Hope

Ever since my RP diagnosis, I have shied away from hope. Not a coquettish kind of shy, but a hand in the face, get the hell away from me kind of shy. I didn’t see the point of getting into bed with hope; I was all about getting on with the business of being blind, dealing with what was real and imminent. I saw hope as a tease, a liar, a villain. I refused to be prey to its allure. Until now.

Hope is still a mind fuck, but for the first time, I really want to be fucked. I want to be taken by hope, my thoughts flooded in it, my skin saturated by it. I want to fall into the surrender of hope, run barefoot, fly, forget.

When RP came into my life 19 years ago, cataracts came with it; in those 19 years, I have seen lots of eye doctors who told me that the cataracts couldn’t be taken out.; they were too small, not ripe enough, needed to be watched. I figured they were here to stay, just like RP, and I didn’t let the sexy face of hope tell me different. Then I moved to Ireland.

A couple of months ago, I saw an ophthalmologist in our town who had something different to say about my cataracts. She asked why they hadn’t been removed and told me that she didn’t see any reason why they couldn’t be removed. She said they must be driving me crazy, and gave me the name of a cataract specialist.

The cataracts are right in the centre of my visual field. Everything I see is blurry because of cataracts. They increase my light sensitivity so much, some days I am in tears from the pain. They give me double vision and fuck up my focus so I can’t read regular books. They have stolen colour and texture from the world and I am not ok with them anymore. I want them out.

I want to see all of the vibrant shades of green that cover this country I now call home. I want to turn the pages of a real book, discover what’s inside. I want to go outside without a hat, open the blinds and the windows on a sunny day and not be in pain.

Next week, I see the cataract specialist, who will decide the fate of the quality of my remaining vision. I know he may say what all the retinal specialists before him said, but this time I am bringing hope along for the ride.

Zelda, Persephone and Maud

When I started writing my blog, it was going to be a story solely about blindness, but as the years have progressed, I have discovered that the story of my blindness is the part that weaves itself into the whole, but isn’t the only thread that gives meaning. With this realization my blog has become about a life with blindness, rather than a life of blindness. Blindness makes my life more challenging, but it isn’t all of me; it often decides my fate, but it doesn’t define me.  It leads me to places I never imagined and to the rediscovery of places I had thought forever lost.  Blindness has brought friendships and community into my life in such fulfilling and sustaining ways, and it has allowed me to work through things I believed insurmountable.  But there is one battle I just can’t seem to win, the battle of Zelda. 

If you are acquainted with my blog, then you may remember Zelda, the thorn in my eye who I tried to see as a savior, but let’s just say it was a struggle to get clarity, and continues to be a struggle.  For those of you who don’t know or remember her, Zelda is my white cane.  I wrote a whole series of posts about my early days with Zelda during my O&M lessons, if you are interested in reading a bit about her background.  

So, forward almost three years, and the truth is that Zelda has rarely seen the light of day.  It’s sad really, given that she was supposed to bring some light into my hands and help guide my way over the precarious streets in this city of questionable angels, but I just can’t make peace with her, no matter how many times I trip or fall, no matter how clear it is that I need her.  

I stashed her at the bottom of a bag, which I put in another bag, which I put at the back of a high shelf in my closet,  in an attempt to forget about her, but the bruises seem to fade much more slowly as I get older, sitting on my skin as a reminder that I am not safe. My husband will periodically mention Zelda, ask where she is and if I might try her out again.  I know he worries about me.  I tell him I don’t want to be the blind wife.  I don’t want him to feel ashamed or embarrassed.  I tell him I wish I could be less broken, feel more like a partner and less like a burden.  

I do recognize that I need Zelda, so I started to think about what it is that bothers me about her.  The reasons are many and complicated, but one tangible thing is that I find her to be way too tall.  So, I decided to try out some shorter canes.  I am just over five feet tall, and although my O&M teacher was a fan of a taller cane, I never felt comfortable with Zelda’s height.  So, enter into the picture, Persephone of medium height, and Maud who is short and round, just like me.  I don’t know if the shorter canes will help me feel more comfortable, but I do know that I have to try something.  The thing is, the virus took over just when they arrived, and now we are all at home together for the foreseeable future. When the stay at home order is lifted, I just might go outside and give them a whirl.  

