now old shadow's gone ...

where the good doggies go...

life in the slow lane

I haven't done well with my writing goals this week. November has been such an eventful month in my little life and I don't think the events are over yet.

Shadow seemed to recover from her surgery quite well a few weeks ago. She was somewhat spry the following week and was eating well, but she acts tired and weak now and hasn't eaten enough in the past week to sustain a cat, let alone a 50 pound dog.

She has often been fussy about her food, but never for this long and not when I've made the effort to roast chicken thighs which she usually loves. Even her water consumption is down though she is still coming to the water bowl and drinking.

She continues to be up for going for walks and sniffing, but she moves along very slowly. I took her as far as I thought she wanted to go today, all the way over to and across the local school yard and she trudged back okay until we got to within about 50 yards of home. She was getting a bit wobbly on her feet by that point and I was stopping often to let her catch up. Then one minute she was standing and the next she had toppled right over and was lying there half off the path and into the bushes, looking up at me with those big beautiful brown eyes, not even trying to get herself up.

So, I hefted her into my arms and carried her the rest of the way, setting her down on her feet outside the door to be sure she could still stand. She walked into the house and found a spot in the hallway to plunk herself down right away.

She doesn't seem to be suffering, just wearing out, but I'll keep a close eye on her. She's over 14, a good age for a dog her size and I think we are nearing the end of our time together.

I'll take her back to the vet and help her along if she begins to show signs of pain or distress, but I don't want to rush her. She's been slowing down to my speed for most of her life. I think I can slow down to hers for what time she has left.

flooding in

Check her out at iTunes if you want to hear a great new voice and some brilliant music and lyrics.

breaking up and making up with writing again

You've heard it before. We're an odd couple.

We've been together and not together so many times for so many years, I wondered if we could reignite the romance.

We don't always get along. One of us is often neglecting or abandoning the other. We don't always find each other very interesting. We don't always want to spend time together. We get tired of each other's company. We think we know each other too well.

We're wrong, of course. We're only getting to know one another. We've just rubbed away each other's shiny surfaces and neither of us, I suppose, knows what to do next with each other's dullness or our own.

We could marvel at how well we are beginning to fit, how little needs to be said, how we can finish each other's sentences. But we're not really communicating.

We're far from that edge where we used to meet. We don't go diving very often anymore. There is so little depth to our exchanges. When was the last time we laughed deeply or jumped into anything risky together?

Oh, we still want to be a couple -- at least, I do. I'm not tearing up the vows. I don't think we've done each other any real harm. We've broken deals. We've disappointed each other. I guess that's a betrayal of sorts, but I don't think we're beyond forgiveness. I don't think it's too late to reconcile.

We're going to have to make some changes though.

We'll need to set some time aside just for us. Maybe go on dates again. Maybe stay home together, without a book, without a movie, without the Internet. Awaken our curiosity about each other. Stop making assumptions. Begin to explore each other again. We're not who we were when we met so shy and insecure way back then. We're not the same two who came together so passionately all those years later either.

We have more rough spots now, tender spots, worn out spots and there are some places we simply aren't interested in going anymore.

If we agree to give this another try -- and I'd like that -- let's accept each other as imperfect as we are. Let's accommodate each other and support each other. Let's meet each other right here where we are.

Who knows. We might even choose to pleasure each other again.

I feel aroused just imagining that possibility.

my latest goal-setting process

So, this writing friend of mine (let's call her VC) called to congratulate me on my little poetry prize a few weeks ago and the conversation evolved into some general comments about how the writing was going, how we we were doing about getting our words out there and the general idea of writing goals.

I told her I'd decided to focus my attention on poetry. She writes poetry, too, and from there we lapsed into whether or not we might want to work on our poetry together, whether or not we might want to sit down at my writing table or elsewhere.

For several years, we wrote together almost weekly as two of a group of four, but we lost our focus and drifted away from our regular meetings a few years ago. All four of us still keep in touch and support one another's writing, but sporadically now, though I am lucky to be meeting every other week again with another one of the group (let's call her SR) and to be enjoying some middle of the night Skyping with the one who now lives in France (let's call her YY).

