How I Lost My Eyesight
Which is not to say I can't see
noun: vision
the faculty or state of being able to see.
2. the ability to think about or plan the future with imagination or wisdom.
My father went blind just before his 56th birthday. He loved – as in, deeply appreciated, reveled in, and considered essential to life-- books and art and beauty in all forms. Losing his sight seemed like the cruelest of infirmities – even more than AIDS, which allowed the CMV (Cytomegalovirus retinitis) to slowly strip him of viewing all which he adored.
I was 24 when I returned to Chicago to take care of my father and, for the first time in my life, I needed glasses. Well, that’s not exactly true. When I was five years old, I had glasses for three months. Then, after doing eye exercises daily, my vision was declared 20/20 and the glasses went away. At 24, the glasses, it seemed, were here to stay.
It's my distance vision that’s the problem. It’s never been awful – for thirty-four years, I have been able to function without glasses if needed. I can pass my driver’s test without assistance. But the distance is much clearer when my glasses are on.
Now it’s more than that. Even five feet away feels a bit blurry. Even typing on this screen. Looking at my cell phone, particularly long Duolingo lessons, I believe, is the culprit. Even when I wear readers.
The thing is, I’ve always believed my inability to see distance clearly has everything to do with my inability to envision the future. All that “if you can see it, you can make it happen” stuff hasn’t worked for me. I’ve tried to see. Things which I have really, really wanted and worked on envisioning as my life, in my life, turned out not to be. And this leads me to thinking that most of “vision it and it will come to be” is, actually, just making stuff up.
Have you been able to “vision” something into being?
But then again…
In 2019, when I decided to go to Italy and Greece for six weeks, I knew it was the right decision- this was absolutely something I needed to do. When this new virus struck the world and was raging hell in Northern Italy, I still knew I had to go, and to go exactly when I had planned. And this, it turns out, was life changing. My four months in primarily Sicily, at the beginning of the Covid19 pandemic, was not something I could ever have seen or envisioned.
Except that perhaps my knowing, my gut instinct, was really intuition. And intuition is a form sight.
verb: sight
manage to see or observe (someone or something); catch an initial glimpse of.
When I returned from Italy in July 2020, I said “In 5 years, I will be living there.” Of course, this was longing and wishful thinking. I couldn’t see it, had no idea how I could make it happen, or even where exactly. Still, ever positive, I’ve relied heavily on “vision it and it will come to be.” And this was easier to do, naturally, once we had purchased a house in 2022.
But the truth is that I have never imagined any of my life as it has unfolded. I have never been able to see into the distance. As I look back, I’m amazed. Everything I’ve done, all the choices I made, the chances I took, they were all rooted in a sense of knowing without seeing.
Or maybe it wasn’t knowing so much as it was hope.
We bought our house in Sicily with the hope that I will be able to live there full-time someday. Surprisingly, Italy doesn’t make that easy. Purchasing a house isn’t a guarantee. You still must qualify for a visa, which requires a lot of documentation. And getting an appointment with your “local” Italian Consulate in the U.S. is quite a challenge. At least, at the San Francisco consulate, it has seemed almost impossible. I had been clicking on the website almost daily since July with no luck. No appointments available.
And then, a few weeks ago, while we were in Sicily and I was at a coffee “bar” because we still have no Wi-Fi at our house (but hallelujah, we can sleep and shower there), I tried again. Not only was an appointment available, but it was available on my birthday in late February.
I’m hoping this is a good sign. Of course, everything means nothing but the meaning we give it. I’m choosing to “see” this appointment, on my birthday in 2025, as very auspicious.
The weird thing is, I think I can see this one thing in the future: me living in our house in Selinunte. When, for how long, or any of the other details is beyond my sight. And that is where the hope comes in.
Meanwhile, three pairs of new glasses with a new prescription are on order. I carry readers from room to room and lean in very close to my computer screen.
Maybe I haven’t lost my eyesight. Maybe it’s just changing, adjusting to new conditions. Maybe as 2025 approaches, the distance is getting closer, and with that change in time and perspective comes a bit of eye strain and blur.
Soon, very soon, I think we’ll find out.
You sure look happy there! And you’ve worked very hard for these changes. February will be here soon.
The vision thing. I think I was born with glasses and have never been without except for a couple of doomed attempts at using contacts. I decided I couldn’t be bothered. The same with those bifocals they keep trying to upsell to me. If I want to see close up, I take my glasses off. How hard is that?
I hope your Italian residency works out. What a great place to live.
My problem is I’ve been to so many great places to live, I had to take Thoreau’s approach to buying farms. Find one you like. Ponder it for as long as your interest holds, then abandon it and move one to the next one. Switzerland. Zimbabwe. Costa Rica. Canada. Bolivia. Georgia. Even South Sudan, believe it or not, but after all the pondering, Idaho is my true love. It doesn’t get better than this.