Every transparent body, Novalis judges, is in a higher
state and seems to possess a kind of consciousness. Like Iceland spar. Like the
faithful fauna of definitions, or the anatomy of the human eye. Cornea, iris,
pupil, lens, retina, and optic nerve. Is the iris of the eye a muscle or a
fairyland of everything in the world? I think it’s the sparkle in your eyes. I
think it’s blue. I think it’s green. I think it’s brown. I think it’s brown,
green, and gold, which is called hazel, and is a domain of vision, a dead
soldier, a stream in the woods, Arthur Rimbaud hiking to Paris. Though I don’t
know why, in this scenario, I imagine Rimbaud’s eyes as hazel. Ernest Delahaye described
Rimbaud’s eyes as pale blue irradiated with dark blue. Emily Dickinson
described her eyes as like the sherry in the glass, that the guest leaves. That
would be one mighty sip. Sadly, Dickinson suffered from a painful eye condition,
most likely diagnosed as iritis, an inflammation of the eye causing severe
light sensitivity, which left Emily with a restricted ability to read or write
that lasted for eight months, which she described as eight months of Siberia.
I find that relatable, as my ophthalmologist
discovered a macular hole in the retina of my left eye several weeks ago. I
also have cataracts in both eyes. I see almost everything through a scribbly
tangle of squiggly, transparent shapes called “floaters.” I thought these were
the cataracts but they’re not, they’re collagen fibers clumping in the eyes
vitreous humor, though I see little humor in it. Cataracts make things blurry.
The macular hole distorts things. If I close my right eye and try to focus on
someone’s face, their head shrinks and their features distort into monstrous,
disproportionate, lopsided expressions, somewhat similar to Francis Bacon’s portraits.
It’s kind of fun to do that. Of course, the person you’re talking to doesn’t
know you’re doing that. It’s a domain of private fun. Like daydreaming when
you’re supposed to be paying attention to something, a lecture or a poetry
reading. I always considered myself fortunate to find a job that afforded me
vast, endless opportunities for daydreaming. This is monotony’s gentler, more
amiable side. So, if you ever see me in conversation tilting my head to the
side and closing my right eye firmly shut consider your head shrunk.
I went to see a retina specialist this morning - a
young Asian woman I’ll call Dr. Yanjing. Before her visit, I went through
several eye exams—similar to ones I had done before—identifying letters and
focusing on a tiny blue dot. After each test, I returned to the waiting room
where R immersed herself in a recent issue of Harper’s and a man sitting to my
left watched videos on his smartphone with the sound barely audible. I brought Du
monde entier, Poésies completes, by Blaise Cendrars, which made me feel
adventurous and carefree. The waiting room grew increasingly crowded as several
new patients arrived, two elderly Asian woman whose clothing was soaked with
rain. When the time came for my meeting with Dr. Yanjing, R accompanied me. We
sat in an exam room with complex eye examination machines. I thought the rather
sterile décor of the room could use an uplift, and that this might be easily
accomplished if one of the drab, off-white walls were painted with eyes,
wall-to-wall eyes, blue eyes, brown eyes, black eyes, pink eyes, eyes upon eyes
upon eyes. Eyes like jewels outshining the fire opals of Querétaro, Mexico, or
the black opals of Lightning Ridge, Australia. Eyes with the soul-piercing intensity
of Van Gogh’s uncanny blue eyes. The electrifying eyes of Gustave Courbet’s The
Desperate Man. The music of ambiguity in Mona Lisa’s gently smiling eyes.
Dr. Yanjing arrived with two young women in tow, students,
presumably. She got down to business right away, and delivered some good news:
I might be able to cure the macular hole with eye drops and avoid surgery
altogether. The eye drops – ketorolac and prednisolone – would have to be
applied four times a day. Ok, I said, sounds like a wonderful solution. Let’s
do it!
If, on the other hand, I return four weeks later with
no improvement, then surgery becomes my next option. The surgery itself does
not pose a big threat. It takes roughly 15 minutes, and is performed with the
aid of very pleasant sedation allaying all fear and anxiety. The horror comes
after, in the week following surgery. A temporary gas bubble is injected into
the retinal membrane to serve as an internal bandage, pressing against the
macula to encourage the hole to close. I would need to maintain a
"face-down" position for a week to keep the gas bubble in the correct
position. This would entail, more precisely, a week hunched over in a chair, my
head resting on a face cradle while staring at the floor. Sounds like some
bizarre feat of extreme asceticism that an aspiring holy man or woman must
undergo before entering into a life of sacrifice and divinity.
It’s been eleven days since I started using eye drops
with the intention of closing the macular hole in my left eye. So far, there
has been no change. If I close my right eye and focus on the text I have just
written with my left eye, I cannot distinguish a single word. All I can see is
a blur with very distorted letters. I feel very discouraged.