Anyhow, VC and I agreed to a get together and we set a date. Not long after, I got an email from her suggesting that we might want to create an agenda for our meeting to keep us on track. Good idea, I thought.

So then we had the idea of goals and an agenda on the table and the next thing I knew she was suggesting the possibility of setting up a WIKI for us to keep track of it all on line. She'd been using a WIKI for a couple of years with some other writers, she said. She could set one up for us.

Now, you may know all about WIKIs, but I hadn't a clue of how one might contribute to my writing life. But, sure, I said.

So, she set something up that looks a bit like the one below except that the one she and I share has weekly goals for each of us and meeting agendas and lots of comments back and forth from each other whenever we are notified that one of us has changed or achieved a goal. This one is just a sample I created for this blog post.

Feel free to zoom in if you think any of my particular writing goals might inspire you. That's the whole point of this post - sharing inspiration.

We're all in this together whether or not we choose to write; we're all headed somewhere we want to go. Right?

And some of us are looking for ways to urge ourselves on, to get past our resistance. Right? Right.

I have a couple of "Goals WIKIs".

I share one with VC and one with SR and we are each making great strides from what I can see. I'm hooked on this new process and have accomplished more in the past month than I have in the past year -- maybe longer.

So, it's just an idea, it's just one way to get where we're going, but I thought you might like to know about it.

You can set up your own WIKI for free at http://pbworks.com.

I'm headed back there myself right now because letting you in on my latest goal-setting process was on my list of goals this week and I'm ready to check it off.

when saying it isn't enough

"Until one is committed, there is hesitancy, the chance to draw back, always ineffectiveness. Concerning all acts of initiative (and creation), there is one elementary truth the ignorance of which kills countless ideas and splendid plans: that the moment one definitely commits oneself, the providence moves too. A whole stream of events issues from the decision, raising in one's favor all manner of unforeseen incidents, meetings and material assistance, which no man could have dreamt would have come his way. I learned a deep respect for one of Goethe's couplets:

'Whatever you can do or dream you can, begin it.
Boldness has genius, power and magic in it!'

~ W. H. Murray in The Scottish Himalaya Expedition, 1951

I didn't say I would write -- if it:
• was convenient
• wasn't too hard
• was the right time of day
• wasn't painful
• was worthy of praise
• wasn't boring
• was publishable
• wasn't getting in the way of something else I'd rather do
• was earning me money
• wasn't embarrassing
• was prize-winning
• wasn't interfering with my sleep
• was original
• wasn't silly
• was entertaining
• wasn't the worst writing I'd ever done
• was brilliant
• wasn't rejected
• was well-received
• wasn't criticized
• was paid for
• wasn't ruining my social life
• was read by anyone

I didn't say I would write -- if I:
• was in the mood
• had something worthwhile to say
• had enough time
• was caught up with my chores
• was finished my other work
• was encouraged
• had enough energy
• wasn't distracted by something else
• was comfortable
• was on a roll
• was inspired
• wasn't too tired
• was willing
• was ready

I didn't say I would write -- if.

I said I would write.

I didn't say "until death do us part", but that's what I meant and I am very much alive.

I said I would write. I said I was a writer. Now I'm saying it again. Almost exactly the way I said it 20 months ago. But I'm not just saying it this time.

Commitment is an action word; it wants doing. Easier said than done, but the doing gets done by deciding what to do, when to do it and then doing it.

There's no magic to that, but there's plenty of wisdom to be heard and read on the subject and the wise words often include "setting goals" and "buddying up" as ways of getting to and sticking to the doing.

Lucky for me, I was chatting with one of my very fine writing friends a few weeks ago and those words of wisdom bubbled up into the conversation, which led to us making a plan, which led to us buddying up to support one another more, which led to us setting some serious writing goals, which led to us getting a whole lot of writing done and out the door.

Now we're hooked on a process that I'll tell you more about later this week.

