pinktoe something something, under a reddit thread dedicated to endless guesstimates about the true lyrics within cocteau twins’ songs, says: “their music was never about conveying narrative…just enjoy the wonder!”
and i was hit with nostalgia of something i recently lost.
my worldview.
it transpired many months ago. sweet kathmandu, dusty roads. a busy saturday afternoon. two optometrists trying to understand why my left eye is the way it is. sat infront of me was my father with his glasses fixed on his head, looking at me, as i tried reading the letters with an eye closed. one by one.
e h c k
o p t d
c e f l
z o m— no, n. oh no, maybe that’s h. or w? no—
the optometrists looked at each other. the test barely helped, they said. another test required, they said.
next, i sat on a small stool. a fish tank about six feet away from me. the big machine was pressed to my right eye. they took their time. it took time. i felt guilty. another thing, i thought, yet another thing wrong, out of order.
i had looked at the fish tank, with my out of order eye as they asked us to wait for the results. someone will be there with me soon, they said. someone will tend to me soon, they said.
and i sat. looked at my father on his phone. his back was a little hunched over. all the years he lived, the years he lived now behind him; rest atop his shoulders like trophies. i wondered if i would ever be able to put my years on my shoulders with pride someday. probably not, i told myself. probably not, my neck and back already hurts with the burden. i have never known to make the best of my years.
the fish tank. i looked into it until i was called back inside. i looked and looked and looked. the fishes took their turns staring back. small, insignificant, and rather naive-looking wonders underwater. they were ethereal. the water lit up in different colors once a while. there were plants dancing inside and small pebbles jumping around, looked like something out of a hazy dream that you reach into but cannot grasp. more ghibli, more magic but somehow more real.
it might be surprising to hear, the doctor told me, but your right eye doesn’t see the same as your left. your vision is worse in the left, and each part of your left eye has different refractive errors, which is why the test took so long.
anisometropia is what the first one’s called. the latter? i don’t know. neither do i know why my left eye runs on its own mind and mood. maybe my left eye is my father’s daughter. sometimes a wall of blur, sometimes simply transparent.
they gave me prescription glasses with more vision correction. i couldn’t part with my older glasses, so i put them in my bag. don’t hoard, don’t hoard, don’t hoard played in my mind.
they told me to take a walk around the building. i went around once. twice. and felt exposed somehow, strangely. the glasses were supposed to expose the world to me, but i felt like someone had taken away the blanket i used to hide myself beneath.
i could see. the correct world, the real world. the world i never knew i wasn’t seeing.
i could see pen marks on a chair that was a few feet away, i could see the sharp edges of the building— no longer blurry. the blur went away. the blur which i never knew had existed. i went and sat in front of the fish tank again. and this time, i saw…just fish. their little gills and the texture of their skin, the way small air bubbles popped out of their mouths and surfaced on the top of the water. it was just a fish tank. the pebbles were just pebbles. the plants, just plants. the fish, just fish.
it was time to leave them behind. my childlike-haze covered vision, the wonderment that came with the blur, the need to see past the blur and the bittersweet inability to, now all gone. my father’s shoulders were just shoulders, my hands were further and more textured than i had ever seen them. they looked worn.
if i had seen pinktoe something something’s comment back then, saying enjoy the wonder, don’t look for a narrative; if i had seen it right there as i wore my new glasses— more powerful, more clearer— i would have pushed my new glasses up onto my head as well. i would be my father’s daughter. i would see the trophies on his shoulders, i would be able to throw away my old glasses, i would see not fish but magic again. i would let the blur swallow me.
months have passed now since then. these glasses are just another burden. their weight propels me forward and i hunch. like my father but never like my father. always unlike but so like him. all i bear are the burdens i have created out of small parts of myself. my years? only years. not trophies. my worldview? shifted.
but tonight. the cocteau twins sing in my ears again. sea, swallow me.
tonight, i will read pinktoe something something’s comment once again before heading to bed. and tomorrow i will teach myself to push my glasses up on my head. just for while, just temporarily, just forever, just always.
i’ll let myself see magic once in a while. the world is prettier when it’s perceived through opacity. it’s more magical when seen through a blur in the lens, one which you cannot drive away. whatever they say— the less i know the better. i don’t know, therefore i am not.
i’ll just let myself enjoy the wonder.