Retreat

This drawing--a souvenir of an afternoon alone to catch up with myself, time to take a long walk, to ignore the clock, then to retreat to my study with a withered tulip in a blue, glass vase and to play with pastels, enjoying the freedom of not knowing how to use pastels well, knowing only that I want the satisfaction of making marks on paper, of messy hands, of being lost in a process, of looking up, eventually, to find the delightful illusion of three dimensions on flat paper. 

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How do you slow down and catch up with yourself? 

A Change of Perspective

Yesterday, the wind blew at me from the south, whipping my hair straight behind me, making my walk to the car at the end of a long day feel like a resistance workout. My flapping shirt and the swaying tree branches, the muffled roar as I got into the car and shut the door, all reminded me that we are always in motion.

Sitting for hours grading papers, going through a full Monday of teaching three classes, posting midterm grades, talking with students, being in my usual routine, I felt only time pass and deadlines get closer. On days like that, I can forget—and usually do—that we are on this huge orb that is moving very quickly on its axis, that this orb is at the same time whipping through space.

The power of the wind, though, made the movement real, present. And the movement reminded me of the consistency of impermanence. Everything is changing all the time. We are literally in a different place every moment, whether or not we see it. And, yes, we are at a different moment in time, too.

While this realization of constant change often fills with me with a yearning to hold on, the recognition can also be comforting, especially in difficult times. And sometimes it enables me to be right here, right now and to really, truly inhabit this moment.

Recently, Marilyn and I flew out East for our annual trip to celebrate the twins’ birthday. On our short flight north to Chicago, I took several photos, including one of our neighborhood, a photo in which we could pinpoint our house and delight in the bird’s eye view, and another of downtown Chicago, in which we could find the location of our favorite hotel. 

A mandala created by UUs of all ages in our fellowship hall at UUCUC on Sunday, after a thought-provoking service titled "Practice Impermanence."

Double Vision and Second Sight

The first pot of the summer, as seen through our front door.

First, I noticed that traffic lights looked like three-leaved clovers, but aglow and blurry.

Then, driving east at dusk, I noticed the rising moon looked double, one white disk overlapping the other. I thought of the haunting Isaac Asimov short story I had read in college about a planet with two suns. More recently, I had watched the engrossing and disturbing film Another Earth, in which a second Earth appears in the night sky; leaving the movie theatre, I had examined the sky warily.

On this more recent evening, I knew I wasn’t really seeing two moons, but I was troubled enough by this double vision that I called my eye doctor and also, of course, looked up WebMD. 

It didn’t take long before I read that double vision was a common symptom of cataracts. So was second sight, the phenomenon of temporarily improved near vision which would then get worse.  That explained my wanting to look at my phone over the rims of my glasses, which had progressive lenses to help me see both close by and far away. 

I was young for cataracts, only forty-eight when they were diagnosed. I was given a new prescription for my glasses and told to wait a while.

A year and a half later, driving was more difficult and the moon was triple.  Grading papers was becoming challenging, with the text starting to float on the page. I found myself enlarging the font on the computer screen so that I could read and write emails. I was ready for cataract surgery.

Before my first surgery,
with my surgeon's initials above my right eye.

The surgeries were scheduled for earlier this month, one week apart, immediately after I turned in grades for the spring semester. I was nervous about the idea of the surgeon going at my eyes with tools, even though the surgeon is my eye doctor, whom I have known for years and trust completely. Nervous enough that I don’t remember what I read about the tools used.  I just repeated to myself that it was a routine surgery with a high success rate, and that since only one eye would be operated on at a time, I would not go blind as a result of the surgery. And not only would my cataracts be removed, but also the new lenses would give me near-perfect vision.

A drawing from my art journal after the first surgery.

The day after my second surgery, with my surgeon's
initials faded but visible above my left eye.
(I love accessories and am delighted I can now wear sunglasses without a prescription!)

Well, both surgeries were successful. I now have the remarkable experience of opening my eyes in the morning and seeing: the white embroidery on the white curtains, the print of a Derain painting on the wall between the windows, everything—and without glasses. I had been shortsighted since the fourth grade and needed progressive lenses as soon as I turned forty. Now I can see things far away and can see these words on a computer screen—all without glasses. This is new.  Startling. And wonderful.

The week after the first surgery, when I came home with 20/20 vision in my right eye, I would close my still-shortsighted left eye and marvel that I could see the purple iris in the backyard from the kitchen window without glasses. After the second surgery, I wandered around the gardens taking photos, in awe that I could see all that color, all that detail, all that glory without glasses.

When we first discussed cataract surgery, I said to my doctor, “You help people see! Don’t you feel like God?” I am an agnostic, but that was the best analogy I could manage.  After surgery, I feel like I am living inside a miracle. “Second sight” has a whole new meaning.

I feel fortunate that my surgeries were done just as the peonies bloomed.

I couldn't get enough color, so I took out my watercolors and played.