Julie R. Neidlinger: Lone Prairie Blog

Poor eyesight.

written by Julie R. Neidlinger 0 comments link this post

I don't know that I want to put the journal from the Nicaragua trip online this year. I know I always do, but I can't bring myself to do it this year.

I, though dragging my feet about it and not wanting to speak in front of the rest of the people, led a short and shallow talk about blindness. What I was trying to say, after saying all that and screaming inwardly that I was a fake which no one seemed to hear, was that I don't see well.

I said I wanted to see. Did it come off as rhetorical?

"Julie, what do you think?"

Maybe I don't.

Stop picking my brain! I want to say sometimes. There's nothing there right now!

Why does it matter what I think?

I don't always have something earth-shattering to say -- rarely do -- and I don't always want people to see things through my eyes when their own eyes are just as good.

I sent out an email to the mailing list.

I've updated the NRN-ND web site to include the links I've gotten to online photo albums as well as a few other things. Please email me links to where you might have an online photo album of your Nicaragua photos. I'll be sure to add them as soon as I can. Beyond that, I don't know if I'll be adding anything more to the page this year or not.

"I took that to mean more," someone told me today. "That you are not putting your journal online and it's not for no reason. I read between the lines. Was I right?"

"I see people writing in their own journals. People are always talking and crying in group circles about all the things they see," I said. "Why don't they share it? Who wants to see everything through my eyes? I'm tired of seeing through my eyes all the time."

I live inside this head, always. I'm tired of it in here, these eyes. You tell me what you think. It's noisy and screaming up here.

I don't even see half the time. I never say anything in those moments when everyone is sharing with the rest of the group, telling about some beautiful child they helped that day, some magnificent way they changed a life, or a tragic moment that made them realize something momentous about humanity. I just mumble something trite.

"I didn't do much today," I might say with a half grin. Perhaps I just don't know how to tell you I don't know what I saw, if anything.

People -- and I am people -- complain about stupid things; they complain about things not going right and other people and what has irritated them and what their limits and conditions are and how unfair some situation is. Then they want gold from straw, and wonder what I think.

Perform.

Dry bones, picked clean of ideas, come to life. Get up out of this valley.

I think my eyes are dead. Or dry, maybe, like the song.

"I might put my journal online later, quiet-like," I said, considering that maybe this is my place in life. A reteller. Some unwilling filter that dirties up what it's trying to spit out. I don't know if it's what I'm supposed to do, because I'm not hearing any special direction. "Not announce it, just slip it online."