The two types of eyedrops I’d been prescribed -
prednisolone and ketorolac – come in squeezable plastic bottles like most
eyedrops. The prednisolone - a topical corticosteroid - works by reducing any inflammation-induced
edema around the hole and by dehydrating the retinal tissue, allows the edges
of the macular hole to move closer together. The ketorolac - a nonsteroidal
anti-inflammatory drug - helps heal macular holes by reducing retinal
inflammation and edema, and by decreasing fluid accumulation around the macula
allows the edges of the hole to flatten and move closer together. I take both
four times a day. I tilt my head back, pull down on my lower eyelid, let a drop
of prednisolone fall, wipe any excess dripping down my cheek with a napkin,
apply pressure on my tear duct with my index finger and lean forward and tilt
my head down for two minutes. I wait ten minutes, then apply the ketorolac in
the same manner. The reason for applying pressure on the tear duct is to keep the
medicine from tricking into my bloodstream. My biggest problem is in
remembering to do it.
Tonight, as I kept my head down and my eyelid firmly
closed, the light from a nearby lamp penetrated my eyelid and I could see what appeared
to be a red, velvety fabric. This gave the interior of my head – the realm we
call consciousness – the illusion of being infinitely huge. When I opened my
eye again, I felt confused and disoriented. I got so immersed in that other
world, the one behind my eyes, that I felt somewhat divided from the external
world. This, of course, is an illusion. Consciousness is a diffuse phenomenon
that in no way implements a palpable division between inner and outer. My
neurons – which are the specialized cells of an evolutionary process that
occurred in the physical dimension of the external world - are neuronally
connected to the roots and rocks surrounding my architecture of bone and skin. Nevertheless,
the illusion of fabric and tissue is quite compelling. It’s not always a
fabric, sometimes it’s a textured wall, sometimes a pebbled floor. Sometimes
there are edges and holes, rooms to explore, sophisticated cushions, translucent
problems, karate prophets, polka dot operas.
I saw the ophthalmologist, Doctor Yanjing, yesterday.
There has been no change to the macular hole. I suspected this to be the case
when - day after day - I applied the eye drops four times per twenty-four
hours. I kept testing my left eye on anything with words on it – Marcel Duchamp
Nude Descending a Staircase, Tums assorted berries, sparkling flavored
water, pocket dictionary, Shakespeare, The Bard’s Guide to Abuses and
Affronts, Deak Harp “That’s Alright,” the trending searches on Google, Ted
Rall GoComics, magic vs pistons, Hulk Hogan, the Lyrids meteor showers, song
titles and lyrics on YouTube, she said so, she’s in love with me and I feel
fine, Michael Jackson’s “This Is It,” Burger King Star Wars menu, organic
molecules on Mars. Sometimes I could make out a letter or two, but most of it
was far too blurry to read. Rituals like applying eyedrops four times a day do
develop a certain charm after a while, a rhythm, a story, a structure, but when
the underlying purpose of doing it expires, it feels desperate, an act of theatricality
rather than a meaningful practice with a tangible goal. Having a surgical
procedure in my future has the cachet of science, which – despite my lifetime contrariness
against the rigidities of measurement and logic – inspires more confidence.
The face cradle with a massage pillow arrived today. I
had to order it from Amazon. There are no stores in - or near - Seattle that
carry medical supplies. All I could find on the internet were companies that offered
rental plans, everything ordered by email or phone and delivered by truck. None
of them offered a brick and mortar store we could visit. I found this deeply
frustrating. I need to try something out before I pay for it. This is
especially critical when it comes to medical equipment. Fortunately, after we
struggled to figure out how to maneuver the contraption, my face fit
comfortably within the welcoming confines of the massage pillow. R did much better
at figuring things out than I did. Were it not for her, I’d still be on the
couch, lifting it, exploring it, testing it, careful not to use too much force
and break it. The instructions were abysmal, tiny, illegible fonts and
grammatically curious sentences. The diagrams, too, were confusing and useless.
R found a video for the product and a chipper young man happy with his gadget
who demonstrated how things worked. It was also R’s idea to put the bottom
framework under a cushion on the couch so that I could comfortably lean forward
and let my head rest on the pillow, gazing down at the table and imagining how
it might be to lose myself in a book for 45 minutes a session, with a 10-minute
break. I did have to remove my reading glasses. R let me try one of her glasses
which was quite smaller, but fit my head ok, and nestled comfortably within the
hollow of the pillow where my face rested, cradled in a feeling of hammock-like
coziness. She tells me we can find a pair of cheap reading glasses the same
size. Hurray.
I was wheeled into the operating room on a warm, sunny
morning on May 28, 2026. The operating room was—by contrast—white, bright, and chilly.
