Day 12 of 40: Another Day That Changed My Life

I don't know when (but I was little) I learned to focus, unfocus, focus, unfocus my eyes, which I did constantly to enjoy color and shape, swoop and line.

No one reminded me I'd lose the magic with cataracts removed.

Visual Obsession

I have 20/20 vision. At a distance. I can see a tiny bug or dust mote and follow its flight or float. I can read road signs. I enter a big box store, and I can find the right aisle.

But with clarity provided by man-made lenses, I have also lost something I loved, but never knew before just how much: I cannot shift my eyes out of focus. 

I don't remember learning to tie my shoe laces or to read, but I remember stumbling upon that trick as a child. Once I learned how to let my eyes shift, I'd do it again, and again and again. I wanted to see the world in shapes and colors, let them swim together and apart, meld and separate.

In the last two weeks, I have asked my camera to do what I can't. I have, as is my wont, become obsessed. Everywhere I look, I aim and shift myself and camera settings, sometimes successfully, sometimes not, but always with childish pleasure.

It's a silly thing, but in a time of stress and worry, of endings and beginnings, a small thing can weigh much. And this discovery does.

An Old Friend and a New Challenge

On the way to the library to check out the large print edition (two volumes!) of Cry the Beloved Country, I ran into an old friend: a freshly minted Gray Hairstreak sunning himself and waiting for a female of his kind.  I spotted him easily because of his hop onto the blossom, but when I tried to snap his picture, I discovered a new wrinkle: I can no longer focus on the camera screen.

Yowzer, I had somehow overlooked this potentially challenging result of cataract surgery with middle-distance lenses.

On the way to and from the library, I pondered my quandary.  Bifocals for walking?  Distance and really close?  But then I'd lose the middle distance that is so brilliant.  Distance glasses for walking and the naked eye for photography?  But then how shall I see the imaging screen?  Perhaps I should walk with a naked eye, wearing half-rimmed over-the-counter close-up reading glasses on an eyeglass leash.  Then I can yank them up when I'm ready to shoot.

My October 17 appointment for a new prescription (prescriptions?) looms larger than it did five hours ago.