blind man v. flibbertigibbet

in class yesterday we screened a very odd French film which was marked by a distinct absence of sound and one (brief) glimpse of an adolescent penis. but this is beside the point.

the point is that on the way to class i saw a very short blind man crossing the road wearing a backpack and carrying a garment bag. i felt an urge to describe him as "a blind midget scurrying across the road" - but he was a wee bit too big to be a midget. my situation became further problematized by the ambiguous linguistic morality of the term "midget," especially in conjunction with the rodential gerund "scurrying."

this line of thought then led me to the next realization that i really had no idea if the man was blind or not. he had a cane, and was tapping his way through the crosswalk, but i really had no idea. this simple situation, thirty seconds at a red light (which would soon become a green light), had created all manners of story and elaboration, imagination and obfuscation.

how many empty symbols and syllables do we assign to each moment of our lives, instead of just allowing the wonder to wash over us and carry us away?