Moments travel back to back and it takes many of them for anything to happen. For most, a moment is a single thought, a breath, a blink of an eye. For others, it's a slow reflection, a deep inhale, or a long, blank stare. I often reference time in terms of moments. Some things take several, while others require five or six. Unfortunately, there's no practical way to gauge the duration of a moment other than to use your own intuition. Personally, I make the determination based on shifts in my train of thought. For example, if a blind woman asks me, "What is it like to see, Rory?" it might take upwards of ten moments for me to contemplate a response.
First Moment: Is there any way I can possibly put into words what it's like to use the gift of sight? Without me asking them to, my eyes look around, take moments of their own to process the information, and then tell me what's going on in my general vicinity. It's quite miraculous, really. Is that my answer? Miraculous?
Second Moment: Sight isn't a miracle, it's a given. Viewing the world can be beautiful, true, but that doesn't make it any greater than the other senses. Seeing is no more of a miracle than touching.
Third Moment: Touching this woman, that would be a miracle. I wonder if by touching herself she can tell how gorgeous she is. Though, maybe I'm wrong. Maybe she's completely average and my eyes are deceiving me.
Fourth Moment: Is seeing deceitful? No, that's far too grim to be the truth. Grim is the fact that instead of reaching out and touching this woman's four-sensed figure, I'm going to remain alone.
Fifth Moment: Loneliness is an active characteristic; one chooses to be alone. Most people justify their isolation by believing they've been disregarded. That's simply untrue. I've spent my entire life consciously rejecting relationships. I think it's worked out for the best, but still, I've shielded myself from the outside world.
Sixth Moment: She's wearing shields on her eyes. It's never been clear to me why so many blind people wear sunglasses. Most of the time they're very fashionable, too—the kind of accessory that makes one stand out in a crowd. It's ironic. By shielding their blind eyes the sightless become a visual spectacle, when really all they're looking for is acceptance.
Seventh Moment: What's the appeal of being accepted? I've never found belonging to the whole particularly important. And it doesn't matter anyway, because regardless of my appearance or demeanor, I'm quite the same as everyone else. I sleep, I breathe, I eat, I see. Everyone sees. There's really nothing that special about it. . . Ah, there we go.
On the eighth moment, I arrive upon a satisfactory answer. I say, "Seeing is like being part of the least elite club in the world." How about that? It only took eight.
It's hard to say how long such a transaction might take to occur. Using standard time measurements, probably only a few seconds. In my own head, however, those seconds, those moments, span an indefinite amount of time. Amazingly, it happens this same way with every passage in our lives.
So here, as I write, I take three moments to contemplate my explanation—one, two, three—and arrive at this conclusion: Moments happen slower than you think and faster than you can remember.
