Looking at Things in New Ways

By Thomas Kies

On Valentine’s Day, my first cataract surgery took place.  Romantic, huh?

It was my left eye and before the surgery, it had gotten so that I could barely see out of it.  My vision faded so slowly, so subtly, that I didn’t notice it until it got really bad. 

Once that surgery took place, one eye was still nearsighted, as it had been since I was five years old, and the left eye was now farsighted.  My brain was flummoxed. 

Some people say it wasn’t a new scenario.

Then, last Tuesday, my right eye underwent surgery.  Now I’m not wearing glasses, for nearly the first time in my life. 

It’s weird.

However, now I need “readers” for reading, obviously, and writing and working on my laptop.  I won’t get the prescription specs that I need until sometime next week so I’m using glasses I found in Walgreens.  A stopgap measure at best.

What’s this got to do with writing?  I’m now more keenly aware than ever how much we rely upon our eyesight for everything and what it means when it comes to writing.  Not only logistically, but creatively. 

Describing a scene, we usually start with what it looks like.  As I tell my writing class, you should incorporate all the senses—sounds you hear, scents you detect, what things feel like.  You want to bring the reader into the scene. 

As an example, here is an excerpt from my first book, Random Road:

 

I poured a healthy serving of Glenlivet for Kevin and tumbler of Absolut over ice for me. Then I suggested, “How about we go out and sit on the porch?”

We sat in chairs next to each other and breathed in the night air, thick with the sweet scent of roses that my landlady, Mrs. Soldaro, had planted all around the base of the front porch. A history of the universe twinkled down at us in the form of a sky full of stars.  Crickets and cicadas hummed and chirped, giving auditory proof that the earth was a living, breathing entity.

I took a long, hard sip of vodka, the ice tinkling against my teeth, the liquid lighting a fire in my throat and igniting a familiar heat in my stomach.  Almost immediately, the warmth and a sense of well-being stole into my consciousness.   I took a deep breath.  The world was okay.

 

So, I’m getting used to the new vision and editing and tweaking what I hope will be my next Geneva Chase novel.  I’m also marveling over how fresh and new colors look.  I'm enjoying the new experience. 

It’s a unique opportunity, seeing things for the first time through fresh eyes.  I guess that’s what we try to do for our readers. Look at things in new ways.

Long After Valentine's Day

 Donis here, writing onValentine's day, a couple of days before this entry appears, since I'll be busy for the next couple of days. It seems like I'm leaving my house more lately than I have in the past two years. I hope that signals the beginning of a return to something like normal in the world. 

Speaking of beginnings, I've enjoyed reading my blogmates' entries on finding the beginning of your novel. I relate very much. I usually write at least three beginnings for every novel, and they're hardly ever at the front of the manuscript. They're usually buried somewhere later in the story, and after I finish the MS, I have to go hunting for each one, pull it out, and in the end decide which is the very best way to begin. It's not an efficient method, but thus far it's worked out for me.

Donis and Don, 1974

...and speaking of even bigger beginnings, today, Valentine's Day, marks the anniversary of my first date with Beloved Spouse, an event that occurred long ago, in the misty past. He and I have never really celebrated Valentine's Day since it's all commercial, etc. etc., but I do think of that first date every year.

We met when we were in graduate school. We had a class together, and later ran into one another at a Christmas party where we talked for a long time. He asked me out several times and I turned him down each time. I was NOT looking for a relationship (a story for another time). 

He was persistent.

I liked him. Damn.

Finally I decided, what the hell. He invited to me go to a Feminist Film Festival with him. I thought that sounded safe enough, so I said I would go as long as we met at the theatre. Afterwards, we walked to a nearby cafe for coffee and talked about modern American literature. 

He knew more about modern American authors than I did. I had never dated anyone who knew more about literature than I did. I literally broke out in flop sweat. I knew I was doomed.

We were married exactly nine months later. I wasn't looking to get married, either, but we graduated and he got a job in Texas before I got one somewhere else. These days I might have gone with him without getting married, but this was the 1970s and neither of us wanted to offend our families. So we went to a Justice of the Peace one Friday after work and tied the knot.

My mother was thrilled. However, I didn't change my name, so that gave her something to be unhappy about instead. After we had been married about 20 years, she got used to it, more or less.

Forty-seven years later I still think about that beginning. Before that Valentine's Day I considered myself mistress of my own fate, but there are tides in our lives we are helpless to resist.