This week my husband went to the eye doctor. It had only been nine years since his last checkup. Surprisingly, (to him), he needed new glasses. Also, he has tiny cataracts. I'm less than sympathetic, since I have almost all the known eye diseases and had cataract surgery in both eyes in my forties. I blame it on cheap sunglasses and living in Colorado for years. Every friend I have is also seeing through cataract blurred lenses. Unless you are driving at night and trying to read street signs, the murkiness of cataracts adds to the ambiance of our world. There is a kind of aura not seen since the sixties, and everything you view becomes a Luminist painting by Whistler. Or Monet. Nature becomes swirly and blended like a strawberry orange milkshake. Those nasty edges that bring us harsh reality are softened, and everyone looks younger and lovelier than you'd expect given their ages. My husband, for instance, is farsighted, so when he removes his glasses I am a vision of youthful beauty. No age spots, no sagging skin, my hair seductively tousled instead of in need of a major styling. At least I tell myself this is what he sees. It gives me confidence.
And what do you say when your eye doctor says it would be better if you were never in the sun again? Travel back and forth from the North to the South Pole? Live in a cave and come out at night? Light is good for the spirits, sun warms the cockles of my heart, and each year I breathe a sigh of relief when the days get longer in January. Whew! Made through the Fall again! As it is, you will recognize me in Trader Joe's as the woman with sunglasses on, though I'm inside. Those suckers are so glued to my face I forget that not everything has a greenish tinge. I wear hats whenever I'm outside, and as I am five feet tall, I look like an animated mushroom. Maybe Scarlett O'Hara could look good in a hat, but I resemble nothing remotely feminine. Maybe an extra in The Good Earth. I mean, what the heck, none of the other actors were Asian, I could have been hired. If I was even more ancient than I am. But I am old enough that in school we were required to read Pear S. Buck. Who reads her now? My grown kids have no idea who she was.
At least glasses give you an opportunity to make a statement. I had my James Joyce glasses, my granny/hippie glasses, my Buddy Holly glasses, my tortoiseshell teacher glasses. I've had red, purple, green and pink glasses. Big lenses and small. I've accumulated four pair I choose from depending on my mood - intelligent, rebel, pensive, and bug eyed. I know, bug eyed is not a mood, but the red lenses are huge, and I feel protected when I wear them. Why am I making a statement with glasses? My body is in no shape to be talking, and it's better if viewers are stuck at the eyes and travel down no further. See - I've thought this all out carefully.
My husband says he picked out new frames. He hasn't gotten them yet, and there is an undercurrent of terror in my imaginings of what he's chosen. His sense of style is no style. His current glasses, which I've been staring at for nine years, are crooked, tinted and the lenses keep falling out while he's sitting or talking. They never break. I can't tell you how many times I've prayed they'd break. But at least it will be a new him, like when he shaved his beard off and I didn't recognize him. Even a long marriage can use an occasional shake up.
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