It’s a new thing, the way Jon looks at flowers. I like to watch him. I know he’s seeing something I don’t.
We’ll be eating breakfast or dinner and he gets quiet. He stops eating and is gazing into one of the many bouquets of flowers that are now a regular thing on the already crowed table.
It’s a different look on his face, not the one he has when writing, or taking pictures of the animals or a landscape. It’s more inward than looking out. As if he sees something of himself inside of the flowers.
Artist and athletes talk about it as being in the” zone”. I know what it feels like, there are times I go there when I’m working.
Jon is a linear thinker. Stringing words together to make sense of his life and the world. It’s different with the flowers, more abstract. It’s about evoking emotion through colors, shapes and forms. About creating interior spaces. About looking so far in, what he finds is as vast as the universe.
Today is Jon’s 77th birthday.
We spent the morning at home with me having a zoom session with my therapist then dashing off to Glens Falls for Jon to have his cataracts checked. We were there for four hours, long enough to be able to go to our favorite Thai restaurant when it opens at 4pm.
Funny kind of birthday, but the gift is seeing.
In a couple of weeks Jon will have his first cataract surgery on one eye then three weeks later on the other. Soon he’ll be able to see his flowers through the glare of the midday sun. He might even experience the colors differently.
I can’t help but wonder what impact it will have on his photographs. Or perhaps the kind of seeing Jon is doing when he takes pictures comes from another place.
I got a gift of seeing too. In the form of insight from my therapist.
We’ve had more relaxing birthday, but the beauty of this one is that it makes it clear that it’s being together that matters more than being in a specific place. The things we did today were things we needed to do, things that will make our lives better individually and together.
I’m also finding that the more I learn about myself, the more I appreciate Jon. And the longer I share my life with Jon, the more I love him.
Immediate post cataract surgery things are annoying, having to remember lots of eyedrops and making sure you don’t lean over at all, things like that. But it’s not all that long before you are past all of that and into the recovery phase and then everything is good. As I said in a comment to Jon just now, I had my cataracts removed in each eye 11 years ago and it was a great decision. I have not had to wear glasses except to drive and that has been a great liberation for me.
I’m glad you both enjoyed his birthday today.
I’m so glad you had such success with it Melissa, Everyone I know who has had it has had really good results. it is such a common surgery they do it like an assembly line! :)