Perspective is a Dirty Word

Even a murderer can be understood and forgiven if you have the right perspective on his or her activities. And yet, murder is SO WRONG! Don't lose perspective on THAT important point! Lawyers often get paid a lot of money to convince a jury or judge to look at things from his or her client's point of view-- and in Greek and Roman times, great orators convinced the populace to take their suggestions for right and wrong and make them community laws. Of course, talking in public spaces was a man's right, and in that society, any woman who argued her own point in public was shameless, and unfeminine, and could easily be labeled a whore or a harlot, worthy of no respect or consideration-- however convincing her argument might be.
Sound familiar?

I recently learned that my mom has no depth perception. She's made the comment my whole life-- that she has trouble with depth perception when driving... She says it's a bit like seeing the whole world as an impressionist painting. And suddenly, I could understand her perspective. I could even expand that description and apply it to so many other mysteries about my mom's interactions with the world and with me... and have them suddenly make sense! Have HER suddenly make sense! What a relief! I'm so unapproachable with people I can't understand-- and its awful when one of them is your mom. It certainly hasn't been nice for her, anyway.

Society doesn't often use the word "epiphany," but you can always tell when someone has had one-- they say "OOOooohhhh!" Or they exclaim "OH!", and pause completely in whatever they are doing for a full two seconds, before remembering again that they are driving or cooking or reading or carrying on a conversation. There it was. That was the moment. Epiphany.

On New Years weekend, I returned a favor, and helped my parents move my aunt into a new house that was much closer to her work, and to our family. She'd put most of her stuff into a storage unit near my folks while she searched for a good place to rent, so everything was already neatly boxed. It had taken one LARGE moving van to get her life into that storage unit. She was renting two movers and their large moving van to get her out of storage again, and into the house she'd found in the new town. My folks and I were going along to help her unpack and rearrange the heavy stuff. Since I live about two hours from my folks, and three from Aunt's new place, my parents decided to drive the three of us from their house, and save on gas.

I arrived at 10:30am sharp, as directed, ready to work. Turns out, my folks weren't ready to work yet. Or drive. About 12:30pm, we all got into their car, and headed downtown. Turns out there were some errands to run before we left for Aunt's new place. I started glancing around, surreptitiously looking for the filming crew. This HAD to be another episode for the sitcom of my life. It was too ridiculous NOT to be! After 20 minutes of watching my folks try and decide what kind of bread to buy at the local bakery, and then wonder if they should get a second loaf of a different kind, and what kind would that be?... I was ready to kill something. It was 1pm, and we were still a good 90 minutes away from actually being helpful to my Aunt's move. WHY did I have to get up at 7am on Saturday?? WHY didn't I bring a stronger headache medicine, or at least a hard-backed book to hit myself over the head with??

About then, Papa's cell phone rang. It was Aunt. The moving van was full, and there were still some boxes in her storage unit. Could we bring all our vehicles and get over there to take the last of it? The movers were on an hourly rate. Their truck was two feet shorter than the one she'd used before. Wow. I guess its good my parents were running three hours behind. We ran one last errand, drove the 20 minutes back to their house, unloaded my travel gear from my CRV, and then went back into town to Aunt's storage unit. Mom rode with me, since I didn't know where we were going, and Papa was taking the truck.

"It's along here on the left, right next to a big sign." Three miles later, there it was. On the left. Just like mom said. We loaded up, which was itself pretty funny. The movers pack trucks and vehicles every day. They are good at getting the most stuff into the smallest spaces. Its their JOB. But Papa and Aunt (and I have to admit, me as well) are very aware of their ability to pack a lot of stuff into a small space well. You should see how much stuff can come out of one closet in my folks' house! It's like Christmas at Grandma's, only without the wrapping paper. (I think that's actually a box of used bows down on the left, behind the sewing machine, though.)

Finally, the person who could yell their idea the loudest got to decide what box and which rocking chair went in what vehicle. It wasn't me. I'd stopped contributing when I saw the movers begin to resemble deer in the headlights of an oncoming semi. I know that pinched wide-eyed look. I had it every day in math class for years.

