In the early ages, I would have been one of those cast over the cliff since I couldn’t see.  Back before humans developed the ability to accessorize or for that matter, helped their toy poodles with their own coordinating outfits, any number of malfunctions that indicated possible displeasure from the River God or Almighty Sun King (mangled leg, arm shorter than the other, two heads, or the inability to keep from stepping off said cliff) meant I would have been thrown over with the other imperfect rejects.
    

I grew up in an age where kids rolled around in the backseat of the car without seatbelts.  We would sometimes even sit on each other’s laps in the car to make more room so the neighbor kids could all fit in if we were headed to the local drive-in.  If we wanted to roller skate out front on our cement slab, no mother shot from her front door to swathe us in helmets, knee pads, elbow cushions, mouth guards, padded Kevlar vest and the like—no, we were just sent out to flop about in our adjustable skates that slid apart as our feet grew bigger, awkwardly lunging forward and backward, trying to skate smoothly over thousands of little gravel pebbles.  It is a wonder we did not fall back and split our head open like a tomato but we did not, although chances were good that if we had, we simply would have had a cold washcloth pressed to the bleeding head, been instructed to lie on the sofa for a while, and not to think this would excuse us from washing the dishes that night.
    

So it is no surprise that nobody in my family knew that I actually could not see. This was not the age where we were hauled punctually into the doctor’s office for the “well baby” exams at one week, one month, three months, six months, etcetera, and so on.  And our parents did not queue while the babe lay in her crib so they could snag the best nursery school spot three years down the road even though Mom was a school principal.  We were lucky if we were finally taken to the dentist after holding our jaw for a couple days and making vague, mumbling noises about a toothache.  This is not to say that I had neglectful parents.  Far, far from it.  Our parents knew all our friends’ names and the names of their parents.  We had a family dinner every night where we talked about one good thing that happened to us that day.  We all had a dime so we could call home if we needed.  We were always told we made them proud and only asked that we do our best, but we did not live in a democracy--we had chores to do simply because we were born into our family even though we sometimes (much to our regret) pointed out we did not ask to be born.  The point is, my parents were good parents.
   

Which is why it actually is odd nobody knew I could not see.  Of course, I didn’t know any better; why would a person question the way she saw?  It would be like asking, “Say, does everyone breathe like this?   In, out, in, out?”  For various reasons, mostly having to do with growing up very remotely, I did not attend school until second grade, and then I joined late and missed any possible eye exams given by the school nurse.  The following year the school had eye exams, and I happened to be there. 
    

In the drafty gym, we lined up dutifully since back then we completely obeyed authority although that might have had to do with our dreadful polyester stretch pants in various colors not normally found in nature (burnt orange, asylum green) and peasant-y embroidered tops depicting sun rays or embellished eye-crossing rick-rack decorations, and so we might have felt a vaguely disadvantaged embarrassment, but I really think obedience was just the culture of the day.  Teachers were minded and if not, somebody, possibly the principal—for sure your parents—would give you a swat.  (I particularly loved my burgundy wide-wale corduroy pants that made a satisfying zrrrp zrrrp as I walked. Then again, I was nine, so my judgment was not to be trusted.)  All the girls had long straight hair; the boys had short hair, and most of us got our hair cut by our impatient mothers.  The pant legs were wide, the buckles on the belts large.  Enormous leather watches pulled our wrists down.  There we stood, lined up in a nervous line.  One by one, we inched up to a piece of silver duct tape pressed on the gym floor.  I must have been talking to my fellow exam takers because suddenly to my surprise it was my turn and my red scuffed wooden clogs toed the duct tape. 
    

“Please look at the eye chart.”  I looked around doubtfully.  I probably scrunched up my face but I am not sure.  I finally said, “What chart?” and like a cartoon cane around Bugs Bunny on stage, I was whisked out of line.  The next thing I knew I had on the most hideous, soul- destroying pair of brown glasses I had ever seen, a fact that holds true to this day.   Back then, kids were not consulted.  Mom or Dad just chose, and it would not even have occurred to kids then that they would grow up to say things to their own children like, “Jessica-Dakota, you don’t like grape jelly?  Let Mommy see if I can find some kumquat preserves infused with tea tree oil from the south of New Zealand in the refrigerator for you.” This was not done in my day.  You were handed the thick brown glasses and you put them on.
    

Why didn’t my teacher in third grade ever notice I was scrunching my face?  Because most likely there was nothing written on the board.  This was the seventies and consequently my teacher was the most beautiful person I had ever seen.  She had thick, long hair-- almost black—(think Buffy Saint Marie) and a huge smile that crinkled the corners of her brown eyes; and she didn’t wear makeup but she wore bangles on her arms and silver hoops at her ears.  She preferred calf-grazing skirts and leather sandals; and wove her own material for homespun blouses. 
    

In Mrs. Finn’s class, we didn’t waste time looking at the board.  No, we built a city out of milk cartons and spent our school days playing post office and store and shopkeeper and mayor and the like.  We designed our own money and made things to buy and sell in our milk carton town; we counted out change and kept the books on people who ran up tabs.  We sold stamps and pretend coffee and eggs.  We paid our fake electricity bill and got a fake receipt for it.  Other days, we would all troop downtown, a long necklace of student beads strung along the street headed to the fire department for a tour.  Another time, we took our set of classroom animal tracks and headed into the frosty morning after bundling up in our Grandma-knitted scarves and pom-pom hats.  We spent all day pressing tracks into the fresh snow and playing Identify These Prints that other students pushed into the whiteness for us.  We scraped back the snow and Mrs. Finn showed us how the plants were protected by the snow and that everything would come back in the spring.  Other days, she would read The Swiss Family Robinson or Sinbad and Me by Kin Platt out loud, which would invariably turn the classroom into either a survival island or thirty amateur detectives attempting to solve a crime.  This is why the teacher did not notice me squinting at the board—we were busy learning how the world worked.
    

The glasses brought me into a new world, I suppose:  everything came shockingly into focus my first day with the heavy brown glasses.  The trees suddenly had sharp tops and individual limbs, leaves, and needles.  Astonishingly, there were mountains across the bay, mountains with soft pink light haloing their white tops.  They had purple sides and deep green bases and there were a lot of them:  we were actually ringed by these strong protective mountains.  There were birds; they weren’t invisible--my dad hadn’t been making it up when he would point and say, “Look at that bird”--birds like the blue jays and my favorites, the tiny hunched black and white chickadees and sleekly elegant magpies. I had fallen through a door, arriving in a new world that everybody else already belonged to.  Everything here stood out starkly and clearly but I realized as I stood and looked around admiringly I hadn’t minded my old, blurry world all that much.

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