My object was reddish-brown and made of wood. It fitted snugly in my hand. Examining it close up from all angles might not reveal its purpose. It is for holding spectacles. There is a long nose with a mouth below. The spectacles slot in position to create the eyes.

When ‘Have you seen my glasses?’ overtakes ‘Have you seen my keys’ as the question you ask most often, you have to try something. It hadn’t worked because –of course – I forgot to use it.
I needed glasses from the age eight or nine. Couldn’t read what the teacher wrote on the blackboard. I could write my life story in episodes involving trying to see. Not now, but I’ll tell you the beginning and the end.

I remember in fine detail, coming home with my first pair of glasses. Suddenly, everything in focus, like the transfers on my AirFix model planes. I could read the letters from across the room. Then looking out the window, the lawn was no longer a green blur, I could see individual blades of grass! I had no idea what I’d been missing.

I enjoyed a similar feeling when I had an eye operation four years ago. By then, my right eye couldn’t be corrected by glasses or contact lens. The procedure was swift and painless. It was a bright, sunny day and I remember immediately noticing the texture of the bricks in a wall, as if for the first time.

Now, like most people my age, I need reading glasses, but I manage so well without long distance glasses I rarely use them. They have taken up residence on this strange but endearing wooden face, reminding me that, even with Parkinson’s, things can sometimes get better.

Jim Read

15 March 2022

(C) Danielle Jones (Teale) Dance, Collective IDentity, written by Jim Read