So I have talked on this blog about how I struggle to park straight. I got some matchbox cars and cut out some office supply paper and made myself a make-shift parking lot to show you what I am talking about. Most of the time I park, I park like the green car, above. I am inside all the lines, towards the back of the spot, and slightly crooked.
When my son was learning to drive recently, he was being taught by both me, and by his dad. His dad is apparently quite picky about the way his son parks. He wanted him square with everything. And my son laughed to me one time, saying how differently we both teach him. My feeling is, “as long as you’re inside all the lines, you’re good.”
I did, initially, also tell him that he would receive better parking instructions from his dad than from me. I tend to opt for a spot in the parking lot where there are 3 more more available spots near each other, so I don’t have to worry about parking. I don’t mind parking father and then walking farther. I figure it’s better than hitting a car because of my vision issues, and then having to deal with all of that hassle — both for me and for the other car’s driver!
I had a whole blog post planned out in my head, and I took something like 15 photos of these cars parked in various ways. But this one photo is apparently worth 1,000 words, because I find I am done with this blog post!
For a while there, I was able to park straight, but I am no longer parking straight, and I park the way the green car does, in this photo. I will keep working at it. Maybe some day I will figure it all out again, and park straight again. We shall see!
In previous posts, I have mentioned my dad and my grandfather. My dad passed away at the end of 2014. There was a very nice tribute written about him on YoYoNews.Com. You can see the post here. My grandfather is still around. (This is my dad’s dad.) We visit him as we are able to. He especially loves my sweet puppy, Bella. She is a Cavalier King Charles Spaniel and a friend to everyone. A funny side-note. If we are out walking, “everyone” wants to pet her or meet her. Occasionally or probably rarely, we meet someone who isn’t a dog person and doesnm’t even glance at her. Bella always gets confused by such people. She wonders why they aren’t petting her already? It’s really cute. She is a sweetheart.
[This is a photo of my sweet dog, Bella. She is a fawn and white colored Cavalier King Charles Spaniel. Her spaniel ears are the fawn color. She is curled up in a sleepy ball, lying on a turquoise blanket.]
Grandpa loves dogs so much. He told me a story about a dog he knew when he was a boy. I will share that in another blog post. I like to write stories, and I wrote down the story that he told me. It’s a good one. Glad I wrote it down as I am already forgetting the name of that dog!
Anyway, so I have been learning a LOT from my vision doctor, Dr. Tod Davis, and his Vision Therapy team.
One thing I learned recently was that people who Dissociate (this will be more blog posts) often have a lot of similarities with each other. He said that Vision Problems and Dissociation often go together. It’s a thing. He didn’t say whether one causes the other. He just said that they seem to often be connected.
He gave a lecture that I got to listen to. I am hoping to see if he can lecture a few more ways, and then I can share the links here for you to listen to, too. Anyway, in the one lecture, he told of an older teenage gal and the issues she has, and then he told about me (with my permission / he interviewed me for the lecture). As he shared the teen girl’s issues, he said that she has trouble driving, parking, gaging her speed when driving …. And I thought, “I have all of those issues, too!”
It made me think of my dad, and then it made me also think of my Grandpa.
I think Vision Therapy is a relatively new field, so it is possible that my dad and my grandpa also have or had the same problems that I have. (It turns out that my younger son does, too, and that will be future blog posts, too.)
I remember being a little girl and my dad talking to me about where he parked the car. He always parked the car at the far end of a lot, where there were lots of empty spaces. He said he didn’t want someone to ding his car with their door, and that’s why he chose the farther, emptier spots.
It turns out that I also do the same thing. I find it easier to park when there are 3 empty spaces together. I can’t tell how far things are away from me, so I just would rather have nothing near me when I am pulling in our out. I have never hit another car when parking, but I am sure I park more slowly than other people when it is a tight space. Because I can’t judge and have to trust that I won’t hit the other car. So far, so good.
Anyway, this teen gal said that she also parks far away, where there are many spaces. And I immediately jumped to that little Jodi inside me, walking across a whole parking lot to get to the door of the place we had driven to, listening to my dad tell me about not wanting his car door to be dinged. And I thought about how I park far away, under the trees when I can (just like my dad did), at my local Aldi grocery store. I guess I kind of feel like “that’s my spot.”
The teen has worked with Dr. Davis now for a while and is driving and parking better. She is now able to gage her speed and how to park. I know I was doing better for a while, before the Corona virus hit and I wasn’t allowed to go to Vision Therapy for a few months. I slid downhill; I park 3 feet away from where I mean to park, again. Hopefully I will get better again now that I am back at Vision Therapy doing the work with a trained therapist.
It is super interesting to see similarities between me and other folks. I don’t feel so alone or “weird.”
In a previous blog post, I mentioned that someone pointed out to me 20 years ago that I park crooked. I have always parked crooked. I can't do any better.
A few months ago, some random man in a parking lot actually started hassling me after accusing me of parking too close to the line. I told him, "I have vision issues and I can't do better." Which of course was an invitation to him to tell me his life story and all of his woes. That will teach me to sit in my car and check social media for a few minutes after having pizza with a friend!
