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.