Today I drove for the first time since the surgery.  What a thrill to see so clearly road signs and lines, to differentiate and define.

We lose sight gradually, and then, like that, the gift of return.  I feel new, like a child, or a flower lifted in spring.

Those of us with my myopia as children were often enthusiastic readers.  I loved my books, my inner world and drew vision in, held it close.  I was in fourth grade when it was discovered I needed glasses, and then each year a new pair until I was 13 and got hard contact lenses which I wore for 60 years.

Now the right eye is corrected to “perfect” vision, and the left will soon have correction though not too far, to just about a foot in front.  What I find puzzling is that I grumbled when I had to switch to glasses for seven months so my eyes could adjust to their natural shape.

Now, I want to wear them.  They have become a crutch, a measure of safety or perhaps protection.  They cover a large part of my face.  Am I hiding? Do I find comfort there?

We are very strange creatures in how we adapt, and where and when we hold on, and where and when we let go.  I think when I see so much detail, I find it puzzling.  Where do I focus?   Do I take the world in whole, or in pieces?  How do I receive this universe of which I’m part?   And then there is the seeing that has nothing to do with the eyes.  I can sense 360 degrees around like a tree, and perhaps that’s the division.  This feels so precise.  I think of the poem “Monet Refuses the Operation” by Lisel Mueller.  Despite any reluctance, fear, or concern, Monet had successful eye surgery in 1923, and it’s a beautiful poem.

I think Mueller’s poem gives a sense of my struggle. What is seeing?  Where do we focus, and when? Where and when do we attach, and let go? How do we give and receive?

How will this change in perception change my life?  I can only wait and see, and I’m grateful as can be for this opportunity to play with change and response and immersion in this life and giving we share.

I’ve been in four different locations in the last four days, and I sit here now in a beautiful home integrating cataract surgery.  There’s a great deal involved as the brain works to orient to a new way of seeing.  I think of how we focus, wide and open, small and detailed, and I see how my eyes are being challenged to learn new ways of seeing.

Oddly, with the new lens the right eye is fixed.  It will never change.  I have a card saying I have an “artificial” part in my body.  When I had the patch on the right eye, the left eye worked hard to compensate even though it has limited vision, but it took over with a mighty force, and now it seems a little lost or maybe afraid.  I’ll have surgery on that eye on the 14th.

All of this is to say how precious vision is.  We all know it in one way, and perhaps we take it for granted in another.  Stop now and give your eyes a tender recognizing hug and kiss of gratitude. What a gift is sight!

In this new place, I hear different birds chirping this morning.  I’ve left the marsh and am perched upon a hill with the changes spring brings.  I’m immersed in sensing, sensitivity, response and responsibility, and love and trust.  

In the end, it’s only when we face ego down that we truly see ourselves.

– Ashwini Narayanan

We are showered with gifts, but they are not meant for us to keep. Their life is in their movement, the inhale and the exhale of our shared breath. Our work and our joy is to pass along the gift and to trust that what we put out into the universe will always come back.

– Robin Wall Kimmerer