My grandfather was blind, the result of being kicked by a horse when he was a teenager. He had a soft voice and loved to tell and write stories. As children, we would sit on his lap while he played softly on his harmonica, which he called a "mouth organ." Too young to understand blindness, we only thought of him as special, someone kind and quiet and loving.
Sight problems run all through our family, from Glaucoma to Ambliopia. To say I suffer from one-eyed vision is to deny that from birth I have had the privilege of seeing things in a way nobody "normal" does. Of course there's the depth perception blunders - my ex used to hand me back his cup of coffee and ask politely if he could have the other half. Looking down as I poured, the level of drink and the rim of the cup would line up and I would think the cup filled; it could go the other way, too, an over pour. I'm the only one I know that can fall on sloping pavement, which to me looks flat.
Happy to at last find an eye doctor to prescribe contacts for me back in the 80's, I was surprised to go outside and see distinct leaves on the trees, blades of grass, textures and details I'd missed all my life. In addition, the lenses kept my eyes warm, a new treat. That it took me twenty minutes to get the lenses out of my eyes at night and still had to have reading glasses, I happily dismissed as mere irritations; I felt normal looking for the first time in my life. Soon the ordeal of getting the lenses out marred the new treat and I went back to glasses, which by now needed a single bifocal lens. The first time they gave me two, the eye that won't work decided not to look through the new bifocal but at it, giving me a headache. I went back and asked for only the good eye to get the bifocal, a cost savings too!
The non-working eye works if I close the good eye, something I do a lot; I check my makeup, my paintings; the non focusing eye has the stronger color sense. I titled one of my paintings Why I failed Botany, an attempt at fauvism, my trees and hills had colors from imagination. When my brother saw the painting, he asked why there were eyes in the painting. Until he said that, I couldn't see eyes, in fact it's like an optical illusion. I see them now that he pointed them out and then they become part of the landscape again. I couldn't have painted eyes that well if I'd tried.
A few times I've been privileged to see things that have left me breathless. Once, driving home from the eye doctor at night in the rain , every light and puddle reflection held rainbows and colors that were unreal, neon fuchsias, aquamarines, purples, all in shimmering motion. It was a trip I enjoyed in the details I would normally have missed. This time the drops they use to dilate your pupils for examination kept working for hours. I couldn't read, but everything I saw was transformed.
And this week I saw my own aura. Walking outside in the bright sunshine, as I looked down, my body was outlined by the most intense blue! It made me lightheaded, it made me happy. Blue about two inches out from my legs, my arms, each footstep. I should have left blue footprints! The blue of neon lights outside bars. What a gift.
Sight problems run all through our family, from Glaucoma to Ambliopia. To say I suffer from one-eyed vision is to deny that from birth I have had the privilege of seeing things in a way nobody "normal" does. Of course there's the depth perception blunders - my ex used to hand me back his cup of coffee and ask politely if he could have the other half. Looking down as I poured, the level of drink and the rim of the cup would line up and I would think the cup filled; it could go the other way, too, an over pour. I'm the only one I know that can fall on sloping pavement, which to me looks flat.
Happy to at last find an eye doctor to prescribe contacts for me back in the 80's, I was surprised to go outside and see distinct leaves on the trees, blades of grass, textures and details I'd missed all my life. In addition, the lenses kept my eyes warm, a new treat. That it took me twenty minutes to get the lenses out of my eyes at night and still had to have reading glasses, I happily dismissed as mere irritations; I felt normal looking for the first time in my life. Soon the ordeal of getting the lenses out marred the new treat and I went back to glasses, which by now needed a single bifocal lens. The first time they gave me two, the eye that won't work decided not to look through the new bifocal but at it, giving me a headache. I went back and asked for only the good eye to get the bifocal, a cost savings too!
The non-working eye works if I close the good eye, something I do a lot; I check my makeup, my paintings; the non focusing eye has the stronger color sense. I titled one of my paintings Why I failed Botany, an attempt at fauvism, my trees and hills had colors from imagination. When my brother saw the painting, he asked why there were eyes in the painting. Until he said that, I couldn't see eyes, in fact it's like an optical illusion. I see them now that he pointed them out and then they become part of the landscape again. I couldn't have painted eyes that well if I'd tried.
A few times I've been privileged to see things that have left me breathless. Once, driving home from the eye doctor at night in the rain , every light and puddle reflection held rainbows and colors that were unreal, neon fuchsias, aquamarines, purples, all in shimmering motion. It was a trip I enjoyed in the details I would normally have missed. This time the drops they use to dilate your pupils for examination kept working for hours. I couldn't read, but everything I saw was transformed.
And this week I saw my own aura. Walking outside in the bright sunshine, as I looked down, my body was outlined by the most intense blue! It made me lightheaded, it made me happy. Blue about two inches out from my legs, my arms, each footstep. I should have left blue footprints! The blue of neon lights outside bars. What a gift.
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