And I'm not just saying this; this is my commitment and my goal.

more than enough

sweet

One thing leading to another. When will it end? Or will it?

One of my writing goals this week was to contact Julie Gallagher who was (or is?) the editor of Releasing Times: a journal of reflections by women in our 50's and 60's. She published some of my prose and poetry in 2006 and 2007 and I wanted to offer her some feedback.

I'd been procrastinating for more than two years, since the date I learned that she'd published a poem of mine, inserting between the title and the poem -- a subtitle or synopsis pre-telling the gist of the poem. I was so annoyed, for so long, that I couldn't think of a constructive way to let her know how her decision impacted me and the quality of the poem.

Up until then, I had read a few issues of Releasing Times and couldn't put my finger on why each piece, regardless of topic or author, had left me underwhelmed. The ideas seemed worthy, the writers seemed capable of turning those ideas into interesting stories, but the stories didn't engage me.

Like most of us, I knew about not telling a punchline before a joke and not ruining a movie experience for others. The subtitles/synopsis concept had a similar spoiler effect, but there was a subtle difference that left me in greater wonder.

I was operating under the assumption that writers often work hard to create an engaging intro to a piece, something to draw readers in, a hook. It might take some crafting and we don't always get it right, but we want others to read what we write. Right? So, at the very least, we give some thought to our titles and our opening lines.

I wondered about the subtitle/synopsis theme throughout the journals, but didn't get that the spoilers were being injected by the editor -- until I found the words "Life as an unfinished collage" glaring out from between my title and my poem, leaving me to wonder why anyone would publish a poem that needed such an explanation and why anyone would bother to read on.

So, I wanted to ask Julie about that and I thought after all this time I might be able to do so without biting her head off. It seemed a dialogue worth having, not only for the satisfaction of expressing my opinion, but for the benefit of others reading or writing for Releasing Times and for the possibility of learning something new from the editor's point of view.

But alas, the website has disappeared and all my Googling has not landed me alongside anyone who sounds like the Julie Gallagher I was looking for. I'm not getting any response from the emails I had on file for her either. So, I don't know what has become of Julie and her journal though I wish her happiness and freedom from suffering.

What I do know, though, is that there is a Julie Gallagher out there writing and as I was taste-testing the Halloween candies :), I came across this sweet article for which the timing couldn't have been more perfect.

I hope I haven't given too much away.

what about me?

happy-making

side by side

well, i have lost you

If my sister, Roxana, had lived another 18 years or so, she would have celebrated her 66th birthday today. I intended to post a written tribute to her on this date, but the day got away on me.

I think she would have liked this Sinéad O'Connor piece, though, and I know she loved the Edna St. Vincent Millay Poem that follows.

Well, I have lost you; and I lost you fairly;
In my own way, and with my full consent.
Say what you will, kings in a tumbrel rarely
Went to their deaths more proud than this one went.

Some nights of apprehension and hot weeping
I will confess; but that's permitted me;
Day dried my eyes; I was not one for keeping
Rubbed in a cage a wing that would be free.

If I had loved you less or played you slyly
I might have held you for a summer more,
But at the cost of words I value highly,
And no such summer as the one before.

Should I outlive this anguish, and men do,
I shall have only good to say of you.

roots

a process of evaporation

I was up early-ish this morning to write with a friend. I baked cheese scones, made a thermos of tea. She picked up me and the picnic and drove us to a table by the South Arm of the Fraser River, one of my favourite spots.

The riverside isn't always the best place to be, though. Today, despite the bright sun and almost cloudless sky, there was a blustering breeze plucking leaves and small branches from trees and chilling us enough that we retreated back to her Toyota to enjoy the scenery through the windshield.

The writing did not come easy. The baking and sweet tea left me feeling stoned (sconed?) and drowsy. The tossing of the wind left me feeling pestered and cranky.

The river was swollen with the incoming tide, its surface silvered by the sun and rippled by the wind. The southern horizon was trimmed with puffy clouds. Only a few thick white strands of angel hair trailed through the blue above us, seemingly unmoved by the undercurrent of wind, but evaporating as we watched them.

