Seeress’s New Eyes
seer·ess (sîrs) n.
A woman who acts as a prophet or clairvoyant.
The
eye doctor told me to lean my head back and not to worry, this wouldn’t
hurt. With her bare hands she
removed the clear protective contact lens that had covered my eyes for the past
eight days. “Wow, you weren’t
scared at all. Most people flinch
or blink.”
From
the age of ten, I had convinced my mom to let me try out contact lenses to
avoid the peril and prepubescent humiliation of eyeglasses. I had muscled my eyes through many
uncomfortable situations in the past so having a doctor remove a contact lens
was the least of my worries. Touching them was quite commonplace. I had had my hands on my eyes,
determined to avoid glasses since I was a young girl. We checked my vision, which became a little fuzzy after the
clear lens was removed. “That’s
normal post surgery,” she said, “A
few more weeks and it should correct itself.”
We
tested my sight and I hovered around 20/40. The best my vision had been since around the age of seven. I could see.
The
surgery and procedure had been a bit of a whirlwind. The day the Groupon came out for LASIK was the day I had
saved exactly enough in my ‘stash away for the dream procedure of seeing 20/20’
envelope. I had been saving for a
few years now, dropping $20 or $40 into an envelope every so often after
session work. The day when the
Groupon was listed was also the day I was on my last pair of contact lenses and
the day that the online contact lens distributor refused to process my order
because it had been over a year since I’d been to the optometrist. I had also been preparing for my role
as the Seeress – ‘woman who sees’ in Theatre Group Dzieci’s upcoming production
of Ragnarok. The timing of everything was becoming suspiciously
auspicious.
Generally,
slow footed on large purchases, I hemmed and hawed for an hour looking at the
Groupon. Large purchases were
always something to be contemplated, considered, discerned from every angle,
never jumped into at a moments notice.
In some ways I had been yearning for this since I was seven, but now
that it was here, I felt rushed. I
needed more time… but more time for what?
More time to not see? I
clicked ‘BUY.’ In a moment, a
feeling of elation soared through me.
Zings of pure exhilaration tingled over my skin.
My
first call was to my mother.
“Guess what?” “What?” she
played along. “I just bought
LASIK. “Oh that’s wonderful! You’ve wanted that for so long!”
No
one sympathized more than my mother around desiring new eyes. I had flown to my parents home in Tulsa
last summer just before her birthday to be with her during her cataract
operation. She was nervous. She I and I had a sort of bad vision
bond. When I was in high school,
she had gone temporarily blind in one eye from over use of contact lenses. It was right around my senior year when
we were looking at colleges. I had
to drive us up to Illinois with her in the passenger seat, something my
mother’s very controlling personality would never normally allow. My grandmother, since I can remember,
wore thick coke bottle glasses with bifocal lenses and was also plagued with
cataracts and glaucoma. Good
eyesight was not something that ran matrilineally in my family.
After
purchasing the Groupon, I scheduled my pre-screening with Diamond Vision. After all the tests were run, it turned
out my corneas were too thin for LASIK but were okay for a procedure called
PRK. From what I understood after
everything was explained to me, PRK involved scraping away cornea cells and
LASIK involved making a flap. They
both used the same laser for corrective surgery. Recovery from PRK would be longer and more uncomfortable. The earliest appointment for me was six
weeks away. I would have to be out
of contacts for two weeks prior.
“Uggghhhhh!” I bemoaned to my mom.
“That’s soooo long!” “It will be here before you know,” my mother
reassured me.
The
two weeks in eyeglasses were excruciating. I only wore glasses when I was sick or tired. Wearing them for two weeks straight, I
felt sick and tired all the time.
I had two pairs, one were the right prescription but were too big for my
face and kept sliding off. The
other, a much older prescription, didn’t account for my astigmatism. Both were exceedingly frustrating. For two weeks I felt ugly, and distant,
like there was a wall between me and others, a protective shield keeping us
apart. I squinted to read labels
in the grocery store, blurred my way through session work and had to stop my
new love for adult gymnastics classes while I subjected myself to the doctors
orders to wear stupid, ugly, clunky, awkward glasses for two weeks while my
corneas returned to their natural shape.
All
the frustration I felt as an eight to ten year old in glasses came bubbling to
the surface. For over twenty years
contacts had been a lifeline and a way not to ‘deal’ with my visual
frustration. Now I was meeting it
head on. I was quick to anger and
prone to isolation these two weeks.
The break through occurred the day before the surgery. I was singing at the Cabrini nursing
home with Theatre Group Dzieci.
Most at Cabrini are at the end of their life cycle and are all in
various stages of declining health.
Some of the sights there are hard to see; open sores on skin, the cruel
vulnerability of the deteriorating body, the elderly returning to an infant
like state. One wants to look away
in these circumstances. I took my
glasses off at one point and felt much more free and seemingly present when I
did connect with the patients than when they were on. That’s when I realized, I chose these eyes.
