It's a Flat Life I lead

Sunday was a beautiful day; clear blue skies, balmy 62 degree weather, and the City still heavy with the trappings of Christmas.  My sister was telling me that Southern California has stopped pretending it has 4 seasons ... I am inclined to believe that NYC has followed suit, but in a very different way.  

That afternoon I went to the Radio City Music Hall Christmas Extravaganza with J and his family, I had never been before and didn't quite know what to expect.  I was quite curious to see what everyone was talking about with this the world-famous show, but when J handed me the program with its attached 3-D glasses, my mouth went dry.  Was this a 3-D show?

Several months ago I went to the Optometrist to get more contact lenses.  Halfway through the eye exam we came to the depth perception test.  The assistant asked me which circle was popping out.  I apologized, "I'm sorry, I don't have depth perception.  I can't see a difference in the circles, none of them pop out at me."  She couldn't believe that someone could simply not have depth perception, and continued to make adjustments, all to no avail.   Finally I had to explain the TBI to her; that it wasn't something that could be corrected by different lenses.

Hoping against hope that a few months had magically corrected problem that hadn't changed in a decade, I put the 3-D glasses on and looked expectantly at the screen.  Santa hopped into his sleigh and the reindeer flew to Radio City Music Hall.  From the crowd's squeals of delight, raising their hands, and leaning this way and that the sleigh clearly passed over head, throwing presents, and spraying the audience with snow.  I, on the other hand, sat there miserably - the outsider - unable to participate in this clearly magical experience.  Thankfully only the first five minutes of the Christmas Extravaganza were in 3D, and the amazing choreography of the rest of the show was quite fun (in a cheddar-filled sort of way).

My all but nonexistent spatial perception isn't as bad as it might seem.  My mind has learned to compensate for a great deal and can judge most distances, in day to day life.  However, occasionally, in the real world, I am in a new place and won't be able to gauge even the most obvious distance, and this can prove extremely dangerous in the wrong setting.   

A few years ago, I took a road trip down to Richmond Virginia with my friends K, R, and D.  A group of us went to the high riverbank overlooking the James river.  We stepped out onto a massive boulder in the water, the other kids climbed down to the water to play, but I sat down and waited, because I didn't trust my spatial perception.  It's a good thing that I did - when they were ready to leave they all clambered up the rocks like adept mountaineers, and hopped back onto the bank.  I, on the other hand was left on the boulder, terrified to jump back to the river.  The gap between the boulder and the bank seemed yards wide, and I didn't know if I could make it.  If I misjudged, then I would certainly plummet to my death.  

Near tears, I was seriously considering just taking up permanent residence on the boulder, when K kindly hopped back over.  After prodigious amounts of coaxing and reassuring, he finally convinced me to try and jump off the boulder.  Mustering all of my courage and strength, I took the biggest leap I could onto the river bank.  I landed, much to my dismay, about four feet onto the bank - there had been no danger at all - I simply couldn't tell if the distance between the boulder and the bank were one or 10 feet.  Everything worked out in this case, but what if it had been the other way around, and I judged a huge distance to be tiny?