A few heartier sorts were cycling to or from nearby Steveston. A family or two, with and without sticks and dogs, were walking. Several generous groups of pre-pubescent youth wearing white surgical gloves and carrying black-green garbage bags stooped and unlittered the paths between us and the river. Except for the gleaners, we could have counted the rest of the folks on our fingers.

On the road behind us, the traffic was steady, but not crowded. Enough cars, a couple of motorcycles and several flocks of cyclists, but a few moments of silence here and there -- if it hadn't been for the wind.

I started out writing about money, where we'd left off last week, but I couldn't settle into it not even by asking myself where money fit into the scenes we were observing today.

Drowsy and unsettled at the same time, sitting beside a river and not feeling the flow, I suspected there was something besides the wind that I was resisting. I sensed there was something I did not want to write about, something I did not want to think about. Something that might leave me in tears for the afternoon if I let it in or out of the light. Or more likely something I was already thinking about and not willing to put on the page.

There was something going on in my mind that saddened me. Something about how much of me was not there this morning. Something about how much of me is not here now.

How much of me still lies on the road behind us. How much of me I tossed out, flung recklessly into the ditch beside the road as we sped along in the dark, no one navigating, no one even at the wheel, both of us so caught up with each other in the back seat.

And the worst of accidents could have happened and didn't, but still there was injury for which I have no coverage, the worst damage resulting from how only one of us acknowledges to the other that we even travelled together. How one of us disengages at any mention of what she wanted to be kept secret then and now. Forever.

Something about how neither of us is counting on the kind of road trip we'd like to take nor to connecting so deeply again on a journey. Something about how each of us is looking back at a different trip at a different time, at a trip not shared.

How much of me still waits in that quiet little driveway beside the road wishing to be surprised as she pulls over again and leans into me. How the cloud of that evaporates right in front of my eyes.

norman and love

This is Norman, the last time I saw him, 19 years ago when he was 66.

I had my last chat with Norman on Thursday morning before I headed to work. I wanted to catch him early enough in his day and I was lucky to find him up and in good form.

For the past couple of weeks, he'd had fewer stories to tell and had been sounding more tired. Thursday morning, he was having some trouble holding the phone because his arthritic hands were sore and some trouble hearing me because he couldn't keep the earpiece over his ear, but he was as sweet, affectionate and playful as ever and made up for the shortage of stories with a medley of love songs.

I don't think I've ever been serenaded in the morning before and, even if I had been, Norman's melodious voice and memory of lyrics would have been no less impressive and appreciated. I especially loved how he inserted my name into the lyrics in all the right places.

If you've been to my blog before, you may know that I've written of Norman a couple of times and some of this will be a repeat of what I've written before. Some stories need to be retold.

Norman taught me that each time he told me a story from his past he was telling it for the first time and if I listened to it as if I was hearing it for the first time, I might hear it deeper or catch a nuance I missed from previous tellings, maybe something he was more comfortable telling, something that his telling had reminded him about. Maybe this is also true of the stories I tell, of the stories we all tell.

Norman's wit was sharp and his maritime accent was thick as his short-term memory seemed to fade. He spoke of loves and losses, shared the recordings of old conversations he had stored in his mind and took care to use the right words to express what he meant, correcting himself when a word didn't quite fit.

He didn't shy away from expressing feelings. Sadness, regret, disappointment, gratitude, anger, love. He spoke of aging and illness and arthritis and pain. He didn't speak of dying and though I invited his thoughts on death, I didn't press him.

And he played with words in a way that I loved and left us both laughing.

He remembered times I'd forgotten. When I couldn't remember having seen his niece Hannah since she was little, he reminded me that she was a bit older than that the year we took some photos in the field with his sheep and sure enough when I took a look in my albums, a whole summer of memories flooded back in.