Blind in the Time of the Virus

It seems like ages since I have written about blindness.  It feels so small, so insignificant compared to what the world is facing, but regardless of its weight in a moment or hour or day, blindness is always with me.  Blindness won’t be ignored or cajoled away.  It makes everything I do more challenging, and even in this time of global crisis, blindness refuses to sit quietly. 

There was an incident recently, on the stairs, that I told Joe is a perfect physical manifestation of how my mind works.  I hurt my knee and was walking up the stairs, very slowly, after helping walk the dogs for the first time in a while. I am trying to use my knee to get it back into working shape.  I was close to the top of the stairs when it started to give out, so I grabbed the railing for support.  My arm is also injured, so when I grabbed the railing, the pain shot through my shoulder and down to my wrist so intensely, I started crying and couldn’t hold on.  I was wearing a mask, which is an impediment to my already impaired vision, and breathing heavy with tears, so my sun glasses fogged up and I couldn’t see anything, and then my aging body decided that it was the perfect time for a hot flash.  And oh yeah, there is this virus thing that is killing people all over the planet, so I was trying desperately not to touch anything and get to the hand sanitizer so the virus couldn’t get in the house.  If this is the physical manifestation of how my mind works, no wonder I am nuts.  The truth is that it was painful and terrifying and I felt so incredibly helpless, but it also made me reflect on how lucky I am. 

It has been a challenging time, but regardless of whatever challenges I face, I know that I am lucky.  I am lucky to have a home to shelter in and an incredible husband to shelter with. I am lucky to be cared for and nursed through the injuries that come from being partially sighted, (and sometimes just clumsy and old). I am lucky to have neighbors who rally together during times of crisis.  I am lucky to live in California where our Governor and mayors are doing the work to protect us and stop the spread of the virus.  I am lucky to be able to read and write and feel the support of people around the world. I am lucky that people take the time to read what I write, that I have an actual book coming out into the world.   I am lucky to have family and friends and so much love in my life. So, yes, I am blind and broken, I am the chaos on the stairs, but I am also incredibly fortunate and grateful.   

Best Eye Appointment Ever

The title of this post may be a tad misleading.  The best eye appointment would either be Dr. Sarraf telling me it has all been a dream and I don’t actually have RP, or Dr. Sarraf giving me a pill that would cure the RP and completely restore my sight.  Given the fact that those two things are pretty unlikely……it was definitely the best eye appointment ever.

Once a Year

Tomorrow is my annual appointment with the retinal specialist.  I used to suffer from at least a week of anxiety and fear leading up to the appointment, but I have been through it so many times, I now start getting anxious about it just the day before.  I suppose I am lucky that I only have to go once a year, given that there is no treatment for my disease(that isn’t so lucky), but the day is always long, painful and exhausting.

An Unpopular View

I was going to work on my newest venture of writing fiction (thanks to my wonderful friend and mentor, Bryan) and send out some poetry submissions this morning, but then I entered the WP world and read a few different posts, from others in the Blind/VI community, about the  #Birdbox challenge, and I felt compelled to respond with a post of my own.

Rust + Moth

I can’t deny it.  The day I got this particular acceptance, I cried.  I had submitted to Rust + Moth so many times and when the email came in that they had accepted my poem, I was in disbelief.  I still am.  Rust + Moth, in my opinion, is publishing some of the best contemporary poetry online and in print, and to have my work sit alongside that of so many writers I admire, is an absolute honor. The Autumn issue is incredible, full of poems that have left me breathless and in tears.   If you would like to, you can read my poem, here.

Everyone Falls

Everyone falls.  Everyone daydreams and falls into states of preoccupation, falls into the arms of another person, falls to the ground.  Can you remember the last time you fell to the ground?  I know it happens, but how often?  Is it a story you tell about that one time you fell and were so fucking embarrassed?  Or maybe you cried?  Did you hurt yourself?  Were you drunk?  There is no judgement here. I have fallen and been embarrassed and cried and hurt myself, and yes, I have been falling down drunk. But, the falls that shake me the most, are the falls that can only be blamed on RP. 

Unwavering

I never wrote love poems, not about the good parts of love anyway, until I met my husband, Joe.  Perhaps I had never really been in love before him, or perhaps I didn’t know what real love was supposed to feel like and look like.  What I do know, is that my life and my heart have not been the same since I first met him, almost 10 years ago.

This month is his birthday month, my personal favorite month of the year because it is about celebrating him, so it is perfect that today my poem, “Unwavering” came out in Foxglove Journal.