Until today, I didn't really see.
Today, I put on a new pair of glasses over my eyes with new lenses and everything snapped into focus.
I stood atop the Lake Cheston dam, looked down some fifteen feet to the water's edge, and saw two bluets chasing one another. Mind you, a bluet is about 28 millimeters long. Then I noticed the single Rambur's Forktail (about 34 millimeters long). Far to my left, I picked out a wheeled pair of Autumn Meadowhawks (about 35 millimeters long) looking for just the right leaf.
This is amazing! This is 20/20 vision!
Filled with fall fever, I headed over to the campus late this afternoon to watch light move across stones and down trees. I saw three boys playing soccer at All Saints', ginko leaves yellowing, and a little lime-green plane (which my friend Bill identified as an Aircam, "designed to fly low and slow with extreme visibility and the security of two engines") buzzing us all.
Those two flyers surely had an amazing view. But so did I.
Correction: so do I!
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.