And there were times that were beyond my remembering. Norman told me I was about 2 years old when he first met me. He and one of his brothers took a trip from their farm on the north shore of New Brunswick to Niagara Falls and stopped in at our home in Toronto. Norman remembered my father getting me ready for bed.

I must have seen Norman a few times between then and 1976 when the pictures above were taken. My family took at least a couple of trips to New Brunswick where my father still owned property, but I would have been a child then and maybe my father's friends didn't stand out to me. And Norman had six brothers who were also my father's friends.

In 1976, I think I caught Norman's eye (and left a twinkle in it, his niece would say). Lucky me! He was an old fellow from my point of view, a friend of my father and mother's, 52 years old and I was about half his age, but I was very fond of him in an unromantic way.

My father's old homestead was still standing in Jacquet River, New Brunswick back then, though it had been vandalized. Some good friends of my father's had collected up all the old treasures and stored them for safe-keeping and in June of 1976 my Mom, her boyfriend and I drove down with the intention of bringing back the antiques. We ended up staying with Norman's sister and her family for about a month while waiting for a part for my car.

I suppose that would have been the month that Norman and I got to know one another a bit. His nieces and I would visit with him on his farm and he must have come to visit us at his sister's. I liked his sense of humour, his wit, his Gaelic accent.

I was richer for the friendship I was beginning with Norman (and, "unbeknownst" to me then, my future friendship with his niece, Hannah). I'm guessing we all corresponded for a while. Norman and I continued our letters and phone chats while I moved back to the Yukon and up until 1980 when I met a man I married. Or it may have petered out a bit the previous year when my sister and Mom discouraged Norman from visiting while I was down to Ontario on business. Or, more to the honest point, when they encouraged me to discourage him.

In any case, it was another ten years until we caught up with each other in a campground beside my father's old property when I drove across the country in 1990 in a more reliable Toyota Forerunner. The visit was shorter this time and my correspondence with Norman didn't last for more than a few months. He had a real lady friend by then.

It was Hannah who looked me up on Facebook and reconnected us all again a few months ago. I had remembered that she married and moved to Halifax, but wouldn't have remembered her last name so wouldn't have thought to look her up. And that would have been my loss given how much I have enjoyed her and the reconnection with her Uncle Norman.

Hannah and I have been keeping up with each other via email and Facebook and for the past couple of days we've been writing about Norman.

He was a treasure. Probably a bit like my father would have been as an old man if he'd become one. He was my old friend Norman and that would be enough, but he was also a gift from my father. Or a gift of my father from Norman or from me to me.

A gift, no matter how I wrap or unwrap him, a gift I hold in the present moment with joy as a loving memory.

Hannah has written a beautiful tribute to him to read at his funeral tomorrow.

This is mine.

one stroke of insight

it's clouds' illusions I recall

I really don't know clouds at all.

so many ways to practice non-attachment

a change in the weather

"When a change in the weather
Makes a difference to your living
You keep one eye on the banker
And another on the sky."
~ Connie Kaldor

thanks to emmapeeldallas

playing with fire

Traces of the Molten State from Etsuko Ichikawa on Vimeo.

half empty or half full?

healthily self-indulgent

I've spent the day taking pleasure in receiving and in being nurtured.

My head had been spinning and my thoughts had been in a whirl from the past several months of surreal associations. Yes, surreal: fantastic or incongruous imagery or effects resulting from unnatural or irrational juxtapositions and combinations.

It was time to take a giant step back into my own wholeness and sanity. It was time to get back in touch with myself.

Last night I noticed a significant shift in my focus and began again to pay closer attention to where and how I can stray -- moment to moment away from the real me. Today I rediscovered ways to gently rein my attention back in. Today I listened to myself.

And none too soon! I have things to do, places to go and people to see and I need my power, energy, vision, clarity, attention, creativity and self-confidence.

It's been almost a week since I was called into the HR office and told that one of my half-time jobs will be ending on September 20th and I've been in shock at the idea of losing half my livelihood. Yesterday, though, I began to do something constructive about my future income and today I took the time to follow through.

