The last few weeks I have been seeing the world through new eyes, almost literally. Like many of us I had cataract surgery. Though the idea of having anything poked in the eyeball; blade, laser, whatever is disturbing; it’s not if you don’t think about it or are given a lot of drugs to calm you down. I have been severely near sighted almost my entire life. Though that’s not the reason for cataract surgery, the reward is that my vision has been corrected significantly more than it was able to be corrected with glasses. This is huge. The ability to read road signs without asking my granddaughter to read them out loud as we pass by is astounding. And, yes, the truth is I should not have been driving at all or doing other things I was doing, but you don’t even realize how bad it is until the task either becomes impossible, like night driving, or until the situation is corrected. So, forgive me for going on and it. My new eyesight is pretty much all that I have been talking about since the surgery.
Meantime, it’s spring, not that we had much of a winter here in New Jersey, a few dustings of snow that’s it. It’s getting darker later. And, back to me and my eyes, the colors of the crocus (I don’t like croci as a plural) and the daffodils, especially the daffodils, have just knocked my socks off. But don’t tell Wordsworth. I never cared for his poem. Wander lonely as a cloud? Are clouds lonely? Don’t they usually travel in groups? Even then, so? This is the price of living in a more consciously cynical age. But I am so glad I had a couple of high school teachers who loved poetry. We got to read a lot of it. I read at least a poem or two every single day. Lucky me.
Lucky for me also that age finds me no less opinionated about most matters, but much more tolerant. But I forego for a few minutes focusing on things wrong in or with the world and what I should be but have not been doing about them and instead share just a few of the things for which I am grateful. I’m grateful for ALTE and Esther and Larry and all of you.
AND, we really, really, really hope to see many of you in PERSON on Monday, April 3 at 6:30 at our fantastic ALTE reading and get together in NYC. To RSVP, altetogether@gmail.com, or reply to this post and we will get back to you. Tell your friends.
https://www.flavorwire.com/567120/10-poems-to-greet-the-spring-that-arent-wordsworths-daffodils
After my 2nd cataract surgery I looked in the mirror and decided to wear lipstick again, maybe even more makeup than just ljpstick. So I did for a while, but between covid mask wearing and disliking goop on my face, I decided to stop wasting my new eyesight on the mirror and went back to reading, w/o glasses, regular and small print books.
What bliss after I had my cataracts out and implants inserted for the severe short sightedness I suffered. Everything turned bright, and I could see the leaves on the trees and read every sign. Like Jessica’s experience, it was a nothing surgery, but the outcome was immediate and grand.