Assessing Nature with a Certain Detachment, or, How I Learned to Love the Great Outdoors (Even Though I've Got a Wrecked Eyeball)
An ocular misfortune put the brakes on my gardening efforts and landed them in the compost pile right along with my eyesight. I couldn’t tend my garden – that much was certain. But would my diminished sensory capacity compromise my ability to appreciate nature and the great outdoors?
I hate it when people don’t do what they say they’re going to do. My promising, in The Renaissance Garden Guy June Newsletter, to publish four articles here this month is a case in point. Under normal circumstances, I’d make a fist and give myself a black eye for breaking this promise. But, as you’ll soon read, this specific reaction is probably neither warranted nor justified. You’ll discover that it’s also ill-advised…
Assessing Nature with a Certain Detachment
So, readers and subscribers, why am I breaking my promise to you (and blowing my deadlines, as well)? Two words: detached retina. You got it. I was diagnosed with one in my right eye on June 6th (after experiencing sudden symptoms and subsequent vision loss over June 3rd, 4th, and 5th). I finished and published my scheduled feature here on June 8th, and had surgery to repair this errant ocular structure on June 9th. Then I experienced the most excruciatingly inconvenient and uncomfortable (not painful, but uncomfortable) 9 day recovery period imaginable, during which I had to remain facedown in a prone position day and night. This so the repaired retina, which was being held in place at the back of my eye by a surgically inserted gas bubble, would heal properly and adhere to that back part of my eye, just like a good retina is supposed to. The retina is a super-critically important structure within the human eye. If it’s damaged, or if it ends up not where it’s supposed to be, enormous vision problems result (think blindness in that particular eye). This link will explain quite a bit about what a retina, detached or otherwise, is, and why one that becomes detached absolutely needs to be re-attached. It should also help explain why making a fist and giving my own self a black eye (in disappointment over my failure to meet my publishing obligations) would not be wise.
Attack of the Rogue Eyeball
The onset of my optical misfortune began the evening of the Friday before my surgery, in ostensibly innocuous fashion, with some pleasantly blinking/flashing lights at the upper periphery of the field of vision of my right eye. Cool. Independence Day isn’t for another month, but I can still dig this show. I considered it a warm-up.
When I woke up the following morning, I thought my long and flowing hair had fallen in front of my right eye, because something was obstructing my view out of that particular organ. This explanation would have been plausible if I actually had long and flowing hair capable of falling far enough forward to obscure my vision. Nope. My buzz cut was not the cause. Looking straight ahead into the mirror (after shaking off the just-waking-up cobwebs and realizing the “lack of bangs” feature of my current hairstyle wasn’t the cause of this weird phenomenon), I could tell that roughly the top third of my right eye’s field of vision was replaced by a brownish, opaque, shimmering shroud. Uh-oh.
By the next morning, more than half of my right eye’s vision was obscured by this nasty obstacle. By evening, it was worse. Some long-buried memory of ruined eyesight, compliments of a condition known as a detached retina, surfaced in my slightly troubled brain. Some quick Google research took my cognitive state from slightly troubled to the “screaming like a wet little baby” level.
I called my excellent optometrist the very next morning (when brown sludge was mostly what my right eye was showing me), he shunted me to the equally excellent retina specialist, I got the bad news from him, set the surgery date (3 days hence), and before I knew it, I was laying face down on my living room sofa with a surgically repaired retina (and all the bells and whistles that go along with said improvement: a handy-dandy intraocular gas bubble, a nifty eye patch, a handful of neat-o eyedrops and ointments, and instructions to remain facedown for approximately the next nine days).
Of Immobility and Introspection
Upon my discharge from the hospital (the retina surgery was an outpatient procedure), my doctor ordered me to remain facedown – while both awake and asleep – for the next nine days. Of course, normal interruptions of this regimen – short bathroom and food breaks – were permitted. (And even though, during these excursions, I had to keep my head down with my face to the floor and my arms outstretched in front of me in order to fend off attacking unseen obstacles like refrigerators, every time I got up to take a leak, or eat a bowl of cereal, I couldn’t imagine a brand new Nobel Prize winner being any happier.) Again, this positioning was necessary for the surgically implanted gas bubble to keep my retina pressed tightly against the back of my eye, where it should have been all along. The positioning itself was miserable, my physical activities were restricted to zero, and my compromised eyesight and the mechanical impossibilities imposed by the positioning itself made reading and keyboarding/typing virtually impossible.
During this nine day period of stasis, my weekly feature-publishing schedule here on The Renaissance Garden Guy was blown, and my garden got the chance to achieve neglected status. And this time of personal underachievement allowed for contemplative analysis of these particular facts while staring (with my good eye) at the junk the vacuum cleaner missed on the carpet not 18 inches from my face.
