We always speak of our five senses, our opposable thumbs and our large brains when we do an inventory of who we are and how we came to be. As a kid I was accused of selective hearing, so I don't know how keen that sense of mine is, and I've read enough about other species' auditory abilities to suspect I'm pretty much a poser when it comes to sailing along on the ear canals.
When I watch movies where they give 'bloodhounds' a child's shirt and the dog tracks the missing tyke through two and half reels, across streams and brooks, through the malls and back alleys and finds the little one, unhurt, in the bad guy's house (you know it's the bad guy because the music they play in the movie is a giveaway), I compare that dog's abilities with my olfactory prowess and realize truffle sniffling is not ever going to be on my short list of jobs I can handle (or want, come to think of it).
And those of us born with all of our senses take them for granted, because for us, they are nothing special, they came as standard equipment. When my two children were born, as a layman who barely understood the process (more or less), I stood in the delivery room and watched my children like a bird on a wire. I was counting, even as the mid-wife was working on my newborn. I didn't have a Plan B--but Plan A was to make sure all the parts were there, at least the ones I could see. The requisite number of toes and fingers and eyes and ears (and how did that happen, do you wonder? Why ten fingers and toes and two ears and eyes and NOT the other way around? How much is selective breeding, evolution and how much is the work of a Great Clockmaker? I don't know the answers to any of those questions, but am always open for ideas), one nose (with two nostrils) and one mouth--making sure all the externals were there in the proper number.
I've been told there are species with larger brains than ours-not in my neighborhood, from what I can see, but you never know. And that information causes me to wonder if it's what you have or what you use that makes the difference. Is it the singer or the song? I wear glasses (I used to say 'to help me see other people's points of view' but that's a lie-I've never really been able to grasp someone else's point of view, much less 'see' it. In my movie, I'm the one with the speaking part--dolly in for the close-up, now) but for many years I had excellent eyesight. I'm not sure how I could have better used that gift at the time, especially now, as the days start to get shorter and the rods and cones, as my optometrist has explained, have to struggle to adjust more and faster to the light levels, oftentimes without the success for which I'd have hoped.
I watched a movie, "Evening" the other afternoon on HBO-with Claire Danes (I remember her from "My So-Called Life" and I think she's very famous, especially if I still know her name) and a cast full of people whose faces looked very familiar (Vanessa Redgrave was in it, not that I knew her to look at until after the credits rolled. And Meryl Streep was in it, too, and her I recognized not from Mamma Mia but from Angels in America where she was Ethel Rosenberg among other characters). had never heard of the movie, though it was a release from last year and I don't do a lot of movies (my wife and daughter visit the multi-plexes and enjoy the movie house experience. When I come home at night, I usually stay home) and the story line flashed back and forth (past to the present) as the protagonist struggled with what she saw and what she thought she sww and what it meant.
I was reduced to tears watching it, though it wasn't an especially sad movie. I was very happy I was home by myself as I get embarrassed when Sigrid walks through the living room and sees me blubbering on the couch and I can't even explain why. The most striking part of the movie is the last fifteen seconds as the evening sky beyond the cliffs and the sea turns darker and you realize the end of the movie, and the protagonist's life has arrived, except for the faint glimmer at the horizon which is tomorrow, and that becomes today before we know it.
-bill kenny
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