At the hot, laid-back music festival in Arcosanti last month, I was struck by Angel Olsen’s haunting lyric: “All we’ve done here is blind one another,” from her song, Lark, on the 2019 album All Mirrors. Words have always resonated deeply with me, often overshadowing everything else in a piece of music. Olsen’s ethereal, brass tacks voice—both frank and dreamy—floats me right into the heart of my indie music sweet-spot.
Her words echo a duality I can’t help but contemplate. Blinding someone can be a protective act, shielding them from life’s harsh realities or softening the blow of their circumstantial difficulties. The times I’ve reached over in the movie theater to cover my son’s eyes with my jacket come to mind. Yet, this blurring can also obscure their own aspirations and the essence of who they are. This complexity makes sense; by being the focal point, we can inadvertently block the view. This obstruction, in any case, changes the view of the horizon.
Recently, a National Geographic article caught my eye about the end of blindness. Despite scientific and medical advancements, my mind wandered to the type of blindness science and medicine can’t fix: how often do we consider our own metaphorical blindness?
We often delude ourselves to our own weaknesses and the very notion of growth. It seems that we recognize the need for personal development most when life hands us our own unplanned vulnerability, or caught in structured environments—like school—where growth is linear and often collaborative. Where else do we mass admit, “I’m here to learn”? Even parenting, brand new to all at some point can feel like a silly, frantic quest for expertise at something no one has really nailed for generations.
Yet, there’s a certain relief in emotional blindness. It allows us to enjoy life without the constant weight of worries and truly and deliciously forget about our own progress for awhile, a rest which ultimately creates more soil for growth than the constant tilling.
A prime example of spiritual blindness can be found in the excess of busyness. Recently, in a rare spare hour, I looked up at the yellow trees, yolky hues bursting with a vibrancy that ignites something childlike within me. I see a man in the parking lot, color catching, like me, the same soft-flowing oak before the storm, his camera serving as both net and memory. My son’s vibrant memories of autumn glee in that same spot got me thinking—why aren’t adult-sized leaf piles a thing?
My thoughts spiral to how even our dreams and aspirations can blind us, distorting our perceptions of success and failure. These polarized worldviews sometimes become the very fabric of our identities. The deep desire of my dreams have become my own obstacle course to square with and uncover.
Generally, balance helps clear the fog, but we must remember that it’s unrealistic to expect ourselves or others to lead balanced lives in any way. Instead of offering platitudes like “It will get better” or “The right job/partner/opportunity will come,” how about acknowledging the glorious imbalance of life? “I see you, juggling your haphazard load with the grace of a fawn in headlights. You’re here, wild just as you are.”
Of course, Olsen’s lyric brings to mind the cliché: “Love is blind.” It suggests that in love, we often overlook each other’s flaws. I’ve never felt that way—or wished to. I strive to see the full picture, recognizing that knowledge can be an obstruction in its own right. The phrase “I see you.” sheds a light on those parts of ourselves we are tired of hiding, or the idea that we have not been overlooked or otherwise somehow well- wasted.
Inverting Angel’s lyric to “all we did was have knowledge of each other” feels romantic to me—not in a historian sense, as in the Lucy Dacus’s song, but in the tell me where to land directive by Joan Shelly, where awareness of each other makes its own map through it all.
Once a year the tree outside my window is hard candy butterscotch yellow and I leave the blinds up to wake to it. This year by the time I notice, they spend the night between shake and tremble, flailing in wet winds. Rain on the gutter falling like everlasting popcorn. In the morning the aspens remind me of the still small tenacity of fragility.
Happy cuffing season, everyone. The cold, though delayed, has finally returned.
