Wednesday, June 12, 2013

Seeing Through Different Eyes -- Gratitude






Literally, I'm not far from this saying , as I continue to adjust to seeing the world with a different "eye."  I have chosen distance vision and because of that, I now have one eye that sees with 20/20 vision, but everything is fuzzy up close.  My "old" eye -- the one still containing a cataract -- cannot see distance, but can see up close. Because of this, everytime I pick up my phone for any reason, I have to close my "new" eye so I can see.

It's a minor annoyance.

What has stunned me the most is how bad my eyesight had become.  I expected to see things more clearly, but I had not realized how the cataract created a yellow glaze over everything.  I am reminded of the old Tide commercials with the sock comparison. Right now my left eye is the sock washed in Tide with bleach, while my right eye is one washed in that "other" detergent.

Given this situation, I find it difficult to spend too much time on the computer, even when wearing my old glasses with one of the lenses popped out.  I also am finding it difficult to read.  If ever there was a time to get those projects done around the house, it is now.

In response to the quote above,  I'm going to make a random, spontaneous list of the poets, writers, painters, songwriters, etc. whom have assisted me in seeing the world through new eyes. I encourage everyone to do the same. Share your list with me...I'd love to see it!

 I am grateful to....Vincent Van Gogh, Henry David Thoreau, Natalie Goldberg, Kathleen Norris, Anne Lamott, Stephen Hanks, Georgia O'Keefe, Paul Simon, Madeleine L'Engle, Justin Isaaksen, Julia Cameron, Clarissa Pinkola Estes, Mary Oliver, James Wright, Rumi, Sylvia Plath, Walt Whitman, Allen Ginsberg, Naomi Shihab Nye, W. B. Yeats, John Nieto, Minnie Vigil, A.A. Milne, Jackson Browne, Joni Mitchell, James Taylor, Daryl Hall, Todd Rundgren, Taylor Goldsmith, Tim O'Brien, Mark Twain, Bernie Glassman, Thich Nhat Hanh, Bill Watterson, Maya Lin, Mary Chapin Carpenter, Sara McLachlan, Carole King, Paul Winter, Will Ryan, Tina Fey, Jackson Pollack, Pema Chodron, Cheryl Strayed, Steve Almond, S. E. Hinton, Jeannette Walls, Herman Melville, Annie Dillard, Alice Walker, Jean Shinoda Bolen, Albert Camus, Jean Paul Sartre, Hermann Hesse, Michael Meade, Kevin Powers, Ruth Ozeki, Marianne Williamson, Gram Parsons...


2 comments:

  1. Tide washes in, dirt washes out. I love your analogy! You crack me up!

    I am grateful for...Mom, Virginia Woolf, Thylias Moss, Gjertrude Schnackenburg, Madeleine L'Engle, Toni Morrison, Nathaniel Hawthorn, Walt Whitman, Samuel Taylor Coleridge, Mary Wollstonecraft, Zora Neale Hurston, Edgar Allen Poe, William Wordsworth, A. Van Jordan, Alice Hoffman, Judy Blume, Stephen King, Vincent Van Gogh, Edvard Munch, Claude Monet, Jean Renoir, George Seurat, John Irving, Kurt Vonnegut, Thomas Paine, Herman Melville, Tool, Pearl Jam, The Indigo Girls, Billy Joel, Will Ferrell, Mark Twain, Charles Dickens, Gregory Maguire, Dave Chappelle, Alice Walker, Oprah Winfrey, Whoopi Goldberg, Bill Cosby, Tupac Shakur, System of a Down, Melissa Etheridge, Bruce Springsteen, Jay-Z, Pink, Kevin Smith, John Hughes...

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  2. How in the world could I have forgotten Kurt Vonnegut on my list? And Billy Joel!

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