Both Eyes Blind (Part II)

After my eye exam, I walked out of the doctor’s office and into a blaze of full summer sun, amplified a zillion times because my pupils were cranked to the max and my vintage Transition lenses barely darken at all anymore.

Augh!

Literally blind, eyes streaming despite the lame shade of my hand, I bumbled my way back to work by cutting through malls and the View Street parkade. Gaining the sanctity of my office, I immediately dimmed the lights. I sat in the dark for a few minutes, then decided to post the eyeball pic on my F***book page to make my misery selectively public.

Co-workers started coming to see how I was doing. Our office manager stood silhouetted in my doorway and asked if I recognized her voice. “I’m blind, not deaf!” I snapped, trying not to laugh. My program cohort told me that my eyes were creeping her out and maybe I should just go home. “Can’t,” I replied. “I have a coffee date in an hour.”

Surely my pupils will relax by then.

Wrong-o. The only reason I got to the café alive was by falling in with a gang of tourists as they crossed the street. I stayed with them down the block to where my coffee buddy stood on the corner, waving like a lunatic when she spotted my work clothes in the shorts-and-tank crowd. I don’t remember much about the conversation except that it distracted me from how frikking bright everything was, and when just before we parted, I leaned in to ask if my pupils looked any smaller. She peered close, then gave a rueful smile and shook her head. Great. My return route was directly into the sun. Walking downtown with your eyes almost completely closed—actually, my left eye was completely closed—is hazardous without the added bonus of blurred vision. At least I didn’t bump into anything, and even as I blundered in the same general direction as the traffic, I was clinically amazed at how white the world appeared. The only colours in evidence were the rainbow rim of every globular shape in my path. Honestly, it was like a grand mal Horner’s episode! (Ru note: when the syndrome kicks in, my vision goes a little warped and blurry. It’s like looking at light through a prism. It doesn’t last long and, more importantly, it’s not painful.)

Back in the sanctuary of my shadowed office, computer work was out of the question. This did not stop me from coaching our office manager through how to upload documents to a Sharepoint site or IMing Ter to let her know how I was doing. I finally squinted through running a database report to give me a paperwork project for the afternoon. With the aid of one desk lamp, I managed to get some of it done before Coffee on the Wall.

My eyes felt little better and the pupils were still huge at 1:30. We found a shady spot in the library courtyard, partly for my eyes, but mostly because my wee sister is on medication that will make her burst into flame if she gets too much sun.

Geez, I wondered aloud, how long before my eyes get back to normal?

“It takes a while,” Boy Sister said, sympathetically, “but when it starts, it doesn’t take long.”

A half-hour later, I widened my eyes at wee sister. “Are they any smaller?”

She made a scrunchy face. “Not much.”

And I’d hoped they were shrinking because the tears had stopped.

One more hike back to the office before quitting time. I was dousing the orbs hourly with the drops I’d got from the doctor; they were burning and scratchy and blurry and by the end of the workday, I wanted to cry except my tear glands had packed up and left town. I took a final look in the mirror before I left work, half-fearing I’d get on the wrong bus and wind up at UVic instead of home, and did my eyes deceive me? Probably, since it looked as if the left pupil was almost back to normal while my right was stuck at full throttle. I looked like David Bowie. How the heck had he managed with one pupil fixed and dilated for most of his life? (I read somewhere that it was the result of a blow to his eye when he was a young ’un.)

As luck had it, I ran (figuratively) into a neighbour at the limo stop, so she got me onto the right bus without a clue that I was guessing at pretty much everything; how I picked her from the crowd would have been a miracle except that she saw me while I was still trying to figure out if I was seeing her. I was safe in my comfy chair with a cup of tea and a cookie when Ter came home, and by then, all that remained of my Big Eye Stuffie impression was the dry scratchies when I blinked.

So. What did I learn from this experience?

From now on, I book my annual eye appointment in November.

Both Eyes Blind (Part I)

This is what I get for waiting eight years between eye exams. I didn’t mean to let so much time pass, but who does? Life has a way of happening when you have other plans. In the grand scheme, I reckoned my vision would tell me when it was time for a check up, and that time came last week.

Since my last visit, my optometrist got married and had two children. She’s a lovely young woman, very gentle and soft-spoken, and she knows my history so well that, though I had entertained the notion of starting over with someone new, it made sense to remain with her and take my lumps for being remiss in making regular appointments.

“Welcome back, Ruth,” she said, opening with a smile and lump number one. “How have you been?”

I was pleased to report that I’ve actually been pretty well. No health disasters, no prescription drugs, and no family doctor required in the past near-decade. But my glasses need updating, and have done for almost a year. My Transition lenses don’t transition that well anymore.

“You’ll be amazed at the advances in their technology,” she said, lobbing lump number two as if it was a softball. “They change really fast nowadays.”

We did the field and focus tests. She’s already aware of my misaligned eyeballs and how my brain has given up trying to interpret letters on a screen when my left eye is called upon to transmit the image, but gods bless her, she tried to encourage me. I guessed wildly at the top line and nailed it (from memory, but she didn’t have to know that). “How about the next line?” she asked.