In the words of Mark Twain: "But I digress."
[A sepia toned photo of Mark Twain sitting on a chair in clearing.]
Well, a few weeks ago, maybe 3 months now? I am seriously beginning to lose track of time.... I noticed that I have started consistently parking about 3-4 feet from the end of the parking space. You know how you pull in, and there is a white painted line and your car can go forward until you reach it, then you nicely stop before you go over that white line?
I started parking about 3 or 4 feet away from it. Before reaching it. Consistently. For weeks! I couldn't, for the life of me, get up to the line. I knew I was doing this, and I would inch forward, inch forward, inch forward. And then park. Get out of the car, and I was still several feet away from that darn line.
I used to park so crooked. I am probably still doing that. And: in addition to that, I am now parking towards the outer edge of a parking spot and not all the way IN the parking spot.
I am definitely starting to perceive space differently. It is weird to know these things intellectually but not know how to fix them quickly or easily.
I guess I will just keep doing the exercises and practicing with the tools I have and over time, maybe I will see the way a healthy-eyed person sees. Or at least MORE like the way a healthy-eyed person sees!
I can only hope.
I will leave you with this funny thing -- my younger son suddenly has a thing for Boston accents. I had us watch "Good Will Hunting." It was fun to watch my boys try to figure out where they had seen the main character (Will Hunting) in other movies. I finally had to tell them: "He is the main character in "The Martian." I am, of course, talking about Matt Damon.
In Boston, they don't say, "Park the Car," the way the majority of Americans do. So, in the words of a true Bostonian, I will leave you these words: "Pahk the Cah in Hahvahd Yahd."
My boys were surprised to see this line in the movie. They didn't know where the reference came from, but they have heard the line, "How do you like them apples?" planty of times before.
When I got home and had a chance to just lie down in my bed and stare up at the ceiling, my ceiling was also 3D.
Now, our ceilings have that 1970s popcorn look to them. I pretend they look like daisies so I don't see it as ugly like I would if it was just the stipple effect with no pattern.
Well, so usually, the ceiling looks like it's well above my head. I guess we have 8 feet ceilings, though we haven't measured them. My 6 feet tall kids can reach them, but I can't. So I am guessing they are about 8 feet tall ceilings.
Usually, I know a ceiling is there but I don't pay much attention to it.
This whole idea reminds me of a scene in the movie "Blast from the Past" with Alicia Silverstone and Brendan Fraser.
Brendan Fraser plays a character named "Adam" in the movie, and he has just shown up at Alicia's (Eve's) house. Adam is in a room with Eve's roommate, Troy. Adam looks up at the ceiling and tells Troy, "You have nice ceilings."
Troy says, "You like ceilings?" and has a perplexed look on his face.
Adam says, "Not particularly." He looks happy as he says it. It is just an amusing little scene in the movie. If you haven't seen that movie, see it. It's such a fun movie.
Back to my own ceilings. ... Well, my bed is standard height. I looked up at the ceiling and I felt like it was 3 feet away from me. I felt as if the ceiling was going to crush me. It was a bizarre feeling: to have cognitive dissonance about my ceiling.
Cognitive dissonance is something that means "two opposite thoughts held at the same time in your head." I know that the ceiling won't crush me. I know it's not falling. I know it's not just 3 feet away from me. But it looks like it's falling on me and that if I stand up, I will bump my head on it.
It was scary, and part of me said that I wanted to move RIGHT THEN - to a place with cathedral ceilings. It's very bizarre when you feel like your home is going to crush you.
Maybe I am in a movie kind of mood, but now I am remembering the scene from Star Wars: A New Hope, when the walls of the trash compactor threaten the heros of the movie.
I tried rolling over, I tried looking at a farther part of the ceiling. The whole thing was just really weird and a bit unnerving. I wasn't a fan.
Eventually, I went to sleep.
I woke up the next morning and could still see in 3D!
I took dogs on walks and enjoyed the new spring blossoms on the trees. It was interesting knowing when to dodge tree limbs rather than walk right into them, like I usually have in the past. I was grateful for that new skill!
About mid-afternoon, my eyes got very tired and felt like the muscles had been working too hard, and my eyes slipped back to normal. I was back to seeing the way I normally see.
The next day, I tried aligning my eyes again, to see if I could do the 3D thing again. The muscles in my eyes hurt when I tried. They had been overworked and needed a rest.
I thought perhaps that the next week at Vision Therapy, we would do the same thing and I would be able to get the magic 3D vision back, but we didn't.
My usual therapist, A, was there, and she is so gentle and calm with me. Her entire objective with me is to help me feel safe. She is exceptionally good at it. She is progressing slowly with me. It occurred to me that I just wasn't ready yet to see in 3D, since it made me feel like my house was crushing me.
