A fresh view

They say it takes a village to raise a child, and it takes at least that to give me an idea for a blog post -- at least this one. My thanks to Dana Elmendorf, Lickety Splitter, Lola Sharp and Stephanie Thornton all contributed to my lightbulb moment for today's blog post.

Lola, Stephanie and Dana had all talked about revisions, the pain that they can be, and the long slow slog that writing often is. Lickety Splitter had posted a couple of pix of herself -- with and without glasses.

I was reminded of how blind I am. I am, without corrective lenses, legally blind. You know that E on the eye chart? That's about all I can recognize with the right eye that God gave me, and it doesn't even exist with the left eye that God gave me.

Thank the Lord that the God who created my less-than-perfect eyes also created the guys who invented (a) glasses, (b) contact lenses and (c) the plastic that makes both of 'em possible.

Since 7th grade, I've worn glasses -- hateful demon things that steam up when you walk out of an air conditioned building into Georgia's heat, fog up when you're trying to stir gravy, slip and slide when you're working outdoors. Contacts are infinitely better -- until they dry out, tear or pop out, I can at least pretend I have "normal" vision.

It was flat amazing the first time I put glasses on and I could see, though. The blackboard came alive with math problems -- gee, no wonder I had been skating by with a C in math. The trees had leaves. And yeah, those black shadowy holes in people's faces? Those gaz-y-boos were eyes.

I think about the things people take for granted with their vision -- things we see and don't marvel at every day. My mom, toward the end of her life, lost a substantial amount of her vision in one eye thanks to acute glaucoma, a complication of some meds she'd had to take. It made her feel so insecure and so fearful.

If vision is a wonderful thing, then re-vision is even better, even if I do carp about it, because revision is literally seeing something again. I'm in the process of revising a completed manuscript of mine. Yes, it's hard. Yes, all my darlings are screaming to be saved. Yes, I'd rather be creating something fresh and new.

But I am in a way. I'm looking over the work I did on the MS, and I'm using my fresh and "new" (well, as new as I can get 'em, anyway) eyes on this.

Part of those "new" eyes? Well, that would be whatever wisdom and knowledge I've learned after having four books published and (more importantly) after having written at least 8 books, maybe more.

So if it is a love/hate relationship between me and my glasses and me and my revising, well, at least I get new eyes out of the deal!