I sighed. “I know they’re letters, but I can’t tell you what they are.”

“Can you tell how many there are?”

“No. I just know they’re there.”

“Try the first one.”

“Ummmm … ‘K’—I think.”

“Good! What’s next?”

I hemmed and hawed, stalling for time until the magic happened. Suddenly, my brain switched sides and the string emerged in a triumphant rush. “ ‘K’, ‘O’, ‘V’ ‘H’!”

“What’s the one between ‘K’ and ‘O’?”

“There’s one between ‘K’ and ‘O’?”

My doctors all think I’m a riot.

She played with lens options and finally settled on a prescription that turns out to be a little better for distance and should clarify the written word at closer-than-arm’s-length. So far, so good.

Then came the drops to dilate my pupils. I was warned when I made the appointment, but I thought the statement to bring my sunglasses applied to prescription shades, which I don’t have on account of the aforementioned Transition lenses. Besides, my office is only two blocks over from the eye doctor’s; how bad could it be?

Fifteen minutes later, I was back in the chair with the lights dimmed while she aimed a thousand watt penlight directly into my brain and I tried not to scream.

Forget love. Light hurts!

But she got the reading she was after—no sign of diabetes, hypertension, cholesterol or glaucoma, and my corneas are thickening in accordance with my age, yippee aye ay. In short, nothing out of the ordinary. She gave me some drops and sent me on my way with my new prescription and a more forceful lump number three: “See you next year.”

to be continued …

Fallen Angel

The demise of my childbearing potential has come with some inconvenient side effects. During the office renos this month, I happened on a conversation between two colleagues about plugging a computer directly into a wall socket. “Is that allowed?” one was asking, “or do we have to use a power bar for surge protection?”

“You can plug it in directly,” the other replied, “but I’m all about surge protection.”

I almost chipped in with a fervent, “So am I!” because the oscillating fan in my office has four settings and I could really use one that has a fifth.

The other hormonal hiccup is dry skin all over and itchy skin in patches. A particularly persistent spot has developed on the inner edge of my left shoulder blade. The other day I was pretzel-twisting to reach it and thought, “Why is it so itchy here?”

The answer immediately followed:

“It’s where your wings used to be.”

Know Your Mind

“If you really want to know your mind, the body will always give you a truthful reflection, so look at the emotion, or rather feel it in your body. If there is an apparent conflict between them, the thought will be the lie, the emotion will be the truth.” – Eckhart Tolle

Further to the tiny poem I posted on Saturday …

What do you want to write today, Ru?

Oh, boy! An urban fantasy!

You haven’t finished the novel yet.

The novel’s too big. I want to have fun.

“Black in Back” is half-done. You should finish it.

I will, but I’m stuck right now.

You’ll stay stuck if you don’t try to get un-stuck.

Did you not hear me? I said I want to have fun!

You’ll have fun once you get it rolling again.

I’m not having fun now, that’s for sure. I’m going to do something else …

What about the blog? You’re behind on your posts …

… something not writing!

*contemplative pause as Ru stomps off in a frustrated snit*

Well, no wonder you’ll never be successful.

During the course of this inner dialogue, my enthusiasm for my art was badgered from the joy of widespread potential to a poisonous knot of despair jammed under my ribs. By the time I was done, I was done. I didn’t even want to consider what I truly wanted to write because I felt like I’d be a failure if I didn’t finish something else. It wasn’t enough for my mind that I write for play. It wanted me to work. And even my bliss can be a turnoff when it becomes work.

I observed this odd conversation with the awareness that my compostable container houses two distinct entities: my mind and my spirit. And the two are the most contentious partners since George and Martha in Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf? Boy, is my mind bossy. It’s such a control freak that, even when it’s so tired that it’s banging into the boards like a hockey player in third period OT, it still strives to beat down my spirit. And my spirit, the little wimp, lets it.

That’s what intellect thinks of spirit.

Actually, spirit is smarter than that. It doesn’t give up; it just concedes the moment. Eventually it comes back. It’s as relentless as intellect, if not as prone to pumping up the volume. I kind of wish it was, but I’ve also learned that spirit burns at a higher intensity and will not lower itself to the level favoured by the mind. Let’s face it: the mind is pushy, aggressive, derogatory, critical, judgemental, self-righteous, argumentative – all the things we look for in the perfect mate.

Spirit, on the other hand, can afford to wait. Spirit doesn’t adhere to the concept of time as interpreted by the mind, so if I storm off in a fit of pique and refuse to write on Sunday, it neither judges nor ridicules. It simply lets me be. My mind is the thing that will hunt me down and kill my will. Why it fears my writing so much is a mystery. You’d think it would appreciate a break, especially when it’s as tired as it was when I started my vacation, but no, if it lets up for a second, it will be overcome. Worse, it may be cast completely aside, forgotten, reviled, ignored. Oh, that’s the worst fate it can imagine, that it might be ignored. 

