The Writing Life (Page 3)

Following a recent cornea transplant, my left-eye vision was completely clouded. When I closed the healthy eye, vague shadows of trees, mountains, and still-green grass were all I could see. Yet each day, I saw that the fogginess dissipated a fraction.

On day three, I winked my healthy eye closed and gazed outside through my fog-covered eye. There I saw a sight I’d never seen in my life. Stepping out onto the deck, I stared directly at the blurred round sun shining through my autumn trees. Six or so feet away from me, the sun illuminated a gorgeous, moving, black and white pattern in the air. Black lines outlined the shape and within those boundaries were tiny circles, a multitude of them, in continual motion. Other shapes, some elongated and slanted, were also part of the beautiful fluid motion of the object. The sight reminded me somewhat of a paisley design in motion.

I was seeing something ordinarily invisible to my everyday eyesight, I realized. Was the dissipating cloudiness permitting me to “see” an unknown-until-then layer of the atmosphere that surrounded me? I looked away from the sun and the kaleidoscopic sight instantly disappeared.

Surely a powerful life metaphor lurked here, I sensed. I thought first about the element of fog. The fog of my first five decades of life. The protective cocoon I’d unknowingly cushioned myself within for safety. From what? I didn’t know.

Then, a dark event punctured the cocoon and truth spilled out. I began the long process of writing my life stories. The painstaking work had inched me further from that cocoon. Each slow step of writing, re-writing, editing, and re-editing had continued to dissipate that fog. Then the publication process. My story became fully removed from the dark place within me that had housed it far too long. Now my story freely, fluidly moved out in the the world’s light.

The process had helped me find my authentic self. Each step forward moved me out of fog and into bright, warm, embracing sunlight.

And, there was the metaphor. Writing the truth of my life had brought me to know the self I wasn’t able to “see” for decades. Just like my eye, now slowly emerging from surgery’s temporary fog. I realized that writing had been a surgery, too, of sorts.

Today, a week later, I look out the huge window in my writing area, into an overcast afternoon. Just a sliver of fog remains in my eye. And I’m curious: are those fluid shapes still out there now that I’m seeing clearly again? So I wink my right eye closed and look carefully at the grey day. Yes, there they are! A multitude of them! They are different though. Gone are the dramatic black outlines. The tiny clustered circles and elongated shapes blend in with the grey day and are harder to  see. Yet, diminished, I can still see them moving in all directions; without the sunshine as backdrop.

I look forward to the next sunny day and wonder: what then will I see out there? I sense I’m not yet done with this analogy. And I wonder, what do you, my reader, “see” in this story?