The Eye Exam

Sharon? Dr.Rhule will see you now...
I enter the small room with the leather covered tall back chair.  My eyes are dilated and the lights are turned to dim. This is my first exam with my new doctor. She will be looking for signs of diabetic retinopathy, a disease expected to attack vision in diabetic patients.

My diabetes is in good control and I have had no negative results in eight years of this twice-a-year exam. A compliant patient always, I have read the pre-exam paperwork and have dutifully worn no perfume or deodorant.  My cell phone has been off since I entered the building.

She knocks quietly at the door and enters, my chart in her hand. She makes little effort to exchange more than a perfunctory greeting.  I'm surprised and slightly taken aback that she is so unfriendly.  From recommendations, I had expected someone vivacious.  Not so, this lady is stand-offish.  She makes polite retorts to my efforts at pleasantries and then we both sit in quiet as she reads the chart.  She scoots her chair over to face me and swings a long arm of apparatus to cover my eyes. "Watch the chart" and the exam proceeds as I have learned to expect.

The opthomologist is looking for the first indications that my eyes are changing.. Deep at the back of my eye her magnifier is searching for broken blood vessels or perhaps a dark spot indicating a past break and the blood pool. These are tense moments as the doctor concentrates and I hold my breath, determined to make this experience pleasant for her and not subject her to any insult to her olfactory sensitivity.

She begins to speak, well...mutter. I can't discern her words.  Is she speaking to me? She's looking right at me, my eye,  and carrying on a cryptic conversation that seems to be groupings of words and stops, like sentences.  But, I can't make them out.  She's so close but my ears are failing to make sense of what she's saying. Her whispery voice rises in what must surely be a question.  "Sorry?", I say aloud, indicating this incomprehension is the fault of my hearing. She doesn't seem to notice me. More loudly I say, "Are you talking to me?"
"No," she replies, "I'm taking notes!"

Okay, then. This is her normal routine. I relax until the next clear word I make out is 'Mold'...Mold? She said it distinctly. Mold? My mind races. What could that be?  I've never heard of mold of the eye, or, on the eye, in the eye? Is it an acronym? M.O.L.D. What could that be? Maybe it means 'M' is old. An old break in a capillary? Again my mind wants to find the answers but my knowledge is lacking and this doctor is not forthcoming. Is this something that happens due to the rainy conditions?  Ridiculous, maybe. Mold? I decide I will definitely ask.

After the exam, she has the summation of her findings laying on top of the charts.  In the past 15 minutes I've watched her fill in the blanks on her computer screen, concentrating and very busy. I've seen her draw dots of different colors on a target-shaped depiction of the interior of my eye. She has continued to mutter and, I know by now, she is not talking to me. But, now she is...

"Looks good, Sharon.  Your diabetes has had no effect on your eyes to this point. In fact, I would be unable to distinguish a photo of your eye from that of a person without diabetes...It's good news!" Such good news, I almost forget to ask.

"Dr, Rhule, you mentioned mold during the exam.  Can you tell me more about that?"
"I did?", she looks puzzled.
"Yes, something about 'colored' and 'two'?"

She starts to laugh..."Moles!" she says when she stops giggling. "You have two moles.  No one ever told you that before? "No", I reply, "never even heard of moles in the eyes". (I'm imagining the blind pointy-nosed creatures with paddle paws.)

"Just like the moles on your skin, there are two moles in your right eye.  One is colorless which is benign and the other is dark and we'll watch it for changes that might indicate cancer."
"Oh." Then not mold!" And, our eyes meet and we both start giggling. Then, laughing out loud, we share one of those moments, those moments that change perceptions.

another one

My grandfather brought home an intriguing rubber doll. It was brown and had cute little toes and fingers and a little rosebud mouth made into an  O where a bottle fit. Its hair was sculpted on black in curls and on the back were the curious words,  Amos and  Andy. That meant nothing to me. 

He showed it to my mother first and asked if it would be all right to give it to me, he had fetched it out of a dust bin at the park..  He said something wondering about whether it would harm me.   She didn't think it would as long as no one else saw it.  So I got this precious chocolate brown dolly that I absolutely adored. 

