What else have I been missing?

So I was reading a book last night, enjoying the crisp view of the text on the page thanks to my new eye (with the aid of one of multiple pairs of new reading glasses), looked down at my arm holding the book, and saw snakeskin.

What once -- some decades ago, apparently -- had been smooth and supple, now looked wrinkled and scaly. Like the arm of somebody's very elderly grandmother. Startled and distressed, I closed the left eye with its fine new cataract-free lens, and looked at my arm through the yet-untampered-with right.

Not exactly smooth and supple, but sure enough, no snakeskin, the wrinkles smoothed by the patina of time clouding the lens whose days are numbered.

As I explore the new world that has opened to me through the miracle of cataract surgery, I'm making all sorts of discoveries. I can actually read street signs. I see distinct leaves on trees, not just green blobs, and the petals on flowers. People's faces as they approach me. It's great.

I also see how much gray really is in my hair. The sad state of my neck. The bags and dark circles under my eyes. And snakeskin covering my arms and hands. I'm getting a view of myself as others have been seeing me.

That's less great, if you come from the ignorance-is-bliss school of self-awareness. And for me, valedictorian of the oh-my-god-if-I've-missed-this-what-else-is-wrong College of Worry, troubling indeed, but maybe also a kick in the pants.

I know that just because I can't see or experience things first-hand doesn't mean they don't exist. I accept that dogs hear sound frequencies I cannot detect. I believe it's cold at the south pole even though I've never been there. Anyone who believes in a higher power takes on faith all sorts of truths for which the knowledge is second-hand and the evidence circumstantial.

But my cataract surgery has brought more than flowers and dust formation into clear focus for me. It suggests that the clouded vision that allowed me to believe my hair doesn't show all that much gray, might extend to many other aspects of my relatively comfortable, complacent little life.

Because my clearer new vision will be not be worth much if I don't bring a clearer head into the equation.

The wisdom to know the difference

In the movie One True Thing, a Meryl Streep mother character advises the Renee Zellweger daughter, "It's so much easier to choose to love the things that you have, instead of always yearning for what you're missing."

I love that line. It expresses the essence of living in the moment, a goal toward which I continue to strive.

But what if the missing things you yearn for, you really could have? If what you have has slowly, steadily, imperceptibly eroded without your knowledge - and you could get it back?

As I type this, I am getting acquainted with a new lens inserted yesterday in my left eye, replacing the cataract-ridden model I was born with. The difference is astounding. Colors are vivid. The type on the computer screen is crisp and clear; I can read for the first time the words in the pastel colors youthful web art directors seem to fancy, clueless as to the audience they're turning away. (Or maybe a not-so-clueless geezer repellent - a topic for a different day....)

Through my right eye, I see my world as it was -- hazy, gauzy, yellowish-gray. Through my left, I see an entirely different place: vibrant and alive. Dirtier, too -- walking Otis this morning I saw more gunk on the sidewalk than seemed to be there yesterday. I'm getting up the nerve to go look at my kitchen counter....

The point being, my vision slipped away to yellow-gray slowly, silently, under my personal radar. What deficiency I noticed, I accepted as a penalty of having lived this long. I didn't exactly love the vision I had, and I did indeed yearn for what I was missing, but accepted what I had with appreciation for being able to see at all. I was more or less happily in Meryl Streep's acceptable moment.

Which in fact was not acceptable.

What else have I shrugged off and chosen to accept as it is, that could be better with a little effort (or in this case, a considerable sum of cash)?

What else has slipped away, little by little, without my consciousness, that I could sharpen back up?

Where's the line between appreciating the moment, and consciously working toward improvement?

I don't have an answer. But I'm not choosing to love the gauzy view from my right eye any more. Surgery to replace that lens will be scheduled at the first possible instant.

And now, about that kitchen counter....

Take time to smell the lilacs

They're in bloom for such a brief time... it's a moment that mustn't be missed. And I haven't, every day this week taking Otis for a walk.

I don't really need to stop and smell -- their scent fills the air all around them -- but I do anyway.

Pain for gain

It was a lousy winter around these parts. There was snow and ice on the ground before Christmas, and it stayed there until President's Day. The sky was a steel gray for days on end, and for awhile there in the depths of January and February, the thermometer struggled to make it into double digits.

Not good for dog-walking to be sure. Okay for gathering 'round the fire and soup or chili suppers for awhile, but by the end of February we were scraping ice off the grill and cooking pork chops in defiance of everything Mother Nature was sending our way. Which even included 10 inches of snow on the first day of Spring.

Definitely a downer for the sociability quotient of the local citizenry. My mood ranged from glum to surly and was matched or exceeded in intensity by many.