Growing
up as a young girl, things were not always easy. My parents fought.
There was alcoholism in the family. My mother’s temper was
volatile. My father’s spirit was
absentee. I did not want to always
see the unpleasantness of what was going on around me. I blurred my vision for protection and
to create another world that was safer and easier on the eyes so to speak. My eyesight continued to get worse
through middle school and high school and eventually leveled out in college
when I moved out of my parent’s house.
It had stabilized since then but sight wellness continued to revolve
around contact lenses. The simple
removing of my glasses at Cabrini the day before my schedule surgery brought
all of this bubbling to the surface.
It was safe in my blurry world.
Would clarity bring back what I had longed to turn a blind eye to?
I
bustled about the evening before the surgery with chores until I finally
stilled myself during a late dinner with my husband. That’s when it sunk in. Tomorrow morning I would get new eyes. A gamut of emotions flooded through me
as I struggled to take conscious bites of my supper. I phoned my mom and a close friend who talked me through
what I was feeling. The next
morning came like a lightening bolt.
I dressed, had breakfast, put a carnelian stone in my pocket for
grounding and support and went to the eye doctor.
I
was the first operation of the day.
I was ushered into a room, my vision checked a final time. I was hastily given a blue operating
cap to contain my hair and blue booties to put over my shoes. The doctor came in and spoke to me
about the procedure. I was then
taken into a clean operating room and given a choice of a teddy bear or stress
balls to hold. Stress balls... Damn, why didn’t I take the bear? I was covered with a blanket and asked
to lie back on a chair. Before I
could catch my breath, a plastic cover was put over my eye that terrifyingly
held it open. Drops were put in
and then ice cold water was poured over my eye for ten seconds while I squirmed
and writhed. Something equivalent
to an electric toothbrush came over my eye and scraped the cornea cells away
while I tried not to leap out of the operating chair. I took deep breaths and then room went dark. A white light appeared before me in a
far away tunnel and suddenly everything in my body relaxed. In the darkness, the white light came
closer as the sound of the laser clicked away. In the tunnel, my vision changed. A new eye was given to me from the other side and a realization
washed through me that this was what it was like at moments of birth and death
– the crossing. The same
horrifying process was repeated on the other eye, plastic shield, ice water,
electric tooth brush and the same mystical blackness into a tunnel of white
light followed by a feeling of euphoria crept through me as my body accepted
her second new eye.
In
less than fifteen minutes, the procedure was complete. The doctor asked me to read the clock
on the wall and for the first time in twenty-five years, I did so without the
support of contacts or glasses. I
arose from my chair and grabbed the doctor in an embrace. I slam dunked my eyeglasses into the
donation bin and embraced my husband Mark who was nervously sitting in the
waiting room.
An
orderly encouraged me to sit for a few minutes to adjust, but as soon as I was
feeling ready, to go home and sleep as the numbing drops would wear off in the
next half hour and the PRK corneal abrasion would begin to sting. The orderly gave me a kit with
sunglasses, night eye patches and eye drops. I was instructed to avoid books
and anything with a screen – computers, televisions, phones, ipads and direct
sunlight in my eyes for three days. Mark and I hailed a cab home.
The
next three days were like a sensory deprivation tank. The smallest bit of light in the same room was
excruciating. I sat in darkness,
complete with wrap around shades, blinds and curtains drawn on all the
windows. I meditated for most of
the day and night, my vision going in and out of blurriness and itchy burning feelings
pounding around my eyes. In the three days of darkness, I had many overwhelming
moments feeling into past and parallel lives where I had been blind and how
blindness opened my body to wise woman and crone energy. The feeling of seeing without seeing
was oddly familiar, comforting and empowering.
My friend Cindy came over and read Mrs. Piggle Wiggle and Harry Potter, to me as I lay with cool
towels over my eyes. She cooked a quiche.
Lisa came over with pineapple hibiscus infused vodka and toasted to a
successful surgery.
On
the fourth day, my vision slowly began to focus and the blurriness
dissipated. A world of clarity
awaited me. I rose from the
sensory deprivation chamber – light, sound, taste, smell all heightened beyond
my usual experience of them. Both
my vision and my psychic sight were palpably present.
In
researching Seeresses of the past in preparation for exploring the role Seeress
in Dzieci’s Ragnarok, I discovered that
historically, many Seeress were actually blind at some time in their life, born
that way or blinded early in life, which ushered in active gifts of psychic
sight. As a Seeress who now ‘sees’
both physically and psychically, I’m recommitting myself to taking in the
details of perception on the Earthly and psychic planes including that, which
might be unpleasant to witness.
I’m replacing my rose colored glasses with laser cut clarity.
I
call on the lineage of and ancestry of Seeresses to awaken within me. Our physical site is restored. Now the eyes of our eyes are open.
