Wedjat eyes

I wanted to post yesterday, but I honestly couldn't see the words on the screen. My left eye has been twitchy for the past few months, but it did something crazy night before last. I spent yesterday in a considerable amount of distress and went through a gamut of emergency testing that left my pupils as large as moons and looking like I had wedjat eyes. They told me I would recover my sight in three hours, but six hours later my eyes were still completely messed up. ( I couldn't even see my own eyes reflected in the mirror, so Einstein took this picture for me.)

Today they hurt. A lot. And things are a little blurry. I'm wearing sunglasses in order to type this, and tonight I go back in for some other kinds of testing. There was a bit of a communication break-down, so I'm not even sure what is going on. But I think the doctor said my eye wasn't falling apart, as the symptoms indicated. But perhaps whatever testing I have tonight will tell-all. Fingers crossed.

In the several hours of non-seeing yesterday I was really surprised at how much of my daily activities are directly reliant on sight. Mothering. Cleaning. Reading. Knitting. Mending. Writing. Gardening. And homeschooling, of course.

Right now Sunburst and I have our feet dug figuratively deep into the Egyptian sand. We're talking about Isis and Osiris and Horus... and this wedjat eye, the eye of Horus. It's supposed to symbolize, not just sight, but an agent of action. And that's what eyes are! Everything I do and am is sight-dependent. And not being able to see, even for a few hours, felt completely debilitating.

And it would be. In the hours of waiting and wondering yesterday I couldn't help but entertain the awful thought of "what if." What if I was losing my sight? If I lost my inability to see, you know, how terrible is that? On the extreme end, I wouldn't be able to see the sweet faces of my children again-- or my grandchildren someday-- or my beautiful husband. And how would I continue homeschooling them? We use an arts-based education, and art is at the heart of everything we do together*. Watercolor painting, pastels, crayons, pencils, fiber, clay-- you name it, we make use of it. Not only use, but joy. How do you live without that?

I guess you learn, but I can't imagine the kind of internal damage that does. I knew an artist once who lost his eyesight to macular degeneration, and how hard just being awake must have been for him! The walls of his house were lined with his life's work-- work which he couldn't see! He kept painting, but as his condition progressed, well... you can imagine how that effected the process and outcome of his work, emotionally and physically.

I guess I'll find out tonight what the future holds in store for my eyes... meanwhile, for my sighted readers, here's a bit of our recent Egyptian artwork to tide you over. I hope these photos are in focus-- I can't tell.






*Imagine how hard it would be to teach a child the nuances of drawing with block crayons if you couldn't see? Or watercolors? Oy!