Then we all caravanned down to Aunt's new place, about an hour away. Well, Aunt and the movers caravanned. Mom rode with me. A whole hour to chat with mom and take her driving directions. Oh, and her driving glasses had ended up in Papa's truck when we repacked everything... so she couldn't actually SEE where we were going in order to give directions... Lucky me. There just HAD to be a camera rolling here somewhere. Papa drove on ahead, and missed the exit. He ended up getting there about ten minutes after everyone else. It was about 3pm when we started unloading everything at Aunt's.

If you've ever moved into a new place or out of an old one, on a deadline, you know how much can go wrong. It helped that Aunt had labeled most of the boxes. "Library" went into the blue bedroom. "Office" went into the yellow bedroom, unless she actually wanted it in the blue room for now. "Files," "Books," "Notebooks," "Computer Supplies," and "Miscellaneous" boxes had to be sorted by Aunt into either the blue or yellow bedroom on an individual basis. The bed frame didn't fit through the bedroom door. They had to find a saw. That one didn't cut straight, so they had to find a different saw. Then mom and I had to hold the bed frame still while Papa stood on a ladder, hit his head on the ceiling fan a few times, and sawed off three inches at the head of the bed frame. He did it in the kitchen, so nobody would have to walk through the sawdust with boxes-- at least, that's what I think he meant when he said it would be easier to clean up in there. The kitchen has the same flooring as the living and dining rooms, so it was either that, or he knew mom or I would be more likely to take responsibility for cleaning a mess in the kitchen. I'd stopped asking questions (and looking for hidden cameras) at that point in the afternoon. I didn't want to know anymore.

Turns out, the bed frame was about five inches longer than the mattress anyway, so sawing off those three inches actually made it fit better on a variety of levels. Ahh the happy accidents of moving day! The movers did a GREAT job. I mean it. They calmly carried boxes from room to room as Aunt changed her mind about where she wanted them. They hauled the heavy awkward bed frame down the hall and tried it in the bedroom doorway three times, and WITHOUT scraping the walls. They accepted her decision to relocate the piano with a smile. They even laughed with me at my attempts to stand somewhere that might actually be OUT OF THE WAY while all the heavy stuff was carried hither and yon and back again. Around five thirty, the truck was empty. Aunt paid the movers, and they trundled away with their truck. Then we started helping her to unpack. Unpack? Yeah. The real reason we were there with her in her new house today, remember? To help Aunt unpack a bit. And rearrange the living room. Novocaine anyone?

I made my suggestions for the living room arrangement (loudly so I could be heard over all the other suggestions), and then put myself in charge of the kitchen boxes and the pile of sawdust. You can live without having your table lamps on the right tables for a few days, but you can't live without silverware and cups and pans. They moved the TV unit twice, and then took a break to eat the lunch we'd packed along with us at 12:3o when we first left my parents' house. It was 6pm. Eventually, I discovered that they'd settled on the living room arrangement that I'd first suggested, and were now trying to make the TV work. It was getting close to 7pm, and I had a three-hour drive ahead of me. We spent another five or ten minutes figuring out what light switches turned off what lights, and then headed back to my folks' place. Mom rode with me, since it was now dark, and we were taking a different route from Aunt's to my folks' than we did from the Storage Unit to Aunt's. Sigh. At least this time, she had her glasses. And she bought me a full tank of gas. There's a lot to like about someone who buys a full tank of gas for a car they don't even drive.

It was on this tired, dirty, and quiet drive that mom told me about the impressionist paintings, and epiphany struck. OH! She really doesn't know how deeply I feel something at times, because she really doesn't have depth perception! ... because now I understand she doesn't have a choice about her perspective, and I do. She just needs more information handed to her than the average driver. OH! Two second pause. Oops-- I'm supposed to be driving. Right. "Are you sure you don't want me to drive, honey?" I'm sure. Very sure. But I like your company, Mom.
It's all about understanding someone else's perspective. And appreciating what you see.