There are those days when you can’t do what you intend to do; when you can’t do the things you regularly do with the consistency you usually do them.
It is an interruption to both your will and your way.
There are too many things interfering, or clouding your intention (or your judgment). You are unable to do what you feel obligated to do.
You end up struggling through whatever you are doing. Even your expectations become unclear, and all you are looking for is clarity.
When you can’t do what you normally do, you simply do what you can.
This is one of those days.
Sadly, there have been a few too many of those days lately.
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Interruption
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no warmth no welcome
Eyes wide open
in the dark, blood rushing, pounding heart. Still I cannot see.
Can you believe, will you find relief
walking down once-familiar streets?
Before light to the darkness of the dream, or the dawn,
or the dread,
now only streetlights. I wake. I walk, I wonder.
Halogen hum overhead, the only sound, above scorched earth
or snow-covered ground.
Only one reason for being here, everything else
is gone.
Let me sleep.
Let dreams whisper. I’ve got thoughts, which must come out,
I shouldn’t need to shout. I cannot listen.
Below a moonlight serenade, the homeless search
for shelter and sustenance, while new lover’s trade
secrets
behind the door. Promises not shared before.
Not with each other.
I wander. These were once streets, bursting with kindness.
The sidewalks, now, little more than foreign, there is no welcome here.
Not in the way it was, as I left it.
Do you take
what is there, take the care, or do you wait to lay your heart
before the soul who once listened to all you know,
and found comfort. In my voice there was enough,
yet now it is torn with edges
rough.
What was still is. Or is it? There is value in a thought.
A struggle with contempt
of dreams I might have spent, but not wisely.
There is no warmth. I will go back from where I came,
my presence will remain.
© 2016 j.g. lewis
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Walk On By
What we leave behind, discard or forget, accumulates.
Each day and annually, an atmosphere we have created,
an environment that we do not pay enough attention to.
We walk on by. We will go our own way, individually
and collectively. It all adds up. We always seem to forget.
It is our nature, failing to see where this is leading or even
remembering what was there; before now, concerning
ourselves only with the present. We’ve had enough snow,
recently, to conceal the dirt and disorder covering this city.
Once gone, will we even see what we have been through?© 2023 j.g. lewis
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It Has Always Been
Our foremost thoughts emboldened by optimism, perhaps hope, if only chance could elevate from the deceit or dysthymia clouding a never-ending gap of misfortune. If only they had cared, if they had listened beyond the words they thought they wanted to hear. Experience is a moving force in its presence or absence. I have learned to say nothing. I, instead, have pages full of words describing and detailing corporate ineptitude. No decisions have been made or will be considered by a hierarchical system designed to keep people in a place separated more by class than by skill. Each level must pledge allegiance to the one before, and cater to the one above, respecting conditions imposed simply because they must. It is how it has always been done, even in days of rampant change — societal, political, or technological — the old ways of the world persist and will continue to as long as the need for power exists. And it does. It will. It is the way, as before and after. Continuity persists. We all may advance, but is it progress? Will we always question? Are we moved?© 2023 j,g, lewis
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How I See It
I wrote this five years ago.
In that time, my condition has changed but attitudes have not.
You do not see what I see. We all see everything differently.
We count on our eyes, daily, to navigate our way through this life. We count on our eyes to witness everyday events with friends and family, capture beauty, and see the dangers ahead.
Each of us interprets what we see.
This is highly personal.
You do not see as I do because I have a visual disability. You cannot even imagine how long it has taken me to say that out loud, even as I began to realize, or understand, what I am dealing with.
It is far more than pride.
By admitting I have a disability, I am confessing to a flaw. This is a hard thing to admit to anybody, let alone yourself.
It is highly personal.
When faced with diminished eyesight, at any level, you begin to think about how, and why, you use your eyes. My vision has always been important to me. My first career and educational training was in photography. I worked for many years as a photographer, then a writer, with a mid-size Canadian newspaper. What I saw became what readers of the paper read and looked at daily.
Even now, as a writer, my eyes are what allows me to place ideas, poems, and thoughts on a page. This is important to me.
My eyesight is now limited, in some way. I’m not sure if I can call it mild. At this point I still function well with most daily duties. I do not require a white cane (perhaps the greatest stereotype surrounding a visual disability), I can drive (save night vision, and my choice not to drive at night), and, for the most part, I get along well.
I have been receiving treatment, in the form of monthly injections, and have adjusted the prescription to eyeglasses I’ve worn since age five. Seeing things at a distance, or just the everyday stuff you associate with getting around, has not been substantially altered.
The difficulty I have been having is with my field of vision at close range – particularly when doing certain tasks, or multi-tasking at the computer. This, of course, begins to create problems with employment.
We all know most jobs now require an element of computer literacy and time in front of a monitor. Our lives are now, pretty much, reliant on a screen of one size or the other. We all text, we tap, to keep up, to communicate, to get our news and views, or do our shopping or banking.
I can do all of that, and with some consistency. I, however, have problems when running multiple programs on multiple platforms. This is a daily occurrence at work, and this goes past the eyestrain we all experience when you spend too much time in front of a screen (we probably all do).
My eyes do not react quickly, not as they once did, and this is not about age. This is more than a period of adjustment for me.
The greatest difficulty I encounter is that my disability is invisible.
Nobody sees how I see. Nobody sees that I have, or could have, potential problems.
Instead, I become the problem when I tell them I have a disability. I shouldn’t need to explain my impairment to the degree they are asking, and still they ask; or they ignore; or they doubt.
There is a stigma attached to the word disability. Many people believe disability means difficulty. I know this personally.
I continue to have difficulties with daily work required of me, even after months of adjustments and consultations, and appointments with medical professionals. Some of the measures have worked to a degree, yet some of the difficulties have not been about me, but rather the faulty equipment I have been working with. I question if the acuity of my vision will be further damaged by prolonged exposure.
This remains a contentious issue, obviously, because it has not been corrected. I, still, routinely experience eye strain, blurred vision and headaches like I have never encountered.
It hurts, yes.
What hurts even more is the lack of understanding, even ignorance, and attitude towards the disability I am facing.
We don’t see things the same. Some people don’t even have the foresight, or sensitivity, to look beyond stigma and stereotypes.
I’m choosing to look further ahead.
© 2018 j.g. lewis
