Which way is up?

The art of losing isn't hard to master;
so many things seem filled with the intent
to be lost that their loss is no disaster.
(Elizabeth Bishop, "One Art")

It's the most difficult question: how to see rightly. I teach a play involving a couple of old men who cannot see what is evident; it costs one his eyes, the other his sanity. Redcrosse Knight fails most spectacularly when he allows Duessa's false beauty to blind him to her true nature. Paradise Lost is shot through with it as well: those who see wrongly are the ones who fall.


Today we call it "perspective," meaning the way we place items in space or ideas in the mental landscape. We often use the term to mean distance, meaning that we understand things better when we are more removed from them by space or time . . . usually the latter. It's as if from the close range the details are far too overwhelming to see as parts of a whole. And of course, we hold out promises to those we care about that time will make things clear, that everything will be alright in time.


Such talk leaves me cold. Always has. It may be true that we need perspective, but we most need to see when we are in the moment, when the true sight can make the most difference. Ten years down the road is, in short, too late. Here we are in a garden of forking paths, and we need to see the way through. But paths lead in false directions, appearances deceive, and the map is incomplete.

If I have learned anything since October, it is that the maps I used to use show a landscape I've long left behind. The perspective I once had is either too near or too far away. What's next: finding a way to see differently.