Monday's Musings OR Madness?

Where's a BIB when you need one?

Sometimes, on my Blogger Pages, I like to pick up where I left off on a given post before moving on to another topic. Perhaps this is because I've written novellas, short stories and even a play, all of which, to some extent require a continuity with a given character. "Your reader deserves to know if you got the part," Mr. C. Michael Curtis once said (in a letter) to me in response to an essay I submitted to the Atlantic Monthly. The essay discussed how an audition for a Broadway play (that I had with Dustin Hoffman) led to an understanding of a childhood trauma, and, no, dear reader, even though Mr. Curtis praised my writing, he did not publish my essay.

In any event, even though my "exchange" with Mr. Curtis was some time ago, his words, "your reader deserves to know if . . . ;" still ring in my head to this day. So while it may be "TMI" for some of you dear readers, for those of you who care to know the up-shot of my birthday, I will spend a few minutes on how it turned out since that is what I mentioned in my previous post here on Blogger, and then I'll move on to another subject.

The subject of my birthday is related to the image seen at the top of today's entry, where you see "my" visiting cardinal, atop a table in my urban garden. She has dropped a seed on her breast and is wondering why she forgot to bring a bib for her noshing! For "eating like a bird," in the case of this sweet cardinal means spilling, and this is sometimes the case for yours truly, especially when I am wearing white or a light color, and, almost always, when I am wearing something new!

The combination of wearing something new, and having it be a white or a light color is a "sure fire" way to have me spill something on myself! And so, the night before my birthday, when I was wearing an expensive, pale bluish gray top that I'd been given —  but never worn — some folks took me down by the "bank" of the Hudson River for a picnic to honor "my day."

I took the upmost care in dipping a California roll in wasabi laden soy sauce, ducked as a toast was made (over my head) with red wine, and cautiously blew out a single candle atop a fruit tart, but when I got home I discovered a stain from a blackberry fruit in a prominent "spot" on my never worn top! I tried to get it out immediately, only to make a small (but obvious) hole in the garment! Happy Birthday to Me! Like my sweet cardinal, I "shoulda" worn a bib!

The blackberry fruit's stain had not been the only "casualty" of the night; as I had a slight, very slight, accident upon leaving Riverside Park. I missed a step (it was quite dark by the time we left), and the combination of the hour and my failing eye-sight caused me to miss the small set of stairs, and I toppled down them landing on my right knee, ripping the fabric of my leggings in the process! The "wound" broke skin; drew blood, and my knee instantly swelled to the size of a melon!

Therefore, on my actual birthday after my picnic celebration, I woke up feeling quite out of sorts, and had to forgo plans in order to stay home, which I did, but not before propping up a table near the door to my garden, so I could enjoy the antics of my visiting cardinal, house finches, and mourning doves, who, as you can see by the following images of them respectively (taken over a series of days from August 24th-August 26th), are quite the entertainers!

The morning of my birthday each one of "my" visiting birds' songs were muffled by the roar (not buzz, but roar) of media helicopters that were scouring the city to cover the breaking news-story of a shooting incident that had taken place near the Empire State building earlier that morning (which I also referred to in my last post here on Blogger).

In the evening of my birthday, my dearest friend, Victor, came over and we celebrated quietly in my garden, and, as I blew out a candle, it was with thanksgiving for the gift of life, but it was also with a hope that I will find a way to spread the word about my indiegogo project , as I only have fifty-four days to raise funds for it, but mostly, I wished for a healing in a situation that has come up regarding my eyesight, which brings me to turning the page from my birthday "update," and moving to today's topic, that has to do with some disturbing news which I have received regarding my eyesight; and, so the second portion of this entry is related to the following image (that was taken by an instructor and shows one of the pairs of my eye-glasses).

The eyeglasses seen in the image above are a pair I've had for only a few months. They were chosen for me by an optician who works at my optometrist's office. I had gone for a check-up, not fully realizing that my vision has gotten worse. (As many of my readers know, I am legally blind, and it is something I don't discuss much on my blog unless to "show" how it relates to my work as a photo-artist or urban gardener. However, in one of very first posts here on TLLG's Blogger Pages, I did go into some detail about my being legally blind in order to set up a context of where I am coming from. If you'd like to refer to this early TLLG blog entry, please click here.)

For those of you who have extremely low vision, you probably understand how it is possible to not fully realize that your vision is getting worse, but for those of you who have "normal" eyesight, let me explain: 

It was discovered that I am not able to see anything close to "normal" when I was a toddler and subsequently discovered how badly I needed glasses. Because I don't sleep with my glasses on — even though I'd probably be able to somewhat see my dreams (wink) — I wake up with a very Monet-like view of my surroundings. My entire world, without glasses, is impressionistic, and even with them, only one of my eyes minimally functions, SO, whatever I am able to see, I am grateful for, however, this means I might not realize when my vision is changing, as I seem to think that whatever I can see is what my eye is capable of and would not necessarily detect a change.

Moreover, my left eye turns completely inward. I don't notice it as that is the eye which can only detect color and not much else; while my right eye, with its limited ability does all the work. However, I don't notice the left eye turning inward, but others most certainly do; and once a casting agent said to me, "Does it bother you that your eye turns inward? When I was in high-school I used to make fun of someone whose eye did what yours is doing!" And recently a  woman gave me an unsolicited "opinion" and said to me, "With your eye turning in, you look like a dog going blind!" 

It was my relating the aforementioned comments to my optometrist that caused him to say that I could have surgery on my left eye performed by my opthamologist, and that the procedure would involve no risk, since I "basically have no vision in that eye." 

All surgery is risky, I feel, and because there is no surgical procedure to remove the hurtful comments before they come out of the mouths of folks with insensitive communicating skills, I decided to just get a new pair of glasses to meet my changing visual needs. The optician that I have seen for over twelve years was not in that day and I was referred to her colleague, and she and I decided together, that in lieu of surgery, I should get a fantastic frame even if in doing so, attention might be drawn to my left eye turning inward.

But now it seems as if living with legal blindness and "looking like a dog going blind," — even if my glasses do look fantastic — may be the least of my visual worries, as I have received disturbing news from my opthamologist a few days before my birthday. It seems I have the early stages of floaters and cataract in my eyes and, because of the severe loss of vision that I already have, undergoing surgery for a "normally not risky" procedure might indeed be too risky for me. The solution for now is to monitor my condition with more regular visits to the opthamologist and so I am trying to forge ahead the best I am able.

I truly hope I am able to produce some of my garden themed movies and books (as discussed in my indiegogo project) before things get worse visually (but hopefully they won't). My expenses are high in my production work due to visual aids I must use as well as for some tech assistance I must rely on when my eyes fail me. In retrospect I "shoulda" limited the topics (twelve with a recently added one of birds in a campaign update, making it thirteen) that I planned to cover, as my funding goal would have been much less. But I didn't, and so with what appears to be a failed campaign and ailing eyesight, I need to take a lesson from "my" visiting birds, albeit based in a biblical reference and, "Look at the birds of the air; they do not sow or reap or store away in barns, and yet they are fed," as evidenced by "my" visiting cardinal's photo-op below: