The Last Word On Nothing

I don’t make decisions easily. When it comes to home décor, I can revisit a rug or bedspread five times before dismissing or buying it, usually with remorse one way or the other. Online shopping makes it worse. Oh, the hours I’ve spent toggling between web pages, Googling in search of a better price, rethinking entire rooms because I like a particular throw pillow that doesn’t match what I’ve got. (I’m aware that this is an embarrassingly First World problem. Forgive me.)

Buying curtains, I found out recently, is particularly excruciating. At first I had thought, perhaps, I’d make them. I bought a sewing machine a couple of years ago, with big plans. But I’m impatient, and not terribly skilled at sewing, and I knew lopsided curtains would look lame and sad. So I went shopping.

I was relieved when my friend Annika, who happens to be really good at making decisions and really good at decorating, offered to go with me. This is after I’d exhausted many websites, realizing that without seeing fabrics in person, I couldn’t be sure of color, texture, and whether that shine was just an effect of the flash or was revealing some horrible 1980s material better used to line a hamster cage (for a very stylish hamster, mind you).

We shopped. We compared. We touched, rubbed, and even smelled curtains. It was quite a day. So much fabric! So many options! I had no idea. We finally settled on a set of neutral, linen drapes, earthy and modern with a simple stitched design—floral, in a Spirograph sort of way. I’d have to get them cut to fit and liners sewn on the backs—they were going in a cabin where winter tended to seep in—but the cost wasn’t insane and I knew I could find someone local to do the job, which is a nice way to get things done. And I liked the loop-de-loop petal pattern. Really, I did.

The seamstress I hired took her sweet time, but finally she delivered the huge bag with the neatly folded, properly sized and lined drapes draperies inside. And the next time my husband and I traveled to our cabin, I happily yanked down the flimsy fabric that the previous owners had clipped up when they were selling the place (and that we’d lived with for four years), unfolded and shook out the fresh, new curtains, and hung them up. (I don’t iron. Eventually, wrinkles fall out.)

My husband joined me to admire the job well done. We stood together in front of the now-clothed windows and, I’ll admit, I was pretty pleased with myself. I’d made a decision and followed through to the finish. That’s huge for me.

And then he said this: “So, why did you get curtains with baseballs all over them?”

Baseballs? I scrutinized the neatly stitched curves in sets of four like leaves on a…wait a second. I blinked and looked again.

Baseballs. God-dammed baseballs. All over my curtains.

“We can get one of those bat-and-ball lamps to go with them,” my husband added, seeing my horror.

And ever since he said what he said, I look at the curtains and there are the balls. No more modern flowers. Just lots and lots of balls.

To avoid focusing on how much time, effort, and money went into these suddenly sporty drapes draperies, I turned to science. Why didn’t my brain register the baseballs before, I wondered. And where have all the flowers gone?

Here’s where the questions led me. Remember that old brain-teasing illustration of the witchy woman that, when you look again, becomes a young beauty? You may stare for a while without seeing the girl for the old lady’s sizable nose, but then, suddenly, the unsightly face is gone and the pretty one appears.

This is called perceptual ambiguity, and what’s going on is a bit of mental gymnastics as our brains try to make sense out of what our eyes take in.

The earliest known version of the woman-girl image appeared on a German postcard in 1888. It was redrawn by a cartoonist in 1915 (and by others later) who titled it “My Wife and My Mother-in-Law” and asked readers to find both people in his illustration. It’s not hard, but what’s cool is the way our minds won’t let us see both at once. Instead, we have to switch back and forth.

Other examples of the same idea: Duck or rabbit? And this chess piece that turns into what I swear is Alfred Hitchcock facing off with himself.

It turns out human brains really like, and look for, familiar patterns. And they are good at grouping things together based on our memories. In the ambiguous two-faced image, as soon as we recognize one familiar feature (say, the young woman’s chin) our minds quickly sort through what’s left and find the rest of her face. So, recognizable contours give us clues and let us form a stable image, or, said another way, let us lock in on one figure even though two are present. And, then, like flipping a switch, our brains—once we spot a feature from figure #2—can toggle between them.

But here’s the kicker, which I’m proud to say I came up with myself. (Meaning, I made it up. But it seems logical.) I think it’s possible to get stuck on one image if that image has more relevance to our point of view. We can be so focused on it that we completely miss the other one—because #2 doesn’t mean anything to us right then.

So, as I was looking for pretty curtains with, maybe, flowers on them, I saw flowers. I have little connection to baseball. I don’t play it or watch it or give a damn about it—despite my father’s insistence on relaying the results of every Cubs’ game. And I’ve never had to decorate a nine-year-old boy’s room, so I’ve never looked at boy-appropriate curtains. I simply didn’t tune into the contours of the baseballs. I stayed firmly on the foliage. (For the record, my decorating friend Annika saw flowers, too.)

That, of course, has changed. Now that I know about the foul balls, the flowers are harder and harder to see. (My husband insists on calling me ‘Lil Slugger, which doesn’t help.) My brain, which seems to like me to suffer, has shut them out. I have to really squint and stare to glimpse petals where the rows and rows of sports equipment now lie.

In other words, the lovely woman eludes me. I get the hag every time.

Top Photo: Shutterstock

Bottom Photo: Me