I'm not counting on anyone else's support or assistance. I'm not putting my well-being in anyone else's hands. I'm not trusting others to consider me in decisions that impact me.

I'm taking pleasure in receiving and in being nurtured, I'm open to taking whatever true nurturing, support and recognition is offered, but I'm not banking on it coming from anywhere but within.

foster kitty

When I met him, his name was Buddy though he'd once been known as Furby.

I fostered him for a weekend after his dad could no longer take care of him and then I let him go to a good home where his name is now Licorice.

It's been a week since he purred in my ear, sucked on my neck or attacked my toes, but from all the good reports I see on Facebook, Licorice doesn't seem to have changed much at all. "A rose by any other name..."





I didn't know this little guy or his dad for very long, but they sure brought some warmth into my life -- not for how they cared about me, but for how they let me care about them.

What a gift to offer comfort and affection and have it received with such generous acceptance, not to be clung to, taken advantage of or brushed off.

old flames and friendship

Norman tells me I was about 2 years old when he first met me. He and one of his brothers took a trip from their farm on the north shore of New Brunswick to Niagara Falls and stopped in at our home in Toronto. Norman remembers my father getting me ready for bed.

I must have seen Norman a few times between then and 1976 when the picture above was taken. My family took at least a couple of trips to New Brunswick where my father still owned property, but I would have been a girl then.

In 1976, I think I caught Norman's eye. He was an old fellow from my point of view, a friend of my father and mother's, 52 years old and I was about half his age, but I was fond of him in a more limited way than he was of me, I think.

I had come home to Lachute, Quebec that summer after living a few years in the Yukon and suffering through a year of University in Edmonton, Alberta. I was all enthused about getting a degree, about majoring in psychology (hoping to understand my own troubled self, no doubt) but I didn't reach that destination. It wasn't that the courses were so hard, but I had a cracked tail bone that didn't get properly diagnosed and treated until about a year later. The pain was more than I could handle most of the time and I missed making it to a lot of classes.

By May I was ready to head home to my Mom, but my Mom was as bad off as I was. Three years a widow, she had hooked up with a man we used to call a friend of the family, Harold. Apparently, he'd made some commitment to my father to take care of my mother, but it didn't work out too well. He hooked up with my Mom, but he was in love with my sister and everyone ended up a mess. Depressed, resentful, guilty, ashamed, we were as dysfunctional a family as they come and I was headed home a drop-out to take care of my depressed and co-dependent Mom, thinking that I wasn't anything like her at all.

My father's old homestead was still standing in Jacquet River, New Brunswick back then, though it had been vandalized and some good friends of my father's had collected up all the old treasures and stored them for safe-keeping. In June of 1976 my Mom, Harold and I drove to the Maritimes in my little Corona intending to rent a truck that Harold would drive back with the antiques.

We made it to our destination, but my car died in the driveway of our friends' place which was thankfully right across the road from the Toyota dealership. The trouble with the car was covered by warranty, but we would be staying with our friends for a month awaiting the parts for repair.

That would have been the month that Norman and I got to know one another a bit. His nieces and I would visit with him on his farm and I suppose he must have come to visit us at his sister's where we were staying. I liked his sense of humour, his wit, his "sailor's accent". I wasn't otherwise attracted to him, but I suspected he was a bit sweet on me.

The rest of the trip with my Mom and Harold was a fiasco and we came home without the antiques, but I was richer for the friendship I was beginning with Norman (and, "unbeknownst" to me then, my future friendship with his niece, Hannah).

I'm guessing we all corresponded for a while. Norman and I continued our letters and phone chats while I moved back to the Yukon and up until 1980 when I met the man I married. Or it may have petered out a bit the previous year when my sister and Mom discouraged him from visiting while I was down to Ontario on business.

In any case, it was another ten years until we caught up with each other in a campground beside my father's old property when I drove across the country in 1990 in a more reliable Toyota Forerunner. The visit was shorter this time and my correspondence with Norman didn't last for more than a few months. He had a real lady friend by then.

