Perspective

Perspective can be everything.  Apparently the Phantom of the Opera has a major facial deformity that impedes on his progress with the ladies and has turned him into an insecure ghost of the theater.  When I went to see Phantom on Broadway, I was expecting to see a beast most foul and hideous.  I was waiting to see for myself why women of great sensitivity shrieked and men of great fortitude had fainted in the presence of this denizen of the Opera catacombs.  When I arrived at my seat for the evening’s performance of Andrew Lloyd Webber’s non feline related musical, I found myself sitting in the last row of the orchestra and as far away from the action as humanly possible.  So when the great unmasking of our tragic figure commenced, I could not for the life of me figure out what the big deal was.  From where I was sitting he looked rather normal.  At most he was sporting a punk hairdo or one reminiscent of the classic Batman villain, Two Face.  He didn’t look so bad to me.  His face was blurry at best and looked perfectly peachy to me.  The man beneath the opera was just an obsessive fan who may have a slight hair, kidnapping, and murder problem.  If I had sat maybe fifteen rows inward I would have been more offended, but from my vantage point, there was no problem.  The key moment in the musical was lost on me due to a TDF purchase made months ago.  So goes fate.

Before I got my prescription glasses, I had no idea that the world was drawn in such specific detail.  I had faintly remembered seeing everything in precision, but that reality seemed to be another lifetime ago.  When I received the news I was going to join the fraternity of glasses wearers, I was devastated.  I immediately thought of all the meaty leading man role I’d have to give up due to my glasses, and all the smart-aleck sidekick roles I’d be forced to read for.  In retrospect, crying over getting spectacles was a ridiculous move on my part.  Why would I complain about something designed to help my already failing body.  I was ten years old and my body was already beginning to deteriorate.  That doesn’t paint a rosy picture for the future. 

My first pair of glasses was under my parent’s UFT plan and I had the choice between the Harry Potter model or the John Lennon model.  Faced with two conflicting generational icons, I chose a mix between the two, forever endearing myself to the Gryffindor House and Japanese Avant-garde artists.  It was a wise move on my behalf.  I put the glasses on and felt like Dorothy in Oz.  The world was clear and in Technicolor.  I could read signs from blocks away.  I could make out the first three lines of the little legal print.  I was a visual citizen of the world again.  My perspective had grown sharper, my vision stronger, and my appreciation for those who wear glasses out of necessity rather than for fashion reached an exponential level.  I was whole and it only took a major part of my body to fail.  Perspective, as somebody once wrote in the first sentence of this essay, can be everything.