Day 280, December 21, 2020

Indistinct Visions

Tonight's soundtrack: Tony Williams, Herbie Hancock, Carlos Santana, Wynton Marsalis, Ron Carter at the Live Under the Sky Jazz Festival, 1981

Black chicken in the snow.

I own too many sunglasses. Even now as I write this, there is a pair on the kitchen table, one on the kitchen island, one or two pairs in my car (one in the glasses compartment and another in the glovebox). I think there may even be a pair of sunglasses in Debbie's car from this summer. But the strange thing is, I mostly don't wear sunglasses. I almost never find a pair of sunglasses that fit well. They often squeeze my temples in an uncomfortable way, and I would swear the imperfections molded into the cheap lenses eventually give me a headache. So, I will often enthusiastically join in with sunglasses shopping, and I'll usually pick out a pair that is typically some variation of Tom Cruise in Risky Business and the mirrored shades of Ponch and Jon on CHiPs. I will wear them for a day, and end up with a headache or with tired eyes, and the glasses will invariably get left on a table top, or in someone else's glovebox. I should recognize that at this point in my life, I enjoy sunlight on my face and sunglasses don't work for me. But I guess, maybe it is not just sunglasses. 

For the first time in my life I own prescription glasses. They are for reading and working at the computer. But because this my first pair, I don't think to put them on very often, and when I do, it is a sudden revelation that things are easier to see... a little crisper, maybe even a little bigger. 

Wearing glasses is a relatively new thing for me. I used to pride myself on the sharpness of my eyesight. I could always see clearly at a great distance. I could read novels in near darkness. I could see all the letters on the eye chart. I could read road signs far down the highway. I could read the fine print on cereal boxes. 

More recently I've discovered that as I grow increasingly tired, my phone becomes harder and harder to read until, at a certain point in the evening I can no longer make out the letters. Sometimes, I can't quite make out the menu of selections on the television. The other day, I was trying to learn a new song and found myself expanding the music so large that not more than two or three measures could fit on the iPad at a time.

The odd thing is that, at other times, it seems as if my eyesight is the same as it ever has been. I don't feel like it is any harder to see, except sometimes. And for those sometimes, it makes me wonder, if it is hard to see without glasses then, does that mean I've been compensating in some way for all the other times that I am not wearing glasses?

When I went to my optometrist, I asked if it was possible that something had suddenly changed, that something had happened to my vision that made it so that I couldn't read my phone at night, and made it so I could not read the Netflix menu on the television? He looked at me with a deadpan expression, asked me my age, and just shook his head. It felt like a joke, to me. How strange to have this manifestation of getting older, this sign that time has passed, this reminder that you are not the person you have always been.

The other night, when I was trying to learn a new song in the basement, after struggling to sit closer and closer to the music stand, I found a pair of reading glasses on my basement desk and was pleasantly surprised how much easier it was to see the music with them on. 

I think maybe getting older helps one with appreciating clarity better than when one could see everything perfectly. It is about recognizing that for about 80% of the time we only think we see clearly. And sometimes, because we are intentional about it, or we have the tools right at hand, or we are struggling, and then we see so clearly it is a revelation. How can it be? And yet it is. 

It is interesting to watch Herbie Hancock from 1981 while writing about visual acuity. There is something wonderful about video from television from that time, the colors smear, and distant shots are blotches of light. And yet, from the indistinct collage, we still imagine, intuit, and recognize an intimacy, a closeness. So clearly, clarity isn't everything.

However, it is pleasing to experience those moments of clarity and to be surprised by them.

Wishing for more clarity in all our lives, and the equally-beautiful indistinct visions. 

Be well,

Leo