It was Hannah who looked me up on Facebook and reconnected us all again a few months ago. I had remembered that she married and moved to Halifax, but wouldn't have remembered her last name so wouldn't have thought to look her up. And that would have been my loss given how much I am enjoying her now and the reconnection with her Uncle Norman.

I had such a good chat on the phone with Norman this morning and Hannah and I have been keeping up with each other via email and Facebook.

But, why am I writing about this tonight? Especially when I've written about some of this before? I'm asking myself.

And the answer I get back is that some things just need to be revisited and written about again and again. Good friendships are worth the investment to me.

But I've also walked away from friendships when I haven't seen the value of an investment, when I've begun not to like a person I once called a friend, when I haven't been able to detect a mutuality of interest, when my level of interest in a person has waned to the point where I have no energy left to invest, where more attention has been required of me than I have to give, where I've been the recipient of malicious nastiness and neglect or when I've been targeted with hurtful behaviour not even connected to conscious thought. I've overlooked or forgiven and acted out of compassion, too, but I've still left a few people hurting in the wake of my departure.

My good friendships and I depend upon me making good investments.

kitty bliss

that's all there is to it!

"This writing business. Pencils and what-not. Over-rated, if you ask me. Silly stuff. Nothing in it."

~ Eeyore - Winnie the Pooh

fake it til u make it

double vision

"Creativity is unusual stuff; It frightens. It deranges. It's subversive. It mistrusts what it sees, what it hears. It dares to doubt. It acts even if it errs. It infiltrates preconceived notions. It rattles established certitudes. It incessantly invents new ways, new vocabularies. It provokes and charges points of view." ~ Fabrica

It's too soon to tell the end result, given that my left pupil is still somewhat dilated and there is a shadow of double vision in my left eye when I look at this screen, but I think today was a success. The procedure was quick and smooth, not pleasant, but not painful. No call for sedation or pain relief before or after. Lots of bright light and beautiful pinks, blues and purples to distract me from the idea that my doc was hovering over my naked eyeball with cutting edge technology -- and using it.

My good friend and chaperon took me for the required post-procedure check-up about an hour later and off came the eye patch. It seemed quite magical to be walking around with my eye unprotected and with such improved vision so soon.

Now it's my job to take extra special care of my newly restored vision for a few days while my eye and brain get used to the improvements offered to me by someone else's amazingly bold creative imagination and vision.

vision

I started to write half a dozen posts in the past several weeks, but my imagination felt dampened by overexposure to sadness and confusion and I couldn't write myself out of that fog. Or maybe I didn't try hard enough. Or maybe I was letting it build up into enough force to motivate some significant changes.

Whatever the verdict, tonight I am beginning to sense a clearing ahead and after my first cataract surgery tomorrow I expect to have a better view of what lies ahead of me.

extreme sticky

in the realm of hungry ghosts

without colors

"Yogurt is blue." "Apples, especially the sour ones, are silver." "The water of the pool is white." These are the words of blind Tibetan children who have never seen color in their lives. I know the world of colors, faces, landscapes, and I know the world of blind people. People often ask me, "If you could, which of the two worlds would you choose?" It's not easy to answer. As a child, I often thought that the blind world was just a black hole. Sometimes I'd shut my eyes and I'd shiver, because I'd be thinking, "So this is how a blind person lives -- isolated, behind a wall." When I started to go blind myself, slowly but relentlessly, I couldn't connect the word 'blind' with my own situation: it wasn't dark! In fact the opposite, because I had to imagine what I couldn't see, so the world around me became even more colorful and vivid. The only way I can explain it to myself is: the sense of sight is a sense of distance. It looks, judges and evaluates. Being able to see means you will keep your distance. With the senses I have left, I have to go very close to things, to 'touch' an event, a problem or an obstacle. And often, when you get up close to an obstacle it gets smaller.
"Yogurt is blue" and "apples, especially the sour ones, are silver"... If I could choose today, I'd choose that world.
~ Sabriye Tenberken, co-founder of Braille Without Borders and co-director of the first school for the the blind in Tibet