Grrrr.

Which is why this 70-degree weekend has literally been such a breath of fresh, balmy air. Otis and I took a morning walk, blissfully free of snow boots outfitted with the Yak-Traks that kept me upright through three months of ice-walking. As the sun came up over the trees that show promise of leaves to come, and magnolias, forsythia and redbuds in full bloom, it struck me that my appreciation of this glorious day is all the more intense for the dark gloom that preceded it.

Is my enjoyment of this single weekend worth the weeks on end of unrelenting winter?

Why, yes, I do believe so.

Which is something I should keep in mind more generally. Nothing's perfect all the time, and if it was, I'd take it for granted and fail to appreciate it anyway. So, if I quit-the-bitchin' about the lows, and accept them as the yin that will make the yang all the more gratifying when the highs eventually come, I'll be a whole lot happier.

Or at least a lot more pleasant dog-walker.

With age comes...

... wisdom? knee pain? On the eve of my birthday I'm thinking about what the passage of years has meant to me and what that means to my minute place in the world.

Thus, I present the top 10 things that getting older means to me:

10 - My idea of fun is much less expensive than it once was
9 - The world still doesn't work the way I think it should. But by now I know it isn't going to. I'm over it. Mostly.
8 - Stuff that used to be important isn't any more. (In fact, it never was...)
7 - A dog is a fine solution to the empty nest syndrome.
6 - It's a lot more fun to talk with my kids as interesting, resourceful adults -- however infrequently, given their own busy lives -- than it was to help them with homework. I like this phase better.
5 - I no longer have time to waste on things I think somebody thinks I should do, but I don't want to do.
4 - It's my turn to have walked 20 miles in the snow in my bare feet.
3 - I should never have chuckled at my father reading with a magnifying glass. What goes 'round, comes 'round. Something to remember now when I'm impatient in the grocery line behind the woman in a walker.
2 - I really do have enough. Enjoy it, let the rest go.
1 - You really do catch more flies with honey than vinegar. But if you don't hang with flies you don't need either one.

Something else to feel guilty about

Several years ago we had our ancient house rewired. Some of the work entailed cutting out a piece of ceiling in the entryway for the electrician to reach the wiring to an overhead light fixture. Repairing the ceiling was not part of his work agreement, so we were left with a hole in the ceiling.

Easy enough to fix with a little bit of initiative... which we failed to muster. For more than a year. We just got used to not looking up.

The ceiling is fixed now, but it comes to mind every time I think about this blog. Sitting out here, waiting for me to have something to say, which apparently I don't. So I just don't look up. Or in this case, I don't log on.

One thing I don't need to clutter my moments is another source of guilt. So here's a moment to check in. Say hello. Think about I might have to say that's worth my time or yours.

Nothing tonight. But maybe soon.

Why is this a question?

As news coverage of the aftermath of the earthquake in Haiti continues, several of the national news organizations have sent their "medical correspondents" (like Nancy Snyderman, talking head for NBC, and Richard Besser for ABC) to report from the scene.

Upon encountering so many in need of medical care, some have put reporting duties aside to set bones, treat lacerations, deliver babies. This has caused some wringing of hands in the Fourth Estate about the ethics of reporters, medically trained or not, becoming part of the story.

The complaints center around three themes

1) Journalists are there to find facts, gather points of view and show/tell us what's happening. When they participate in what's happening, they change the events they're covering.

2) Becoming involved with subjects of the story compromises the reporter's ability to report objectively.

3) TV doctor/reporters will choose the most telegenic patients to help, diverting resources from those who may have greater need.

Here's what I think about that:

1) The mere presence of cameras changes what's happening, a fact that every public protestor and kid waving "Hi Mom!" from the crowd in front of the camera, knows full well. In a public emergency, why not just go with it and use what's happening anyway for good?

2) Objectivity in news reporting died when Walter Cronkite retired and Barbie/Ken-esque news personalities stepped in. I wish it weren't so, and if Nancy Snyderman not treating patients would bring back an expectation of objectivity, I'd be all for it. But it won't. Might as well make some sort of purse out of this ugly sow's ear. Especially if the purse might save a life.

3) This may well be true, and I agree that's neither fair nor desirable. But here are the choices. Tele-Doc on assignment stands in front of hundreds of sick people and blabbers for the camera about the horrible scene. Or she puts the microphone down and splints a beautiful wide-eyed child's broken leg. To my mind, that's one less patient for overtaxed medical personnel without a tv gig to attend to, and one more human getting help.

News organizations have way bigger ethical issues to consider. Focus on those, and in the meantime, if somebody on the news payroll has expertise to meet a need more urgent than tonight's soundbite from the scene, get on with it.