A cool room prevents the surgical team from getting too hot or sweaty, which can
compromise sterility. I felt quite calm, almost jovial. There were four people
in all: the vitreoretinal surgeon (Dr. Yanjing), an anesthesiologist, a
circulating nurse, and a surgical technologist. Everyone seemed to be in a very
good mood, which put me at ease. There’d been a delay due to an unanticipated
development with the patient ahead of me. The anesthesiologist – a man in his
late 40s who shared the same birth date as me – was alert, curious, and genial:
he asked if I was retired. I said yes, and I loved it, I found myself busier
than I’d been when I was working – but it was difficult framing the sense in
which I was retired since I was a writer, and writers never retire. Nor do they
make enough money to maintain a sustainable income; unless a writer gets
extremely lucky à la J.K. Rowling or Dan Brown or Stephen King, a freelance
writer typically must find other ways to make money which, in my case,
generally meant menial work in a warehouse or office. That’s what I was retired
from: soul-sucking, brain-numbing, demeaning menial jobs. Now I could devote my
time to writing, as I’d been longing to do for all the years I had to drive a
mail van or install overhead lights or paint or garden or mop or deliver
hospital supplies. He nodded in sympathetic agreement, and explained that he
would be giving me propofol (I’m a fan) and valium (also a fan). I’d been given
propofol for all my colonoscopies, and knew what to expect: I was gone in half
a second. When I came to, I could feel people fiddling around in my eye socket
but no pain whatever. The operation seemed to be over in less than ten minutes.
I was rolled back into the pre-op holding area where I was permitted to put my
shoes and cardigan back on.
R came to join me and a nurse appeared who went down
the list of everything I wouldn’t be able to do: I wouldn’t be able to lift
anything over ten pounds or sleep on my back or bend over with my head below my
heart; I would have to spend the entire day with my head bowed, for which a
face cradle is recommended (mine was already set up at home); nor would I be
able to run. She recommended I take a 10-minute break for each 45 minutes I
kept my head bowed. I could use the time to walk around and stretch or eat a
meal. If breakfast or dinner were to exceed the ten minutes, she demonstrated
how I could eat my keeping my head bowed and lifting spoonfuls and forked
morsels of food to my mouth. When showering, I would need to keep water out of
my eye and at night I would have to wear an eye shield consisting of a framed
aluminum cup constellated with little holes.
I was also presented with another round of eyedrops: ofloxacin
– an antibiotic – and prednisolone for ophthalmic suspension. Day one through
day seven I would need to apply it four times for the first week, just the
prednisolone three times for week two, two times for week three, and once for
week four.
The vitreous humor in my left eye had been removed and
replaced with a gas bubble. All I could see was a blur. The purpose of the
bubble is to apply steady pressure to the retina and hold it in place and block
fluid from seeping behind the retinal membrane while the tissue heals. I found
it curiously entertaining when, preparing for bed, R helped put the
basket-shaped, post-operative eye shield in place, securing it with strips of
tape; sometimes the holes looked like a constellation of portholes in a spaceship
which was also partially filled with water, and sometimes like a shower of
meteors, or twinkly Christmas lights. It was trippy, and I liked it. There were
several instances in which I could see what looked like spidery creatures on
the other side of the portholes. Perhaps they were cataracts or blood veins, I
don’t know, but I found them entrancing.
The seven days I lay crosswise on the bed with my head
nestled in the face cradle were quite difficult. My back began to hurt almost
immediately; I made a hillock of pillows to lie on which helped take some
pressure off my back, and angled my head more comfortably in the cradle. I
wasn’t able to use my noise-canceling Bose earphones since they didn’t fit
comfortably with the cradle. This left me vulnerable to external noises, such
as the rhythmic thud of an upstairs neighbor walking heavily on a hardwood
floor or a neighbor’s dog barking or children squealing loudly in the park next
door. I have a nasty affliction called tinnitus, a continuous ringing in the
ears which is actually a phantom sound whose origin is in the brain rather than
the auditory system, and which is often accompanied by a condition called
hyperacusis, which is an acute sensitivity to sound. I do not do well with
noise.
I used a Gymboss interval timer I sometimes use for structuring
a run between running and walking - X minutes for running and X minutes for
walking - to time my 45 minutes on and my ten minutes off in bowed head
positioning, a practice which is sometimes called posturing, but frequently
forgot to set it, or fell asleep and didn’t hear it go off. Such a structured
approach turned out to be too rigid to be observed with anything like true
accuracy. Sometimes I used the length of time I’d been listening to an
audiobook or YouTube video to approximate my time spent prone on the bed. I was
also stunned to find how quickly 15 minutes go by. It felt that as soon as I
sat down on the couch to relax and have a brief conversation with R it was
already vibrating and beeping frantically on the table, urging me back to my
face cradle jail.
