Love of imperfection

A couple old posts from Real Live Preacher don't quite find a tone of disability acceptance and pride, but are nonetheless lovely to me even if the author doesn't realize he's ruminating on issues of bodily normality, self-image and disability. In the first essay, RLP writes about his young daughter's vision impairment and how the unique gestures of accommodation she makes for her bifocals are simply part of the child he loves.

Her glasses make her eyes look bigger than they really are, giving her a “Hummel” kind of cuteness. If you stand close to her, there is a little magic zone where she isn’t sure which lens will best render your face. She will cock her head back to try the bottom lens, then drop her face down and try the top.

I’ve been known to find this zone and stay there until someone drags me away.

In a second, later entry, RLP expresses poignantly his regret (mixed with understandable happiness) that her vision improves until his little girl no longer needs her bifocals. He's wistful about her better eyesight and how it changes things for himself and for her, and he expresses guilt about this wistfullness even as he recognizes his love for his daughter's imperfections is something precious and important.

A very good part of me loved her bifocals. It’s one of the best parts of me, in fact. I loved the way she tilted her head with bifocals, like an old woman. So cute in a six-year-old. She would tilt back to read and forward when looking at me across the table.

I’m stunned to find the seed of Munchausen in me. I’d like to keep the bifocals for my own sake. I would. This kind of evil is always lurking very close to the best in us. It’s okay. I see it. I’ve named it. It has no power over me.

The ambiguity of his feelings is not evil to me, but it is very powerful. It's part of disability pride and the lack of interest in a cure that so many disabled folks hold and which nondisabled folks find unbelievable. It's because impairments are a natural part of life. It's the sheer (perhaps even divine?) ordinariness of human imperfection and how it paradoxically renders each person memorable and unique, creating individual perception, creativity, gesture, and connection to the ones we love.

As his daughter experiences vision without the bifocal magnification she was used to, RLP does not name her new vision as superior to her previous way of seeing. He recognizes it is only different.

My little girl lost her worldview, her way of seeing things, and that always hurts. This is good pain, leading to new ways of seeing, so I put my hand on her leg and kept driving. I let her cry. And I was proud of her. Proud that she is so little and bravely shedding her old way of looking at the world. Bravely she takes up this new way of seeing.

Both essays in their entirety are worth reading for their thoughtfulness and sensitivity.