I alluded to this a little in my “about me” section, not to mention the title of the blog, but I actually like the world fuzzy.  I like that part of being legally blind.  It’s like living in an impressionist painting, or what an impressionist painting would be like if it were a movie.  I love the sky on overcast days because it looks like a blank canvas, like that part of the world hasn’t been painted yet and who know?  It could end up being orange, or puce, or some other color no one has seen yet.  The trees have changed color and I can’t see the individual leaves, so when the wind makes them shake it just looks like the color of the tree is rippling back and forth, or sometimes like a whole line of trees is on fire.

I also love, on a less dippy note, that I can wake up in the morning, look in the mirror, and not be horrified–for the simple reason that I have no idea what I look like.  When I look in the mirror, I might as well be looking through a camera lens smeared with vaseline.  I think, “Oh, my skin looks so smooth,” probably because all the blotchiness sort of blurs together in my weakened eyes.  I don’t worry about bags or circles under my eyes, or whether I’m getting cellulite; I just let the rest of the world speculate about that for me and go blithely about my way.  The downside is that, in order to get close enough to do my makeup, I have to lean in so close to the mirror that my eyes start to cross and my features do that sliding-over double-vision thing, so my mental image of myself resembles a Picasso painting.  Artistically fascinating, but nobody actually wants to look like his paintings of Dora Maar (see this post’s image).

Mostly, though, I love that I can choose to perceive the world as beautiful.  I could choose to see it as revolting or depressing or any of a number of negative perceptions, but why would I?  An unfinished sky, a row of trees on fire:  amazing.  Breathtaking.  That’s how I choose to see the world.  I don’t see the dirt or the cracks or the litter or the million uglinesses I’m sure are there.  I choose how I see the world, and it’s a gift I only have because I’m legally blind.  I don’t want to lose my vision completely, but there are worse things than seeing the world fuzzy.