I lavished care on that dolly.  I fed it from a fake milk bottle that tilted up and the milk disappeared somehow in the nipple part.  I got a tiny bottle, filled it with clean water and fed it, which it wet through the hole in it's generic bottom.   I made it a shoe box house with curtains drawn on. and a rug pasted down.  and improbable furniture cut from scented small cardboard soap boxes and individual cereal boxes.  I pieced it a tiny little quilt top.  A nine patch that I had made from rags in the rag bag.    We threw nothing away, the rag bag was full of goodies.  I made it underwear from the tips and heels of a cast off sock.  It had a bunting I made from a torn piece of snow suit.

All my pent up motherly ambitions went into the cheery face of that nine inch doll.  It went to swing with me.  I had to be scolded to put it down at lunch time.  I tucked it into the pocket of my pinafore, but it hung out too heavy, so I got a ribbon and made it a sling. for under my arm.  That allowed my hands to be free while I went romping over the fields.   I slept with it tucked into it's shoebox bed, up at my pillow.  It never really left my sight except for when I went to school.  I kept it up from my little sister.   She already had a doll.  She didn't need this one.

Things in our house were not to be left out loose.  We had one box for our few toys and it had to be kept under our bed at all times.  That was the rule. I had gotten into my comics and books and left the corner of the box sticking out about 3 inches.  I was in a hurry and had not pushed it all the way back.  My mother came in and saw it. She had said earlier that she would burn my toys if I didn't keep them picked up.  It was a tiny house.  I kept them on my bed or in my box.  There was no other place for them to be except outside on our blanket where we played.  

I was outside reading comics when she called me in.  "Look at that box"  she said. 

"Oops Mama sorry. "  I looked with surprise at the box.  I would have sworn I pushed it in.

"I'm burning it now"  And she took my little box of comics and books and crayons and papers and opened the front of the pot belly stove and fed them to the flames.

I looked at her.  "You burnt my books."  My paper dolls are gone in an instant. I hear the crackle of the flames.

"Are you going to cry?" she looked back at me. a hard long look. 


"No.  I am not going to cry!"  I panted and gasped and choked and sucked in air, but no tears fell. 

"NO?  What do I have to do to get through to you?" She goes over and grabs up my sister's little cheap dimestore doll and shoves it in.

How about now?

"Mama No, That's Sharon's doll!"   Her face blazed in fury and chagrin at her mistake.

"Why did you do that?"  I was bewildered.

She attempts to pull the doll out, but it is damaged beyond repair.  the face had caught fire, the nose had collapsed in on itself.  the hair was gone in a slag of goo.

 She gets my beloved doll from my bed.  And into the stove it goes.

Now I cry. Now I scream.  Now I beg for mercy for my doll.  I am beside myself in grief and horror.   The rubber puts out a terrible smell.   I fly at her with all my weight, looking for a weakness. looking for a way to damage her, to get past her to the stove, to get my doll out.   I claw at her arm and scream and sink to the linoleum defeated.


"Serves you right."  My little sister says, holding onto my mother's skirt.

but a silver strand

her long dark flowing hair
cut to shoulder length
so grown up

she came in curls
so adorable
grandpa spoke..
barely intelligible in his thick dominican accent

'my wife, she has the beautiful black hair.. and..'  he waves his hands in the air, trying desperately to describe it.  i am touched by his sincerity, as he tells me how sad he was when she decided to color the one long strand of silver that flowed from the middle of her forehead down to the middle of her back.. and then he stands with his back to me to show me just how long her hair is.  in his broken english he easily conveys a message of respect for her and love.  he says 'we are given this gift of aging..'  i know he means we should embrace it, honor it, and not hide it.  'it is beautiful.' 

we smile as we both look in at his granddaughter, bouncing on the piano bench.. curls dancing.

it's a nice moment.

i sing

Minstrel Man by Langston Hughes

Because my mouth
Is wide with laughter
And my throat
Is deep with song,
You do not think
I suffer after
I have held my pain
So long?

Because my mouth
Is wide with laughter,
You do not hear
My inner cry?
Because my feet
Are gay with dancing,
You do not know
I die?

*****

music is the palette from which i choose to paint my world

..though really it has chosen me

an abundance of colorful hues and textures and voices and tones

..i spent five years fighting and three running

music guides my hand as i write.. the flow of words must be.. just right

..and ten more wracked, stilted, dying

yet free and natural like the beat of the heart

..and now i sing