Vision

Several weeks ago when I sat down at the computer I noticed it was hard to read text. The light from the screen caused a flare in my right eye and I could not focus with it. My eye burned slightly and the eyelid felt like it was sticking to my eyeball. It felt like I was looking through mucous. I tried rubbing it and washing it in a shotglass. The symptoms subsided only slightly. This was especially troubling because I had a retina separation in that eye in 2009. I was told just before surgery that I had a 50:50 chance of losing all vision in that eye. Miraculously, the surgeon saved my eye by sucking out the gelatinous fluid, laser-stapling my retina back into place and securing a scleral buckle around my eyeball. My vision was restored to 20:20, better than since I was in grade school.

Hence, my latest problems caused special concern. After a few days I called my optometrist. A technician advised me to try eyedrops and if things didn’t improve, to make an appointment. I tried, and thought there was some mild improvement, but not much. My optometrist said I had some swelling in my cornea and she prescribed a steroid. I returned in two days and they documented mild improvement with my vision. I returned a few days later for a check up but there was a mild regression. She referred me to an opthamologist. He said my eye looked healthy, other than the swelling. The goal, then, was to reduce the swelling with another steroid, and if that fails, there are other methods like scraping the cornea to let it regrow healthy cells. But we are not there yet, thankfully.

As I get older, the insults from a moderately adventurous lifestyle have returned again and again to degrade my health. A knee injury in seventh grade football, followed by injuries from skiing, judo and jujitsu, led to several meniscus-trimming procedures and an ACL replacement which ultimately failed. Now my knee is bone-on-bone in the medial side, making my competitive dancing increasingly difficult. Similarly, I unknowingly broke my wrists — several times — leading to painful arthritis. I also have severed a biceps tendon in both my left and right arms (in separate martial arts activities), and have torn my rotator cuffs in both shoulders. All of my arm and shoulder injuries have been repaired successfully.

The deepest wound (so far), however, was the loss of my wife, Liz Cummings Browning, to frontotemporal dementia in 2014. And yet, I have carried on and recovered. In some important ways, I have improved. I have learned to remain optimistic, to do whatever I can to regain my strength and to let go of those things I once did easily but now seem impossible. It works, mostly. People say I am resilient.

My resilience is wearing thin, however. Have you felt this way?

Whenever I start into a downward spiral I know what to do. I am rejuvenated every time I walk into a ballroom or bow into a dojo. So I just keep going, having faith that my body will heal and carry me forward in its own time. I also feel this way when I have a client to photograph. Of course, I have self-doubts. But I know to use them to help me prepare. I know going in that I will fail in some ways. But I also know I will learn from those failures to become better. I know not to let perfection be the enemy of the good.

A photograph depicts a moment, frozen in time. A great photograph suggests the trajectory behind the image and invites the viewer to wander forward. If it’s an honest photo, there will be imperfections. There may be scars, or wrinkles, or deformitities. But they will reveal or highlight the beauty and strength of the image.

Just because a man lacks the use of his eyes doesn't mean he lacks vision. — Stevie Wonder