A Lack of Vision
In short, whether driven by idealist or materialist presuppositions, contemporary theories of knowledge fail to articulate the impacts of the distinctive arrangements of discursive matter as it flows through both biological bodies and other media.[*]
C.M. Condit, “Race and Genetics from a Modal Materialist Perspective” QJS 94:4 November 2008
I got news today that my sister-in-law has completely lost her sight in her left eye. There is no word whether it is permanent or reversible; it is tremendously difficult for poor people to get straight answers about health care in this country. A cancer survivor, she is being shuffled from clinic to clinic as her vision progressively gets worse. It is a blow to me, because she and my brother are the main allies I have in caring for my mother as her condition worsens.. The hospice system is quick to offer counselors, but slow to assist her in day-to-day issues like washing up. My sister-in-law has been helping to take up that slack. Her problems add complexity to an already mind-numbingly complex scene.
Words
Placing one word after another. That seems to be a real problem lately. Dealing with the sheer scale of the decisions I’ve had to make this past year makes it hard to take any time to narrate, to try to make sense of the changes that have happened. For the first time ever, I have absolute confidence in the “support systems” that I have in place around me, but just the same, I miss writing.
It’s all so personal, and frequently painful that I hesitate each time I try to find some way out of the trap of silence. Back when the stakes were lower, when I had less to lose, writing came much easier. The true weirdness of it is losing the ability to write about things that aren’t personal, that aren’t painful—along with processing the other parts. I woke up at 3a.m. a day or so trying to complete a sentence in my head. It was a simple sentence meant to crystallize why I’m here, what I was working on before all these changes happened. I couldn’t find the word. And I was filled with such a deep sense of terror that the word wouldn’t come. It still hasn’t.
