Glasses
- Mark Coakley
- 16 Jan 2017
A coming of middle-aged story
Childhood’s end is often marked by a ritual. The vision quests of Native America, the bar and bat mitzvahs of Judaism, “sweet sixteen” in the US, face scarring in central Africa, the bungee-style jumps of Vanuatu, the face tattooing of the Maori — all are public acts that celebrate a member of the group becoming an adult.
The rituals associated with starting middle age in North America are less dramatic but, to the participant, equally meaningful. Like when you first notice that your kids are tall enough to reach shelves that are too high for you.
I am now going through such a ritual of entering middle age — getting my first glasses.
Many people, of course, wear glasses as children or young adults, but most people’s eyes start weakening in their 40s. All of my life, until recently, I had good vision. I was able to find Waldo nine pages out of ten. One of my early memories is of my mother handing me a bag of Hostess salt-and-vinegar chips at Miracle Mart and asking me to read some tiny print on the label. A few months ago, I had to ask one of my sons at No Frills for the same kind of help with a microwave popcorn label. At the same time, at home, I was finding it becoming harder to concentrate while reading. I would get distracted and lose my place and have to read things twice and have to read things twice.
Then I tried a pair of non-prescription reading glasses. Wow! What a difference! The blurriness disappeared and the words on the page were BIG and clear. I started wearing them at home when I read and I made an appointment for an eye test. (That sounds like something Apple should make: the iTest.)
At first, I noticed some odd effects with wearing reading glasses. If I was eating and looked from the book to my plate, I could be startled by the unexpected sight of food magnified 150%. I would see this gigantic, high-definition fried egg in front of me. And if I glanced up to look at someone, the person looked blurry, like we were underwater. And if I was reading in the bathroom and looked at the mirror, I would see one of my uncles looking back at me, before I recognized myself.
If the eye doctor says that I need prescription glasses, I’m thinking about ones with no frames, even though people say they are not fashionable anymore. The dark, horn-rimmed ones (like Clark Kent wears to hide being Superman), that’s what I’m told is fashionable. But I like the idea of frameless glasses because they block less of my field of view. I also like the idea of having lenses tinted neon orange, to make everything more bright and citrusy, like seeing the world through a glass of Tang.
There are practical benefits to wearing glasses. Your eyes are shielded from wind and flying insects and human sneezes. If you’re lost in the wilderness, you can use a lens to focus sunlight onto the ripped-out pages of a book and make a fire.
With my reading glasses, I like to imitate Hamilton’s city councilors, who are masters at using glasses at props, as shown many times on Cable 14 and The Public Record. If I want to look stern, I’ll peer over the top of my glasses, like Brenda Johnson. To look deep in thought, I’ll chew gently on an earpiece, like Lloyd Ferguson does. And if I want to look a bit, ah, different, I’ll push my glasses up onto my forehead when I talk, like Sam Merulla.
I am glad to be living when glasses are fashionable. Many attractive female stars wear glasses (e.g. Zooey Deschanel, Rihanna and Bernadette from Big Bang Theory), like several of the “sexiest men alive” (e.g. Brad Pitt, Denzel Washington and Hank from King of the Hill.)
Glasses have not always been as accepted as now. Long ago, Dorothy Parker wrote, “Men don’t make passes / At girls who wear glasses.” Those days are long past, though today it is true that most men feel odd around women with Google Glasses. (“Uh, was that a wink, or did you just start recording video of me?”).
Getting back to the middle-age ritual of getting glasses — the ceremony includes considering the alternatives to glasses: contact lenses and laser surgery.
My problem with contact lenses is the idea of touching the surface of my own eye with my finger. I have never done that before and don’t think I would like it. (I have the same sort of prejudice against using suppositories.) And the chemical procedures that go along with contacts seem a pain. Enzyme solution? I don’t want to have to measure out some weird fluids every night, for my contacts to bathe in until morning. And I’ve heard that if you fall asleep overnight with contacts, they will be stuck into your eyes when you wake up and can only be removed with a chisel.
Disposable contacts are convenient but wasteful; most of them eventually end up in the ocean, causing harm to marine animals — especially little male jellyfish, which will often mistake a floating contact lens for a little female jellyfish, causing the poor guy a lot of embarrassment and frustration.
I don’t like the idea of laser surgery either. I imagine a clinic full of dry ice and big, Star Wars-style laser cannons, with doctors (dressed in Imperial armour) running around and shooting bright red beams at patients’ faces. I know it’s not really like that, modern medical lasers are actually quite weak, but I’m still too chicken to let anybody burn my eyes. The only surgery of this type I’m brave enough for is laser fingernail-trimming.
Anyway, next week I’m off to the eye doctor’s for my appointment, where I’ll be told to look for flickering lights in a dark machine and try to read the ant-sized poems.
After that, I expect, I’ll get my first pair of prescription glasses and a whole new stage of my life will begin.
I’ll tell you here, in these pages, how it goes.
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