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    As Far As The Eye Can See
    As Far As The Eye Can See
    As Far As The Eye Can See
    Ebook90 pages44 minutes

    As Far As The Eye Can See

    By Winslow Parker

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    About this ebook

    As blindness overtakes his world, the author grapples with the changes in his life through a series of insightful essays aimed at himself and those who remain behind in the sighted realm. He invites you to share his experience, hoping you will see your environment, your work and your loved ones as you have never seen them before.

    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherWinslow Parker
    Release dateJul 26, 2017
    ISBN9781370328017
    As Far As The Eye Can See
    Author

    Winslow Parker

    the author lives in Portland, Oregon with his wife. They are both retired, she from elementary school education and he from adult education. Prior to retirement, he taught other blind people computer and other technology skills. Their family includes a daughter, son, a son-in-law, daughter-in-law and three perfect grandchildren.

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      Book preview

      As Far As The Eye Can See - Winslow Parker

      This collection of essays was first written to a small E-Mail list called BlinkWords, in 1995/96. The catalyst for their writing was that, after nearly 20 years of dread and anxious trepidation, the Damoclean sword finally fell in April, 1995. The delicate intermediary tissue between light and brain finally failed. It was not for want of assistance. Those incredibly skilled and dedicated physicians who kept the darkness at bay have my highest esteem (see Hands"). These writings grew from the landscape of this new experience. I found many similarities between the days of light and the days of dark. I also found profound differences and learned much in the process of my reflection and writing.

      May you find, in these essays, a new value in yourself and an appreciation of your place in this universe. If that be so, my purpose is served and I am content.

      Winslow Parker

      Portland, Oregon

      2017

      Awareness

      Drifting up through sea-green layers of sleep, I reach for the brightly lit surface of consciousness far above. I leave the radiant colors and convoluted stories of my dreams behind in that half-remembered place. It is not a desperate struggle, a lung-bursting search for air, but a half-reluctant bubble, pulling me consciousnessward. Savoring the last drifting moments of sleep, elusive as strands of fog, I open my eyes to darkness. My mind struggles with the conundrum. Though I hear birdsong and traffic, it is still dark. It is not the dark of a winter's morning, with streetlight echoing from the ceiling, but the dark of blindness. It is still a shock. Loss, sadness, frustration and anger rise within me.

      Before the darkness, I rarely dreamed. A dream impressive enough to break the waking barrier was monochrome and gray-scale. It shared none of the brilliant colors of reality, of sun on green and gold and blue. But now that I live in a darkness into which photons never penetrate, my dreams are vivid and full of bright color and action. Occasionally, it is so detailed as to have a viable plot and story with scenes, characters and even plot resolution.

      It's the color that now fascinates me, fills me with awe and nostalgia. It is not the terror of imminent death, in my nightmare plane crash, that draws and holds my attention, but the brilliant evergreen hillside, washed with sunlight, clean and green as no real forest could ever be. Perhaps attempting to recreate its own enjoyment of light and color, my mind conjures these scenes and I am but the fortunate, accidental observer. Whatever the reason and its cause, I am most grateful.

      These memories of colors and scenes make me want to cry out, waking you who walk in light, who see but don't see, who ignore so many droplets of light: Absorb and cherish that most wondrous of gifts and the images of sky and sea and beloved ones and even the ordinary of your day. Each image is a gift which is far-too-easy to slight, losing it forever into the mist of unremembered things.

      Then I return to myself and wonder at what I allow to slip through my own inattentive fingers. What sounds, scents, sensations and tastes do I ignore in my own haste? And, of far greater import, what precious relationships do I sacrifice for a moment of distraction, of complacency or self- interest. Even more than lost light and color, I long for those missed fractions of moments with those I love.

      I am determined to hold tight, to grasp with a miser's greedy grasp, this greatest of gifts. For that which is held can be lost. Come, let us share a moment before it is lost and is too late.

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