a blustery, only slighty frustery, day

How hard is this to open? The fact that I took the picture with my MacBook’s built in camera, which shoots (and displays) in mirror image and is, therefore, damnably hard to hold correctly when aimed at an object, and therefore gave me this nice “vertigo view” notwithstanding, that is.

Why do I ask? Because it is a timely case study to use in considering how neuronal pathways fail. I imagine that you would insert your fingers, from below, behind the semicircular convex object at center-top, and pull toward yourself. Correct. That is the simplest technique.

But what if you’d spent 40+ years using and selling hardware (including pulls of this very sort,) and in fact, installed this particular mailbox yourself and had been using it for the past 10 years, and this happened: You couldn’t open it one day. You completely missed the visual fact that it has a pull, and instead grasped fruitlessly at the sides, bottom, and rear of the box, not even thinking to pry the door down by its front edges. Luckily, in this case, “you,” are oblivious enough that you do not object when your wife takes over and gets the mail out.

Gabe reports that he happened to see Jeff trying to exit, via the front door yesterday. Jeff opened the door, stepped outside, then attempted to find a means of pulling the door shut again. He grabbed the tongue part of the latch mechanism that pops in and out, but realized he would shut his hand in the door if he continued pulling, and instead, stepped inside and pulled the door shut using the inside handle. Then, discovering he was not on the side of the door he intended to be, he tried again, this time pulling, correctly, on the exterior handle.

It’s a remarkable failure to try to comprehend. As Gabe said, it would be funny if it weren’t sad.

I realize, progressively, that these things are catching up to us, and we will, increasingly, feel the limitations. Today, Jeff and I took a field trip to Ellicott City, to walk the 18th Century mill town’s historic Main Street, visit the train museum, and have lunch. We entered a curiosity shop, of knick knacks and antiques, displayed in 9 rooms, on all 4 levels of a former duplex, now merged into one building. At each end of each level, was an ancient wooden staircase--the type where the treads are narrow, and twist at irregular points. (Clearly these were the homes of humble mill-workers--no grand entrances into the drawing room from elegant stairways here.) I was uncertain, as stumbling is becoming a consequential concern. But, we made it up and down, with minor missteps, although I changed sides of the house, as needed, to avoid the possibility that any calamitous falls would sweep a mother with small children down the stairs as well.

But it was a nice day. Cold. A little blustery. But sunny, and pretty, and--with a hat, scarf, and gloves, I felt perfectly equipped.