Ever since seeing 3D, I have noticed that ceilings now have an arc look to them. They used to be a straight line to me, left to right. But now the ceiling line above me, in front of me (where it meets the wall right in front of me) is raised in a gentle arc. If I look to the left or the right, the arc goes down. The part where the ceiling has a corner on the left, the ceiling arcs down to the left. The part where the ceiling has a corner on the right, the ceiling arcs down to the right.
I asked a friend if this is what they see, too. "Do ceilings have an arc look to them? Or do they just look straight?" and my friend said that perhaps I am just perceiving space differently now. I think that's completely true. I am definitely perceiving space differently now.
Case in point - I can now park my car straight. Just in time to not be driving anywhere anymore thanks to Covid-19. I guess that's what "they" call "irony." Who? I don't know. Just "they."
It's true - a few weeks ago I went on one of my last grocery shopping trips before quarantining myself for what I think is now 6 weeks or more. (I have lost track.) And I got out of the car. I felt like perhaps my car was in the space differently, so I walked around my car and looked at it from all the angles.
This was the first time I have noticed that I parked myself perfectly in a parking spot. I wasn't 4 feet from the front, and I wasn't crooked from the side. A first! I am 40+ years old (creeping up on 50) and I have now parked straight maybe 3 times total.
I am definitely starting to perceive space in new ways.
Approximately 20 years ago, I asked a friend to figure out which of the cars in the parking lot was my newsd car. (New for me but a used car = Newsd. I know, so clever.) He pointed straight away at my car and said, "well, it couldn't be that one." But then he had no other ideas for which one it might be.
Standing there, staring at all the cars, I finally asked him, "what made you point at that one and say, 'it couldn't be that one.'?" He said, "because it has an out-of-state license plate." I also wondered why he would have even thought to LOOK at that one - and somehow, in the conversation, he pointed out that it was the only car that was parked crooked.
I finally told him: "that is my new car." Yes, it had out of state license plates, but they were soon fixed. I got it registered and such.
This friend, in the conversation, pointed out to me for the first time (I had never known this about myself!) that I parked crooked.
I had no idea I consistently parked crooked. I was completely clueless. I also was never able to correct it.
So, a few months ago I arrived at vision therapy and had a chuckle. Of the 20 or so cars in the lot, almost all of them were parked crooked. I felt like "this is my community." I had a good chuckle about that at the time.
Well, about a week or two ago, I noticed that I was now parking badly, but in a whole new way. I don't think I still park crooked. I haven't checked that out specifically. But I noticed that suddenly, I keep parking about 3 feet back of where I normally have always parked.
It's like if the parking space has the white lines in the front with a cement block you're not supposed to hit with the underside of your bumper .... over the years, I have usually gotten almost to that bumper or else have hit it, and then backed up a little, listening to my bumper drag back off of it. It makes me cringe, but it's the best I have been able to do. *oops*
Well, last week or maybe it was the week before, I have discovered that I am now parking 3 feet away from this sort of phenomenon. I think I have pulled all the way up to it and done just fine. But - it turns out - I am still 3 feet short of the top (?) of the parking space! Consistently!
I park my car every day in my garage. It's a very deep garage. It could easily accommodate 2 cars parked back bumper to front bumper. (Not a 2 car garage with 2 doors in front; but 2 cars could fit in the one door. It's a deep garage, not a wide garage.)
My dad's stuff is mostly in the back half of the garage. I need to go through it and pick and choose what I want to keep and what needs to go. I haven't gotten around to it, but I will.
But I have consistently been able to park in the garage, and pull up to the spot just before my dad's stuff. This leaves me about 4 feet of clearance behind my car, before the garage door. I don't need all that distance, but that's what I have been doing.
Well, suddenly, I now park nearly with my back bumper at the garage door. I don't know what happened. But my vision / distance / judgement is all askew from how it's been.
It turns out, I have been learning, that I am starting to perceive depth.
Things are starting to look different to me. it's been very gradual for me. But I no longer am able to use the visual queues around me the way I used to. And it's consistent enough now, that I am parking 3 feet shallow of where I actually intend to park.
I have been paying attention to this, this week, and it is still consistent.
I think I may need to go to an empty parking lot and start parking and parking and parking. Drive and park. Drive and park. Over and over, and re-learn how to park.
One last thing - just because. My grandparents had a tennis ball hanging from their garage ceiling, on a string. They had a very long station wagon "back in the day," and they wanted to park it "just so" in their garage. It was hard to get the car in just the right spot. So, one time, they pulled it in, determined it was just how they wanted it. And then the climbed up into the attic or the rafters or whatever (I know there was an attic up there) and they hung down a tennis ball. Now, every time they parked that car, they would drive up to the tennis ball. The ball would very gently tap their windshield, and they would know that they were perfectly parked.
I have been thinking about such a tennis ball these last 2 or 3 weeks. Every time I get out of my car and see that I am still parking shallow. I won't be taking the time and effort it requires to figure out how to get up to the rafters of my garage to hang a tennis ball. But - it jumps in my head now and then to think about this. Just something else amusing going on in my head."
