Barbara J. Hamby

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New Eyes - New Ideas

Last week at this time I sat on the deck of my cousin’s home on Vashon Island and gazed at the gorgeous view. I saw an eagle soar over the water and watched leaves loosened by the breeze float to the ground.

This Sunday the clouds have finally lifted outside my window so I can enjoy the intense blue of the sky through my cataract-free lenses. I’m anxious to take an evening drive to see how much my night vision has improved. Maybe I’ll get to a poetry reading later this week. There are several scheduled that interest me.

Meanwhile, I need to deal with the disappointing pictures I took last weekend with a disposable camera. I’ve had good luck with some such cameras in the past, but I think the light was too bright for this one. Unfortunately I had concentrated on remembering my laptop and a CD with pictures to show my sisters, and forgotten my digital camera. I’m sure I have fewer electronic devices around me than my younger relatives and that’s probably good. I can barely keep track of and operate the ones I do have.

There are hundreds of pictures in my computer that need to be sifted, sorted and labeled. Just another of the tasks that press on my available time. Old fashioned snapshot prints languish in a box—some have been sorted and labeled, but there are still many to do. Another container of family letters is only partially sorted and identified. Perhaps my new vision will speed some of the projects, when procrastination allows me to get started.

We have been reading a book on Alzheimer’s from the library. It is very recent and includes results of research that is quite current. There seems to be some hope that preventive measures, if taken early enough—by midlife probably—can be effective in delaying the onset of the disease, at least, if not preventing it entirely. In late age, there may not be enough time to get results, but it never hurts to take precautions and try for good mental, as well as physical health, in our remaining years and so we have already adopted some of the suggestions.

I think it might behoove my middle-aged children, nieces and nephews, and some even younger relatives to start thinking about habits they now have that can lead to physical and mental problems in the future, both near and far. I know, though, that I, when younger, felt invincible, as do most young people.

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