DOCTOR, MY EYES....

 Dear Harry,

You may be wondering why I have been so negligent of my usually more regular writing habits. The truth is that I have been experiencing some dark days. You'll understand what I mean by that because I think you experienced something of the same. We did not see much of each other in your latter days--very little, indeed, since I came to live in America some forty years before you died. But my sister Flora told me of those dark days, and I have no reason to doubt her word.

For me, it's a physical as well as an emotional sensation. It's distressing to feel so complete an absence of energy in the body. Yesterday I went back to sleep soon after waking up and slept for another hour. Then, right after breakfast, I dropped off to sleep again on the couch in front of the television news. And so it went all day. When I wasn't actually asleep, I felt like nothing but going off to sleep again. I went out for a walk in the park with Ellie and Jake and felt like I was dragging my body around with me. After a mere half mile, I'd had enough. 

I tried putting my meditation skills to work but all I could come up with was the observation of a body so heavy, so inert, that the mind could do nothing but wish to leave it behind. It felt already like a useless old carcass that imprisoned me. The mind felt trapped, the spirit weighted down. 

Is this something akin to what you experienced, Harry, in your dark days? I wonder how you handled it. You were taught to pray. That was your métier. I wonder, was it helpful? Did the good Lord reach down to uplift your soul? I don't mean to sound facetious about this, because I know you suffered. As you know by now, I don't particularly believe in the power of prayer, addressed to some omnipotent being. I do, however believe in the power of the mind to achieve a kind of distance from suffering, a dissociation that allows me, when I'm able to find the focus, to simply watch it happening rather than attach to it as "me" or "mine".

As far as that "me" is concerned, I'm sure the feeling can be attributed in part to the recent surgeries on both my eyes, the left a week later than the right. It has been a difficult recovery--more difficult than I expected. Each day my eyes see better, and by now my actual vision is immeasurably improved since before the surgery. For this I'm deeply appreciative. What's difficult is the physical discomfort of the eyes themselves. They ache, they sting, they scratch, they tear up after only a few minutes with a book or on the computer. To bring about some relief, I have to close and rest them for a while.

Is all this normal? I don't know. I don't hear similar complaints from other people who have had cataract surgery. True, mine was complicated by a second minor procedure in each eye, but still... I keep wondering if my eyes are unusually sensitive? Or is it that I am less than usually tolerant of discomfort? Am I just a chronic complainer? Perhaps.

In any event, I was truly grateful to wake up this morning with the realization that the gloom had lifted significantly from the day before! And here I am, typing out this letter with only the occasional time out to rest the eyes! I have an appointment with my eye doctor tomorrow and will have the opportunity to discuss all this with her. Meantime, I'll stick with gratitude and the good intention to allow my eyes the time they need to heal.

With love, Peter