“Mom.” I say as she’s turning out the lights for me to go to sleep. The room isn’t totally dark. It’s most likely summer when the days were long and I’m only about 7 years old so my bedtime is a bit early.
She turns to me, one hand on the doorknob.
“Can you see the air”
“What?”
“The air. It’s just particles, can you see them?”
“… no honey. You can’t see the air. It’s invisible. Now go to sleep. Goodnight.”
But I could see the air.
Or at least I thought I could see the air, because I was seeing tiny static-like dots over everything I saw. It was more pronounced in the dark, but I could see it most all the time.
We had just been introduced to the idea of particles in elementary science and that everything was made of tiny dots. Well, I thought, I can see them so that must be what I’m seeing.
My mother’s denial of my assumed reality did not lead me to think that perhaps seeing visual noise had a different cause. It made me think I must be special because I can see the air. You’re going to tell me the air is made up of teeny-weeney spots and then tell me the teeny-weeney spots are not what I’m seeing? Bullshit.
Eventually I learned that I was not seeing the air. I have a condition called visual snow with which you constantly see static – tinnitus for the eyes. (I also have tinnitus.) Some people have had this happen to them later in life, but I’m someone who was born with it. It has been linked anecdotally with all sorts of nonsense. No one currently knows why some people see static as if our eyes are picking up a dead channel overlayed on reality.
Sometimes I can’t tell if it is raining or not by looking outside. It always looks like something is in the air. It always has. It probably always will. It looks like my screen is covered in static as I write this. It looks like the episode of Great British bakeoff playing off a hard drive on my other screen looks like the reception has gone wonky.
Have you ever seen those videos of colorblind people getting those glasses that let them see colors for the first time?
It makes me think that a lot of people are desensitized to color. I don’t usually weep with joy when I see a sunset, but I often act like a small child pointing at things like flowers I come across like “look at that!” while most people are like, yeah, it’s a flower. Have you never seen a flower? Weirdo. When in fact I have seen many flowers and sometimes flowers are still amazing. Also animals. Also the sky. Also a lot of other stuff.
Maybe I am sensitive to having colors because bland, singular blocks of greyscale are the worst for noticing visual snow. Colors, patterns, and textures can hide the static in my vision. But how would I know if I see more of color than other people? Or am aware of color more? Notice it more? I already I see stuff others don’t see. And is that because other people have a color or some sort of other desensitization or a physical or neurological issue in their DNA like people who were born with a limited sense of smell? Or people to whom cilantro tastes like soap?
Has anyone handed a colorblind person those glasses and then turned on an episode of Great British Bakeoff? It’s like the Easter Bunny ate a bunch of crayons and then exploded. Sometimes I worry if I watch it too much I will damage my ability to see color, like fucking up your hearing by listening to shit too loud (did I mention I have tinnitus?).
There is a contestant on Great British Bakeoff 2020 who has on three separate occasions dedicated her cakes to dead people. As someone with thanatophobia who is prone to existential panic, I would request that this show have less dead people cakes.
Please do not mistake me, I don’t want to deny people the ability to grieve by baking cakes on a internationally broadcast baking competition television show. It just seems like a disappointing venue for everyone involved.
If I made a cake for my dead mom it would probably have to have some sort of black liquorice involved and I am not a huge fan of black liquorice. Are people who like black liqourice living in some sort of heightened perception state and if only we could taste what they taste, we too would burst into tears?
Maybe I’m the “normal” one who can see the static. I don’t have visual snow, you are static blind and one day they’ll have to make glasses so you can see it. And you’ll burst into tears, because it will be so beautiful.