I’d hoped to be able to watch some movies, but my
right eye fatigued quickly. It was easiest to listen to audiobooks I was able
to check out from our local library. I listened to Michael York read Brave
New World with such clear diction and expressivity that the stark events
and ideologies of Aldous Huxley’s dystopia were more easily digested. I hadn’t
read that novel since age 15, in 1963, and I was as confused by some of the concepts
as I had been at 15; for example, the people of the World State are described
as being divorced from nature and biologically engineered to perform various
functions; that I got. That the people are also encouraged to enjoy promiscuous
sex seemed to contradict that. Back in my day, we called it free love, and
despite its many defects and liabilities, such as gonorrhea and crabs to name several,
I felt pretty close to nature whenever I got lucky. I know that Huxley was
illustrating the damage promiscuity does to intimacy and love, but still: human
sexuality is a very broad and complex arena and however mechanically porn movies
represent it, the pleasures sex provides can be quite intense, and it will most
definitely enhance one’s sense of animality and natural being.
Why sex ever became ‘dirty’ is a mystery. In ancient
Greece they gave the name of erotic beauty to the goddess Aphrodite, who was
also aligned with qualities of intense desire, deep passion, emotional complexity
and the joyful indulgence of sensual pleasure. And originating in southwestern
Nigeria in the Yoruba religion, the female deity Oshun is the divine patroness
of fresh waters, love, beauty, creativity and music, pleasure and abundance. She
is depicted as a charming, sensual young woman fond of honey and sunflowers,
cinnamon and oranges and fried bean cakes, yams and sweet wines and vibrant marigolds,
peacocks and quail and honeybees, music and singing and lithe, supple dances that
evoked the serpentine movement of rivers. Huxley’s ideas of sex seem to be at
odds with life’s more sybaritic pleasures, which are all intrinsically linked
to nature.
My other confusion had to do with soma. I easily
understand the dangers of such a calming and soporific drug and its huge propensity
for addiction. The zombie-like passivity of the World State population seemed
very similar to our own population of people damaged by social media and pixels
and screens and electronic devices, clickbait videos and brain rot due to
endless scrolling, not to mention easy access to drugs like fentanyl, which
help ease the trauma of becoming homeless and a society whose complete loss of
humanitarian values is as devastating as it is shocking, but the idea of
pleasure being employed to enslave people seemed far less offensive than the protagonist
John Savage – the one truly authentic human being in this Brave New World of
propagandized fools - flailing his back to
the point of bleeding with a whip of twisted horsehair as a form of ascetic,
spiritual penance and self-punishment. Later in the narrative his lashings
become even more vigorous and severe as a means to purge his body of not just the
contaminating soullessness and shallowness of civilization but more importantly
his lingering desires for Lenina, a woman he loved and passionately desired but
could not abide the openness of her sexuality. That just seemed sick to me. I
mean, there are healthier ways to cope with inner conflicts like that. Running
a marathon, for example, or rock climbing, for which the Japanese have a term: misogi.
The current meaning of misogi – which originally referred to the
practice of washing in cold water, often by standing under a freezing
waterfall, has been expanded to include any challenging, personal test of
resilience, and is said to be purifying.
There is also the challenging ritual of lying
crosswise on a bed for a week with one’s face in a doughnut-shaped cushion
listening to audiobooks and watching an endless array of YouTube videos. I
don’t know how purifying it is, but it’s spartan as hell and austere as a
monk’s cheerless cell.
The various cerebral knots and entertainments were
what kept my mind alive during its week-long hibernation in a face cradle. When
it ended, when I could get up in the morning and could walk about freely and
could once again sit at my desk and practice French and read and sip coffee, I
felt as if I’d risen from the dead. I also had an appointment with Dr. Yanjing:
she showed me the tomography scan of my retina. The macular hole was gone. It
would take about another four weeks for the gas bubble to totally dissipate and
the few imperfections left to heal. On the way back to the elevator, I felt 50
pounds lighter. Reborn. Renewed. Regenerated.
I had, however, lost my superpower: I could no longer
shrink heads or distort faces so grotesquely they resembled those grisly
portraits by English painter Francis Bacon. Faces kept their just proportions,
and although letters were still a bit distorted, I could see them becoming
legible. I was returning to the world of clarity and light and legibility. Faces
looked as they normally do: happy, forlorn, angry, perplexed, startled, pensive,
speculative, scornful, wistful, joking, impertinent, apathetic, sympathetic, dreamily
romantic, sexy, sultry, and openly, quintessentially, alluringly enigmatic. Translating
life’s sometimes illegible spectacles requires more than a network of optical
nerves. There is also the health of a third eye to consider, to purify and
protect from the corrupting glitter of avarice, and the blinding disease of
greed.
