look a little shinier – a little more forbidden. "You can look, Claire," my mother whispered, "but you cannot touch anything."

I'm not sure if the restriction to touch made everything a bit more appealing to me, but I know that I wanted nothing more than to scale the pillow top mountains and rescue ugly tchotchkes and porcelain bookends from display shelves. Any decorative elephant or eucalyptus twig I could gather would only survive the tumultuous lava flowing through the store's showroom if they joined me atop a couch cushion. "But," she had warned, "you cannot touch anything." 

So I stood by my mother's side as she looked around and buried my face in her legs when some balding salesman offered me a lollipop. 

I was better off with my eyes closed. They were closed a lot in those days. One morning that same year, I woke up screaming when I couldn't force my eyelids apart. It took both of my parents to calm me down and assure me that the doctor said I wasn't blind – that I would see again by the end of the day. I remember the hours I spent in the dark and how it was difficult to be in the sunlight after that. 

That's why, when I was instructed "look, but don't touch," it hurt me. I could have dealt better with "touch, but don't look," as it was in my very nature to touch things. The less I could understand with my eyes, the more I read with my chubby little hands. Feeling, to me, became a way of seeing. The more I desired something, the greater my urge to touch it became. As if to somehow partake in the beauty of well-designed things, I could run my hand along flocked pillows and silk curtains and hand-carved wardrobes and understand them a little more – see them a bit more clearly. 

I still touch the things I want most. I still see things a little differently than other people. 

I fell back into the grass that morning and welcomed the blinding sun to prevent me from seeing. I commented on the spaceships and chickens that were all around us in the park, but he didn't seem to notice. I could feel the heat on my skin and the damp ground beneath me, but I knew to keep my hands to myself. He had told me before that by touching him, I made it hard for him to breathe. I wondered if he knew that for those of us who don't see well, touching is sort of a life support system, an ability which - when without - we cannot breathe at all. I wondered that morning if there are some differences too great to overlook. I wondered if among the two of us, someone would always be choking.