Sight and Insight

I've added velvet curtains to the set, given to me by a friend.  I'm excited to have them and wish I'd had them long ago.  But no regrets.  What fun.  This is Mingh from Vietnam.  It was fun working with someone who understood little of what I said because of language barriers.  Usually it is not the language that keeps me from being understood.  Once again, only yesterday, I have been told that conversations with me can be difficult.  As one woman/co-worker/friend put it, it is like being in a sociological experiment. But I've been getting more comments like these than I used to, and I am wondering why?  Have I changed, grown weirder of more contentious?  It occurred to me the other day while talking to a woman at work who has a Ph.D. in biology,  that there is something I have not taken into account.  We were discussing the possibilities of bringing up an argument that exposes flaws in the thoughts and actions of some of the people we work with.  She was timid about doing that and wondered what good it would do.  My head spun, but the spinning, perhaps, brought me to an understanding (maybe Dervishes have been on to something all along).

"We want to put them on the record," I said.

"Why?"

"It will be there when we need it."

"What good does that do?"

"Oh, little by little, such stupidities will accumulate, then something will present itself, some small fact that reflects upon their decisions and performance, and then--BAM!  It all comes together!"

She stared at me, saying nothing.  I realized I was putting her in a position with which she was not comfortable.  And then it came to me.  She is not used to being on the other side of the issue.  Her life has not been like mine.

"You know," I said, "I've never walked into a room feeling that the majority was was going to agree with me.  I guess that's a difference between us."

And it's true.  I walk in a minority every time.  It doesn't matter who is in the room.

Sitting in the doctor's office yesterday, I was, of course, in a very vulnerable and tender mood.  I will tell you now that my left eye "exploded" while I was sitting at a meeting on Tuesday.  I was in the middle of a story when the fireworks began.  A perfect circle of lightning, blue, silver, and gold, flashed each time I moved my eye.  Suddenly my vision was full of blood and guts.  I'd gone through this a couple years ago with my right eye, so I was able to keep from screaming out in a panic.  Indeed, I kept my appointments and headed my meetings without giving anything away, but inside I was sinking, sinking. . . . I wanted to tell someone, but what would that do?  I couldn't help myself at one point, though, and when a co-worker asked me if I was O.K., I told her what had happened.  This is someone who shares her miseries with me on an almost daily basis.  She always asserts that she cares for me and that I push people away.  And it is true, I am sure.  But when, in this vulnerable moment, I told her about my eye, I knew immediately by looking at her that it was a mistake and the germ of yesterday's post was born.  "Your eye looks O.K.," she said.  "Do you want an aspirin?"

I collapsed, of course, with the helplessness of the situation.

As much as I hate going to doctors, I knew I would have to give in.  For the rest of the night alone at home, fireworks and shadows keeping my adrenaline levels maxed out, I thought about what it would be like to be old and blind, unable to take care of myself.  I thought about the assisted living places I have seen.

In the morning, things were no better.  That afternoon, sitting in the waiting room of the retinologist, I was, as I say, tender.  It was an unusual waiting room on a top floor, smallish and circular, half the room surrounded with slanted windows that gave way to a soft, gray light.  The wall was lined with beautiful matching wooden chairs, the middle of the room filled with comfortable, overstuffed things.  And for some reason, all I could think about was the "epiphany" of a few days before.  And then, inexplicably, I was thinking about the Judd Hirsch character in the old t.v. show, "Taxi."  Alex Rieger, the cab stand sage.  I haven't seen the show since it was on in the 1970's, but I was remembering the heavy melancholy that surrounded that character who seemed somehow beyond his post in life.  What tragedy had befallen him that put him in this place, I wondered?  Why was he driving a cab?

I'm sure it is significant that I though of this there and then, but I don't know what the significance is.  And I'll cut to the chase.  It doesn't seem that I will have to have any surgeries.  There is a lining in front of the retina that is torn, not the retina itself.  The flashing lights may subside in three to four weeks.  I'll be left with the blood and guts, though, they say, my mind will get used to them.  They are wrong about this, I know, but it is the best news I was going to get that day.  Now I just wait and "see."

I am still tender this morning, and I guess a little disoriented, too.  Let this post stand as evidence,  "Exhibit A."  I am not as whole as I was two days ago, less a leading man.  I feel vulnerable and wish to cloister myself which is probably not the best idea.  I read yet another report of a study today that touching is important to a person's health.  There have been many studies over the years that consistently show the same thing.  Human contact releases oxytocin in the brain and reduces cortisol levels, too.  All good for you.  So now what?  There are massages, but they are expensive.  Animals help, studies show, but I begin to sneeze and snot every time I love on the cat.  I don't want another dog (I don't want the cat, either).  Who touches those old monks sitting atop mountains meditating in the snow?  They have a secret they are not telling.

I don't seem to be able to find an end to this, and now I must go to work to meet my new hours.  I'm just thinking that Minh would probably get as much from this as anyone.