I love the start of spring. Who doesn’t? Even the mildest winter brings its share of discomfort and inconvenience, but after a Polar Vortex Special like the one we’ve just had, after the months of suiting up like an Artic explorer, of traversing filthy mountains of sidewalk snow, of combatting epic, legendary cases of cabin fever, well, after all that, the first stirrings of spring are nothing less than magical.
But I have another reason to celebrate the spring, and it’s one that not many people share. Spring means the start of long days, the seemingly endless parade of hours saturated with sunlight—and not only do I like light, I need it, lots of it because I’m night blind. Truth be told, night blindness is the tip of the iceberg as far as my eyes are concerned; there’s also the whopping case of tunnel vision, the color blindness, the myopia, and the nasty, non-removable cataracts. I’m legally blind, courtesy of a degenerative retinal disease called retinitis pigmentosa, and, as you can imagine, this impacts my life in a bunch of ways. I don’t drive fighter jets and I don’t stitch up facial lacerations.
And I’m not a big fan of the dark . . . or the semi-dark . . . or the dark-ish. If a place is even approaching penumbral, it’s a safe bet I do not want to go there.
Some low-light destinations are easy to avoid—particularly once you have three children—and in doing so, you forfeit your nightlife. Without the slightest effort, I can steer clear of the very hip, very dark bars where I passed many an hour in my twenties. I haven’t seen the inside of a nightclub since, well, since they were still called “nightclubs.” Similarly, I hardly ever find myself in the countryside, or Hades, or Iceland in winter.
Other dark places are impossible to avoid, though, and for these, I’ve had to develop practical strategies to make sure I don’t lose an appendage, or a child.
Topping the list is movie theaters. When you’re in charge of a gaggle of kids and you live in a place where it’s mercilessly cold half the year and mercilessly hot the other half, matinees are Mommy’s little helper. Of course, being struck totally blind upon entering the theater makes the experience considerably less enjoyable. I’ve suffered enough embarrassing mishaps (sitting on a grandpa’s lap, sitting on my children’s lap, sitting on a chair that wasn’t there, also known as the floor) to have learned a thing or two.
First lesson: get there before the lights go down. Typically, I’m the kind of person who is so chronically tardy that I will call a friend, not if I’m running late, but if I’m on time. When it comes to the movies, though, our asses are in the seats as soon as the last movie empties out. Once we are settled in, nobody moves for any reason. Primo wants popcorn? No dice. Terza’s thirsty? She’s got saliva, doesn’t she? Seconda has to pee? She should’ve thought of that the ten times I asked before we entered the theater. Builds bladder muscles, anyway.
All the rules and restrictions don’t make for a freewheeling, fly-by-the-seat-of-our-pants good time, but we get in and out in one piece and we get to watch a motion picture.
Then there’s the Museum of Natural History. The place is aces and I’ve been going every year since I was in first grade, unpacking my lunch in the cafeteria that always smelled of old fish sticks. These days, though, unless I have an eagle-eyed adult companion with me on kid duty, there’s no way I step foot inside. The dinosaur rooms are fine, but the Hall of North American Mammals is as dim as an old lady’s parlor with the curtains perpetually drawn, to say nothing of the oh-so-moody Hall of Ocean Life. I’ve heard there are a squid and a whale down there but you could tell me it was a Sasquatch and a wallaby and I could not refute you.
Of all the dark places, the toughest to avoid is the entire out-of-doors after sunset. In the summer, it’s no huge impediment, since night doesn’t fall until nigh on nine p.m. But when the day begins at seven and ends just past four, the dark is always right around the corner. In winter, I understand the plight of closeted werewolves, desperate to get inside before the sun goes down.
I, do, of course, have several options. I could use a mobility cane. To explain why I don’t use one, I’d have to write an entire book, which I did, conveniently enough, and you can read it, starting in June.
I could also use a flashlight. It would, however, have to be industrial-strength and hands-free, so really, what I’d need is a miner’s headlamp. I’d consider these if Target released a line by Missoni, in multicolored woven textiles. As they do not, I will have to pass.
I could huddle in my apartment, comfortable and constrained. And I do, from time to time, especially when the temperature gets sub-Arctic. But this is New York, the city that never sleeps, and I’m just not that kind of girl.
So, I adventure out, dark or no dark, and I stick to the well-lit avenues and I curse the famous, beautiful trees that grow in Brooklyn, which are annoyingly light-obscuring, and I ask my kids to give me a heads-up when there’s a big crack in the pavement, or a fleet of rats ahead, or a garbage can strewn on the sidewalk.
And I dream of spring.
Then one day, it’s here. Flowers beginning to bloom at my feet and birds hazarding a chirp overhead, and sunlight—warming, brightening, revealing sunlight—streaming down on me morning, noon and into the night.
Nicole’s memoir, Now I See You, comes out June 24th by St. Martin’s Press. You can find out more info and preorder a copy on her website nicolekear.com.
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