Stonewall Jackson wasn't exactly right

Reality. I got a big dose of that this morning. My alarm went off at 5 am at the Courtyard in Fort Smith, Arkansas. My flight back to Denver departed at 11am from Tulsa and I figured I would get up early and try to catch the sunrise over the Arkansas River before beginning my two hour drive to the airport. I was excited and jumped out of bed. I had carefully planned out where I would go to get the shot the night before. Looking at the map I found a place on the west bank of the river looking back toward Fort Smith. The sun would be rising over the city at about 6:45 with the river and the bridge into Oklahoma in the foreground.

It was a short drive through the small town of Fort Smith to the first exit in Oklahoma. Then down a small back road for about ½ mile to a turn off and maybe another ½ mile down what appeared to be a dirt road to the spot I had selected. An easy drive. Should take me less than 10 minutes. I figured I needed to be on the road by 7:30. The timing was going to work out perfectly. Now I just needed the sky to cooperate. It didn’t.

The sky turned out to be almost completely overcast. And worse, as I got off the highway I realized that the tiny back road I was on was extremely dark and the lights on my Kia rental car were providing little help.

In the human eye, Rods are primarily used for peripheral vision, they help us see motion, and are well suited for adapting to night vision but they cannot transmit sharp images or colors. That is what the Cones do. The Cones are all located in the macula and they are the only photoreceptor found in the Fovea, the center of your macula, what you use when you look at something such as when you are reading, looking at someone’s face, or driving.

So as I drove down that dark country road this morning I was able to see motion, to see dark and light but seeing the faded lines on the road, street signs, or even the subtle edge of the pavement was difficult at best.

I crept along, way below the speed limit, trying hard to keep the car from running off the road or from hitting something, or worse, someone, while I found a place to turn around and head back to the safety of a better lit road.

That was one of my daily reminders that I am no longer “normal.” That I can no longer do all the things that I have taken for granted for so many years.

I think back to the time when my brother and I decided to take my father’s car away from him after nearly 70 years of driving and how furious he was; “I used to change your diapers,  so don’t tell me what I can’t do!” I get it Dad. At least I do now. It’s not the loss of freedom or flexibility. It’s that you just can’t.

There is a quote prominently displayed over Jackson Arch at VMI; “You may be whatever you resolve to be.” Every VMI Alumnus walks under those words perhaps 5,000 times in their life. Through much of my life I have had to fight a quiet, but persistent whisper in the back of my mind that I am not good enough, but I have always kept that quote in mind. Stonewall Jackson did not say, you can be whatever you “want” to be. He said, whatever you “resolve” to be. While I have struggled with confidence at times in my life, one of the things I learned from my father was resolve; some might describe it as pigheaded.

But what I realized today is that while Stonewall Jackson’s infamous words have helped me get through many things in my life there is one thing they cannot do. No matter how hard I try, or what my resolve, I need to come to terms with the fact that there are some things I just can’t do and every now and then, that quiet voice in the back of my mind that I have fought so hard over the years, says, “see I told you so.”