Good times.
Return to the Garden (Sort of)
The day of my follow-up appointment with my doctor was a good one. It was the day I was released from my prone imprisonment. But although the strictures of my erstwhile positioning directive had been removed, my physical activities would continue to be limited in scope. My doctor informed me that certain movements and activities could jar my healing retina loose. So even though I was no longer stuck facedown at this point, there was still lots of stuff I couldn’t do.
So my return to the garden was a bittersweet triumph: I could once again walk upright, in true hominid fashion, among the plants growing there, but I couldn’t do a whole lot about their mostly shitty appearance. A little watering, and some light pruning and deadheading of easily accessible plants was the extent of it. And there was absolutely nothing I could do about the garden construction schedule my detached retina blew for me (so much limestone, so little time). After a few days of inserting my person into the garden proper in this limited capacity, I took dismal stock of my situation. I couldn’t see out of one eye, an entire season of structural improvements to my garden space was in major jeapordy, and I couldn’t do anything with the plants themselves besides stand around like an idiot with a garden hose and spray them with water. I guess it’s safe to say that, at this particular point, I was starting to feel sorry for myself.
Poor, pathetic, helpless me.
Fortunately, it wasn’t much beyond this point that the simple chirp of a bird caused the Garden Spade of Serendipity to appear in my fist and avail itself to me for the purpose of unearthing my head from the infertile ground of the land of Up My Ass, and transplanting it directly into the world of sweet, blossoming reality.
Nature to the Nth Degree
My moment of epiphany arrived with the voice of a bird singing in the trees of the forest beyond my garden’s fence. I first heard the beautiful notes of this song from an unseen singer while I was glumly watering my hydrangeas. An unseen singer. At once, this clarion paean, this trill of joy, caused a great cloud to fall from my mind. Oh, I was still blind in one eye, but all at once, I saw more clearly than I ever had before.
During the time I’d been feeling sorry for myself, lamenting the potential permanent loss of vision in my right eye (you see, although my odds of successful recovery were good, there was still a definite chance that the surgery would not be successful), pissing and moaning about not publishing features on this website, whining about not getting work done in the garden, I had underestimated my own capacity for the twin evils of arrogance and ignorance.
The song of this mysterious little bird, carried on a breeze from the woods to my ears, informed an undeniable, inexorable lilt – a measure which every atom of my being found impossible to resist. This little creature’s song, performed so beautifully in majestically unrehearsed fashion, was nature’s siren call. It led me to a place I’d never before been.
I closed my eyes (both of them) and listened to this serenade. And all at once, the same breeze which carried the songstress’ notes to my ears, caressed my face, my hair, the skin on my arms. I’m pretty sure I shivered, though the day was warm. With my eyes still closed, the fragrance of each flower in my garden – rose, lily, lilac – was presented to me, and I swear I could tell one from the other. I felt the limestone path beneath my shoes – its texture, its change in altitude (at this particular time, in this state of utter clarity, a tiny bump on the surface of the stone was a mountain, and each little dip between the stones was, in turn, a chasm). When I stepped off the limestone onto the bordering loam, the softness reached my heart.
More sounds. The buzzing of bees, the croak of frogs, the flap of a butterfly’s wings, the marching cadence of ants. The soughing of leaves as the musical breeze addressed them.
I then, step by step, sense by sense, tuned everything out. And although, through no small force of will, I was able to sense nothing of my surroundings, I still felt enveloped. Cradled by nature. This feeling was as real as anything my five senses could relay to my conscious mind. It was astounding. And again, it was real.
Then I opened my eyes…
But before I tell you what I saw once I did, I will tell you this…
I realized that I had no right to anything more than the privilege of being a part of nature. Nor was there any privilege greater. My own insignificance, my arrogance, my ignorance – all served to blind me more profoundly than a detached retina ever could. I wallowed in self-pity, and complained about things which were beyond my control, all the while taking for granted the front row seat – and my part, really – in the great theatre of nature. You and I – all people – are a part of nature, and nature is a part of us. Its power, its beauty, all of its sounds, all of its smells, all of its texture, its sights, its pervasiveness, its ubiquity – nature is in us, and we are in it. No single one of our senses, nor all five of them, are responsible for bringing nature to us. We’re already joined. We are made of the stuff of nature, and nature is made of the stuff of us.
