“Like the beat beat beat of the tom-tom
When the jungle shadows fall
Like the tick tick tock of the stately clock
As it stands against the wall
Like the drip drip drip of the raindrops
When the summer shower is through
So a voice within me keeps repeating you, you, you…”

– Night And Day by Cole Porter

Oh were this about my love! Alas it is about my eyes! My glasses are at the shop and my weak eyes betray me.  Actually my eyesight isn’t too bad – I’m farsighted…which apparently means I can’t see up close. For a painter trying to finish a series of small pieces, this is pure hell. Yes, I’ve got the cheaters from the drug store and since one eye is doing a tango and the other a rumba, they don’t help other than to give me a headache.

So I wake up at dawn hearing Ella Fitzgerald teasing me with her voice. The lyrics are my eyes. Throughout the day I sense something is wrong, I hear a tick, I feel funny, I can’t put my finger on it, what is that infernal, uh, thing?! I pick up my paintbrush and there it is: I can’t see. Oh the horror! It’s like an Edgar Allen Poe tale…

Even before I took my eyes to the mechanic I knew something was up but it took me a while to figure out that my frustration was my eye sight. It is insidious really.

So I look forward to my eyes coming back to me. Until then I will annoy others with my ability to read a highway sign from a mile away…