I wonder how auspicious it is that my senses have been dealt major blows this year? In the past few weeks, I learned that I have a swollen macula in the left eye. For those of you who don’t know, the macula is the part of the retina that handles all the detailed sight and happens to be packed with the cells that allow you to see color. The swelling, for me, causes a distorted view of the world. There is a disjunt in colors. Colors through my left eye are darker while my right, sees colors that are brighter and closer to the colors that I expect to see. There’s some other weirdness that makes it more work, it feels, to see. As a result, I’ve had to wear my glasses more often.
I’m also without a voice. I lost it over a week ago now, although I had regained it for a few days in between. It took me a couple of days to have symptoms of anything else.
It’s been diffcult. I’m not sure, if I had to choose, what I would have back to “normal”: my vision or the ability to speak. I’m highly visual and now, I hold off using a camera, wondering if I am seeing the right colors, caught as I wonder what “truth” of vision do I rely upon. Which “eye” do I use and is the camera sensor the eye I shoud depend on. Don’t even ask the dilemma I go through now when I think about cleaning up my photos and the little adjustments that I make.
At the same time the loss of voice makes me feel so isolated. It is a quiet that seems to speak not of aloneness but loneliness and isolation, even from myself. You don’t realize the vocalizations, even while alone, you make until you become wary of the slightest sound you may make. A sigh is about the only noise I will make. A sigh.