So, what did I see when I opened my eyes after experiencing this awakening of sorts? Through my right eye, I saw the now familiar swirling brownish veil arising from light passing through the congealed mass of healing tissue within its confines. Through my left eye, I saw the world as I always had. Still beautiful and varied. But when I opened my eyes, I did it with the new realization that these two organs of sight could not bring the beauty of the natural world more closely to me than could any of my other senses. Although all five of these obviously work in concert to lend material heft to my own notion of reality, I believe that no single one, nor all five, exist as the sole nexus between humanity and the natural world. I remember that sense of envelopment I experienced in my garden when I tuned everything out, that sense of being cradled, and I know that nature is in me just as much as I am in nature. Its glory defies the senses.
I want to thank all of you, my dear readers and subscribers, for your incredible support and interest in my efforts here on The Renaissance Garden Guy (thanks to you, readership is as solid as can be, though I haven’t published in a few weeks). And I want to thank those of you who knew about my crazy eye injury for your kind concern and lovely thoughts. Your prayers and positivity are helping this old eyeball heal up nicely.
I also want to remind you that the deadline for The Renaissance Garden Guy’s July 12th First Annual “Readers, Show Me Your Gardens” feature is June 30th. Click here for instructions on submitting your photos if you’re interested in participating. And here, I’ll leave you with a few pics of my garden. In spite of my neglect, it has persevered, for the most part. Finally, I don’t discount the value of eyesight, or any other of the five senses. They’re obviously all precious gifts which should never be taken for granted.
Take care everyone. Enjoy your gardens, enjoy nature, and enjoy one another. And as always, Cheers, and Happy Gardening!
John G. Stamos (2022)
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Feel better soon! Great pictures of the garden- as always.
Susan H
Thank you for your kind thoughts and wishes, Sue. I truly appreciate it. And of course, I thank you for your interest in my efforts. Again, dearly appreciated.
John, I am keeping you in my prayers as you recover. I think Tony and Clarabelle are the two best nurses that anyone could ask for. Continue to heal, to write and to garden. God will continue to help you do all three.
Thank you, Kevin. I truly appreciate these incredibly kind thoughts. And of course, I dearly appreciate your continued interest and encouragement. Once again, thank you so very much.
Your writing is so moving John, with moments of humour perfectly interlaced. Losing a sense, especially that of sight, is a terrifying experience. However every experience we have, good or bad, creates within us a ripple of change. Your insights into nature are so poignant and these will remain with you, turning a scary and unpleasant experience into one of gratitude. I am so happy for you that you are well on the way to healing. And that you are finding healing in nature. I told a story of my own healing through nature in a video I made a few weeks ago always recognizing that the beauty and joy of nature is a true salve. Happy healing and happy gardening.
How beautiful and kind of you, Alegria – thank you so very much. I’m so glad you enjoyed the piece. Your own observations of the healing power of nature are on the money. And I watched your exquisite YouTube video, “Hello Summer.” It was transporting. Absolutely lovely. Once again, Alegria, thank you so much. Thank you for your kind interest in my efforts, and for your thoughtful encouragement and concern. I truly appreciate it.
Oh my God this touched my heart and soul so much… some times could not retain my tears. You are so special, you write so beautifully, actually I can say that your writing skills and gardening skills, the love for antiques and everything that is beautiful it’s a gift from heaven. You put a piece of your soul in everything you do. Wishing you all the blessings for your recovery🙏 The images are absolutely gorgeous 🙏❤️🌺🌼
Oh my, Roxxy, how incredibly lovely. Thank you so very much for these kind words and beautiful thoughts. I’m so glad you enjoyed reading the piece. It was an ordeal, no doubt, going through the surgery and recovery. But as Rick mentioned in his comments here, there was certainly a silver lining. Your appreciation of my experiences here means more to me than I can say. Once again, thank you so very, very much, Roxxy.
Have you ever considered writing a novel?
I love the photos of the doggies, such good caregivers .
Thank you – I’m thrilled that you enjoyed the read and I’m grateful for the kind compliment. I’ve actually got a couple in the works. Thanks again!
“I saw more clearly than I ever saw before.” Wow, John, I am printing this article to read and re-read, thank you! We don’t necessarily see nature, we experience it. Peace is Every Step, Thich Nat Hahn
And prayers for your continued healing.
Thank you so much for this incredibly kind compliment, Jill. I very dearly appreciate it. I’m so glad you enjoyed reading this piece, and I’m honored to know that you thought enough of it to want to print it and save it. I’m touched, really. Once again, thank you so very much, Jill.
You found a silver lining in your medical emergency. My best for a rapid recovery
Many thanks, Rick – much appreciated!
You did good,John.
Thank you so much, Everly, I truly appreciate that. I’m so glad you liked it. It’s been an interesting experience, to say the least. Thank you again, Everly.