Revision

Focus is as much a matter of concentration as of visual acuity.

Of late, no matter how I concentrate, the focus of attention seems fuzzy. Oh, I agree: positive thinking helps keep one positive and assertive. The more clearly you envision the goal, the less likely you are to be pulled aside by petty obstacles. “Life is full of obstacle illusions.”* The direction seems clear, at least. “La vie en rose,” looking at the world from a positive frame of mind, takes some practice. The things that attract the peripheral vision act as static, interfering with the preferential vision. A good friend claims, when she went to see her optimist last week, the optimist recommended the friend replace her rose coloured glasses with star-glasses from Dollarama, so she would see each person in her life as a star. Can you overlook the flawed concept and concede the advice sparkles? World-changing!

Lately, it’s been challenging to see things clearly, whether “en rose” or star-shaped. Each page in the phone book is just a blur (Well, maybe some ads in the yellow pages are legible) without my Dollarama specials (X2 in a tube). Even in full daylight and with the old reading glasses, threading a needle is mostly a matter of “miss,” even if I do manage a “hit” from time to time.

After more than the recommended allotment of years had gone by, it was time to visit the optometrist. I was hoping to put it off until the larger lenses come back into fashion. Whatever the style, perception is shaped by the frames and I’d rather not be curbed by the itty-bittys fashionable now. The truth of the matter is, it’s time for graduated lenses and the thought of always peering at the world through tiny rectangles is unbearable!

After all, “People who look through keyholes are apt to get the idea that most things are keyhole-shaped.”**Who wants to understand the world as little rectangles?

Then, also worthy of consideration, is Stevie Wonder’s conclusion, “Just because a man lacks the use of his eyes doesn’t mean he lacks vision.” So, maybe whatever a person sees with the eyes is merely incidental to the experience of life. Whether the lens is concave or convex, Polaroid or prismatic or the object in view, still or moving, incandescent or luminescent... or reflective, it is the soul behind the lens who notifies the intellect what to make of it all.

Truth to tell, my vision needs revision and there’s nothing I can do from behind the eyeballs. Holding out ‘til bifocal contact lenses are invented is out of the question. The optometrist isn’t thrilled I use cheap magnifying glasses for work and guard my huge, specifically designed glasses at home, where I won’t lose them (not for very long, anyway!) I’ll have to revise my attitude about wearing large lenses to work or develop a tolerance for teensy ones at home–revision time. *Grant Frazier **that famous author, Anonymous