Sunday, April 10, 2011

The Sea Change

Yesterday I saw a tiny golden spark shoot from the tip of my index finger. I've been expecting another sign.

Several years ago, I opened my eyes to find a small black oval hovering near the bottom of my vision. I did my best to blink it away, but instead of moving around my eyeball like a gnatty floater, the spot expanded. In three days, I would be blind in my right eye, a rather ornate antique gray lace curtain shielding my sight.

"Can you see the light?" the doctor asked me. My good left eye was covered, and I was awash in darkness.

"No. I don't see anything."

"How about now?" I could feel his hand moving the air in front of my face.

"Is there supposed to be light?" I whispered, my heart keeping pace with the beat of my worry.

The first treatment involved the injection of gas bubbles into my eye, which sometimes forced torn retinas back into place. I'd have to keep my head lowered for the next 24 hours, and we'd know in less than two days if my sight would return.

That afternoon, another dimension opened. A wild laser show danced across my eyelid, an unexpected gift from my damaged eye. Intense colors drew intricate patterns that continued to morph, bisecting and imploding, leaving firework trailers in my line of vision. I watched through a gassy kaleidescope, thrilled at each twist of the tube.

"You should see this, you guys!" I called out to my family. My play-by-play of colors and movement was met with puzzlement, and I understood that it was for me alone.

Two days later, I had emergency surgery, which did restore my vision. Heavily sedated, but not asleep, I fell into a warm, euphoric dream vision. I swear I saw my doctor bounce my blind eyeball off of the wall, while he chatted about his daughter's soccer game. Whatever he did, it worked, and he nodded when I told him about the lights.

"Some patients do see things. I hear they are quite beautiful."

Yesterday, while I sat at Panera with my friend Karen, a tingling sensation started in my toes and moved upward through my body. We sat across from each other, our hands wrapped around ridged cardboard cups, talking about our children. When the tingles reached my head, I could no longer hear her, her mouth moving clearly in front of me, but her words arriving slowly through layers of air. I thought for a moment that I was going to slide from my chair, like a cartoon character that flattens into a single dimension.

"Karen...I don't know what's happening to me," I wanted to tell her, raising the alarm, imagining spinning red and blue ambulance lights. I couldn't get the words out. The electricity soon began to run again in my body, slowly clicking on the circuits until I felt whole again.

I could think of a lot of medical explanations, and I should probably see the doctor, as I have been advised by those who love me. But I think I know what it is.

There's been a shifting of my tectonic plates, a movement in my consciousness, a shaking of my core. The short in my system I felt yesterday signaled the switch, just as my private light show allowed me a second sight. I wasn't surprised to see the tiny golden spark shoot from my finger.

Recently, I feel like someone turned on my the faucet in my brain, ideas rushing freely from me, threatening to clog the drain. "I have so many ideas," I tell my husband. "Something's happened to me. Something's different. They are threatening to drown me."

"Write them down. Outline them," he offers helpfully.

But that's the shift that's occurred. I don't want to outline. I don't want to slice my writing time into neat wedges. The words are dripping from my pores, the water rising over my ankles. Soon I'll be able to splash in the well of words swirling around my legs. I want to live in that watery world, coming up when I'm gasping for breath, shaking the word droplets from my hair. Soon I'll be caught in the tide, and I may not be back for a while.

A writer friend of mine reported that she woke up from an afternoon nap to find that she was not herself.

"Well, who were you?" I asked.

"I was a Spanish writer."

"Wow," I said. "You must have been very disappointed when you really did wake up."

"That's just it," she said. "I wasn't asleep."

I'll have to remember to ask her if she's seen any sparks.

4 comments:

Kimberly Long Cockroft said...

It sounds as if you've had some sort of mystical experience. . .but of course, if I were your daughter, I'd say, "Mom. Please go see a doctor. Pleeaase. We'll go for coffee afterward."

I think I know what you mean about wanting to be surrounded in words, but I am scared of that place, too. I like the concrete behind the words to root me again, the feeling of a smooth rock in my hand, the weight of a child on my hip, the rush of water over my head. The words are all wrapped up in the things and vice versa.

But it might be nice to awaken and feel as though I am a Spanish writer. How that would liberate my poetry!

The description of the lights is fantastic, by the way, much like what I experience before a migraine. . .but I don't really like that. Your colors and patterns must have been much nicer.

Unknown said...

Isn't it funny that physical malfunction sometimes brings some odd beauty? Oh, yes, you are certainly right about being grounded in reality. I could never leave, but sometimes I think about Annie Dillard forgetting to eat, walking away from her home, walking like a wild woman down the beach without a sense of obligation.

Kimberly Long Cockroft said...

Ah, Annie Dillard. What a perfect blend of the concrete and the mystical. I find her writing very sacramental. . .

Amber Catherine said...

This reminded me of Maddi's piece in class today. :)