Let Me Show You My World
by Nicole Curtain
“Close your eyes and tell me what you see. Tilt your head towards the sky.”
I lift my head towards the sky and wonder exactly what the heck I am doing. He whispers in my ear again, “You are not paying attention, just feel.” I start to blush like a little girl who just got caught stealing a cookie from a cookie jar. Taking a deep breath, I tilt my head back again with my eyes shut, my head on his lap. The warmth that radiates from his body is like a welcoming fire that melts the ice. The November chill air sweeps the stray hairs on my face, tickling me, reminding me of its presence.
I hear the stirring of squirrels as they scurry through the trees, collecting their nuts and playing their secret games, the honks of the horns as people hop in the awaiting taxis to take them to their next destinations. I don’t know when it happened, but it was like my mind finally caught up with my body realizing how tired it is, seconds before your body succumbs to sleep. I just let go, letting a slow deep breath escape past my lips. The tension in my shoulders unravels and with it the stress of the past week. My scrunched up forehead smooths out, and I feel the one thing that soothes my soul. .
I think about the last few months I have shared with this man. How the warmth of the sun reminds me of him, his arms that wrap around me after a long day of work, the smile he shines my way when he hears the sound of my feet. We joke sometimes that he is my sun and I am his sky, because he reminds me that I always open up his world by just walking through a door. That I am quick as a breeze when I walk too fast with my short “corgi legs,” and when he says that, I lightly slap him on the arm and pretend to be annoyed at him. This doesn’t faze him though; he just continues on by saying that I am his calm after his storm, and he can just sit there while his body soaks it all up.
There are moments where I forget that he is a blind man. One of the things that amazes me about him is how in tune he is with himself and his surroundings. He thinks of his blindness as a blessing in disguise and can’t think of himself as any other way. He tucks a stray auburn hair behind the ear he was just tracing and patiently waits. Without opening my eyes I murmur, “Jeremy I feel a little silly. What do you think people are thinking when they look this way?”
He replies, “Well if you must know, I think people see a beautifully handsome man with a woman who looks like she is sleeping so soundly that she might start drooling on his arm.”
My eyes fly open and my head snaps to him. “Jeremy!”
And when I see him silently laughing, which turns into a deeper one, I nudge him with my elbow to try and make him stop but a laugh escapes my own lips. He throws his hands up. “What? It was funny,” he says with a laugh. "From what I could tell, it felt like you could fall asleep at any moment. But seriously who cares what other people think? From their perspective they would probably see a blind man sitting next to a beautifully gorgeous woman who is embracing the change in season. Now are you going to keep stalling or are you going to pay attention?”
Tilting my head to face him I say in a serious voice, “Don’t forget to emphasize that he is a
devastatingly handsome blind man in that theory of yours next time.”
I hear the smile in his voice as he says, “My mistake. It won’t happen again.”
“Good. . . and besides I already know what I am, quote, supposed to feel.”
“Oh yeah?” he says in a sly voice. He leans closer to me and I meet him halfway, “What's that?”
“. . . Your love.”
His lips meet mine.
I lift my head towards the sky and wonder exactly what the heck I am doing. He whispers in my ear again, “You are not paying attention, just feel.” I start to blush like a little girl who just got caught stealing a cookie from a cookie jar. Taking a deep breath, I tilt my head back again with my eyes shut, my head on his lap. The warmth that radiates from his body is like a welcoming fire that melts the ice. The November chill air sweeps the stray hairs on my face, tickling me, reminding me of its presence.
I hear the stirring of squirrels as they scurry through the trees, collecting their nuts and playing their secret games, the honks of the horns as people hop in the awaiting taxis to take them to their next destinations. I don’t know when it happened, but it was like my mind finally caught up with my body realizing how tired it is, seconds before your body succumbs to sleep. I just let go, letting a slow deep breath escape past my lips. The tension in my shoulders unravels and with it the stress of the past week. My scrunched up forehead smooths out, and I feel the one thing that soothes my soul. .
I think about the last few months I have shared with this man. How the warmth of the sun reminds me of him, his arms that wrap around me after a long day of work, the smile he shines my way when he hears the sound of my feet. We joke sometimes that he is my sun and I am his sky, because he reminds me that I always open up his world by just walking through a door. That I am quick as a breeze when I walk too fast with my short “corgi legs,” and when he says that, I lightly slap him on the arm and pretend to be annoyed at him. This doesn’t faze him though; he just continues on by saying that I am his calm after his storm, and he can just sit there while his body soaks it all up.
There are moments where I forget that he is a blind man. One of the things that amazes me about him is how in tune he is with himself and his surroundings. He thinks of his blindness as a blessing in disguise and can’t think of himself as any other way. He tucks a stray auburn hair behind the ear he was just tracing and patiently waits. Without opening my eyes I murmur, “Jeremy I feel a little silly. What do you think people are thinking when they look this way?”
He replies, “Well if you must know, I think people see a beautifully handsome man with a woman who looks like she is sleeping so soundly that she might start drooling on his arm.”
My eyes fly open and my head snaps to him. “Jeremy!”
And when I see him silently laughing, which turns into a deeper one, I nudge him with my elbow to try and make him stop but a laugh escapes my own lips. He throws his hands up. “What? It was funny,” he says with a laugh. "From what I could tell, it felt like you could fall asleep at any moment. But seriously who cares what other people think? From their perspective they would probably see a blind man sitting next to a beautifully gorgeous woman who is embracing the change in season. Now are you going to keep stalling or are you going to pay attention?”
Tilting my head to face him I say in a serious voice, “Don’t forget to emphasize that he is a
devastatingly handsome blind man in that theory of yours next time.”
I hear the smile in his voice as he says, “My mistake. It won’t happen again.”
“Good. . . and besides I already know what I am, quote, supposed to feel.”
“Oh yeah?” he says in a sly voice. He leans closer to me and I meet him halfway, “What's that?”
“. . . Your love.”
His lips meet mine.
header image by Drazen Nesic on PIXNIO