Willa's Journal - Going blind

~~Going blind~~

Tuesday, November 26, 1996, 9:30 p.m.

She sat just like the others at the table
But on second glance, she seemed to hold her cup
a little differently as she picked it up.
She smiled once. It was almost painful.
And when they finished and it was time to stand
and slowly, as chance selected them, they left
and moved through many rooms (they talked and laughed),
I saw her. She was moving far behind
the others, absorbed, like someone who will soon
have to sing before a large assembly;
upon her eyes, which were radiant with joy,
light played as on the surface of a pool.
She folowed slowly, taking a long time,
as though there were some obstacle in the way;
and yet: as though, once it was overcome,
she would be beyond all walking, and would fly.
- Rainer Maria Rilke, "Going Blind," translation by Stephen Mitchell

As I read this poem this evening I was thinking about my mother. She's legally blind; her eyesight is, I think, about 20/200. She isn't really blind, she can read with a magnifying glass, and she can see things held close to her eyes.

When she was pregnant with me she started to lose her peripheral vision; she doesn't look straight at you, but holds her head a little to the side. I don't really notice that now, but I remember someone telling me that they noticed it. She's hungry for knowledge, she reads constantly--the newspaper from cover to cover, magazines, books--everything read with a magnifying glass held close to her face, moving it along the lines of words.

The phone is one with oversized numbers; an oven timer the size of a wall clock hangs in the kitchen. She has a talking alarm clock at the side of her bed--if she wakes in the night and wants to know what time it is, she touches it with her hand and it speaks the time.

I've never known her any other way, of course. It's second nature, when walking with her, to point out obstacles in the way or an upcoming step. She loves to work in her garden and, although I try not to think about it, I'm afraid that one day she'll surprise a snake that she can't see beneath a bush. And she loves to watch the birds with a telescope kept by the back windows.

I guess I was thinking about Mom today because her birthday is next week--she's 70, I think--but I'm going to be out of town. It always seems to work out that way, that we're in Florida on Mom's birthday and the day of Tom's Christmas concert. He asked me tonight if I'd be able to help. I'd love to be able to see the concert, but I think I need about another year off before I help at one again. That's my roadie story. I'll tell it tomorrow.

In the mail tonight was a $10.00 gift certificate good at any store at the nearby mall on Friday after Thanksgiving between 8:30 and 10:30 a.m. I'm trying to decide whether $10.00 is worth it. Normally I would say no, that I would pay someone $10.00 not to have to go to the mall, but it's hard to pass up something completely free. I'll see how I feel Friday morning. A lot will depend on whether I'm able to make myself go to the mall tomorrow night.

Bob bought me a diamond tennis bracelet a couple of years ago for my birthday. As long as I take it in to the jeweler for inspection and cleaning twice a year, it's guaranteed for life, and we can also trade up for a more expensive piece of jewelry if we ever want to. But I have to take it in before the end of November. I always do this, wait until the last minute, and then have to fight the crowds, both in the mall and at the jewelry store. Once I finally get there, it takes about five minutes, but it's the getting there that I hate.

I decided to put a link on my home page to the latest journal entry rather than updating the "What's New?" page every day. The journal index page will remain the same. I just thought that it might be a good idea to make it a little more apparent to the casual visitor that my daily journal is the main focus of this site and that it changes every day. What do you think?

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