It thinks it’s the less favoured child when in fact there is no competition. I appreciate my intellect. When I need it, it’s there. I just wish it would shut up when I don’t. No, not shut up. Relax. Yeah, relax, old mind o’ mine. Take five and let spirit drive for a while. You’ll kill us all if you don’t loosen up, and if that’s not counter-productive to your purpose of keeping us alive, then who’s the big picture failure?

The third party in this dilemma – and this brings me back to Professor Ekkles’ point – is the compostable container. Emotion is reflected in our physical condition. When I’m angry, my stomach knots. When I’m sad, I cry. When I’m hurt, my chest aches. When I’m happy, I smile. When I’m in love, I am weightless. When I ask myself a question, as I did at the start of this diatribe, my immediate answer is the truth. Any hesitation and my will mind slip in there with its niggly naggy nonsense, effectively confusing me with coulda/shoulda/woulda. If I doubt my response, however quickly it comes, all I need do is note how my body feels. How I feel is always true. What I think, not so much. When the two collide, what feels better is the way to go.

So go there.

Leggo My Ego

Last week I drafted a post about my ongoing battle with ego.

What began as a dissertation ended up as a diatribe. Surprising? At first, yes. On reflection, I should have seen it coming. Any time my ego is involved, it gets messy. It gets loud. It gets argumentative and angry and defiantly positional. By the end of the piece, ego was firmly at the wheel, driving at breakneck speed for the cliff’s edge and utterly heedless of the damage awaiting it once it hurtled into open space.

Ego works like that. It believes in hurting itself first to save it from being hurt anon. Conversely, it believes in hurting others before they can hurt it. What kind of nonsensical beast is this thing? And why do we give it so much power?

I wish I had the answer. All I have is a theory and a lab experiment with myself as the white rat.

The general consensus among philosophers is that the human condition can be divided into three separate components: body, mind, and spirit. “Body” is fairly obvious, being subject to hard-copy things like biology, environment, pathology, chemicals, and the physical manifestations of mental and emotional stress. “Mind” is the disk operating system which houses both the instinct for survival and the intellect. From what I understand, ego resides in “mind”. “Spirit” is the infinite essence that cannot be seen, but is probably the most important part of our makeup because it’s the one thing we take with us when the compostable container reaches its expiry date. “Spirit” is the life force, the truly eternal part of us that has been and remains the mystery of ages. Many people have devoted lifetimes to its study, trying to pin it down and give it substance and better yet, to figure out where it goes when we die.

Where it goes is less important to me than what it learns while it’s here.

 

One of the bookcases in our house is loaded with the works of Deepak Chopra, Wayne Dyer, Eckhart Tolle and Bruce Weiss (among others), but I let Ter do the heavy lifting. She reads the books, then gives me the highlights. We discuss, and if what I hear makes sense to me, I apply the principle du jour and see what happens. One of the goodies of late has been the subject of ego.

 

I’ve always known that ego is ridiculously fragile. What I never understood was why. How can something so brash and confident and smartypants witty be shattered or enraged by an offhand comment?

I think now that it’s fear.

Ego is always afraid – of loss, of disdain, of criticism, of failure, of disappointment, of poverty, of conflict, of death. Ego is road rage and cyber-bullying. Ego is impatience and intolerance. Ego is excess and extreme, and the misguided notion that the more you have, the more important (therefore the more viable) you are. Ego looks back in anger and forward with anxiety; ego is addiction and frustration, feelings of inadequacy and of superiority. Ego is absolutely the most paradoxical, self-destructive element in the mortal makeup. At its best, it monitors and mobilizes to keep us safe and society running smoothly. At its worst, it will literally kill itself and others merely to make a point.

How do I know all this? I’ve lately been observing my own behaviour. Fortunately, my ego restricts itself pretty much to internal putdowns and shots aimed at my self-esteem. These are designed to keep me static and thus spare my ego the risk of ridicule or a face plant – or success, for that matter. Better to be safe than sorry, right? At least it has never committed wilful acts of violence just to prove a point. I have been known, however, to raise my voice when my point (therefore my ego) is being challenged. I do, occasionally, lash out in reflexive anger at someone who does something I judge to be stupid, dangerous, or just plain inconsiderate. I also, on occasion, take it out on friends and family members, but I usually realize the error of my ways and apologize … though that may have more to do with being Canadian than being enlightened. Oh, and about being enlightened? Ego will proudly announce to the world that “I Am Enlightened” and expect some sort of awestruck adulation from those it deems to be less so. I don’t consider myself to be more enlightened than anyone else. I’m still learning. We are all still learning. I reckon when we’ve learned it all, we’ll be done with this gig and I’m not there yet.

Nowhere near, in fact.

My intention is for Comfortable Rebellion to be a welcoming place of creativity, positive energy, and Ru-mination. It may be argued that ego prompted me to start the blog and that’s fine. It’s not the truth, but I won’t belabour it. We are each free to think and believe as we will, with no undue pressure to accept the opposing view of another. I am more aware of this now than ever – so much so that when considering which photo to match with this post, I remembered the chalked message I had seen and snapped on a morning flânerie some weeks ago:

“FIND FREEDOM”

Freedom from ego, and from the fear that drives it, is a darned good place to start.

With love,