Blindsided, Part 3: Galactic Floaters and the Dead Zone

“The Dead Zone.” That’s what Doc E called it. The dead zone started 15 some inches from my screen. There the world blurred and then, in the distance, focused. My bobble doll of a head wobbled to focus the dead zone. Meanwhile pinpricks of black holes and a swirl of a galaxy floated into view as my mind idled on space dock rather than blitzing away on warp speed drive.

Perhaps a rational Vulcan had to remind me to release those external inertia dampers and create.

Drives warp? Vulcan, are you talking about a mythical Roman god? External inertia dampers, are they greener auto parts? Folks active in the everyday have little time to dabble in pop culture, nor catch the phrases of creative fiction. Back in the 1960s, great scriptwrighters caught teens' fancies. We faithfully fiddled with TV knobs, flopped on couches, then turned our eyes off reality to fix on galactic explorations of the starship USS Enterprise.

Nostalgia tugged older eyes to STAR TREK, the movie. Would the new actors be able to say the jargon with straight faces? Could they convince me that they were younger versions of characters familiar as family? Over the phone, my eldest son verbalized his thumbs up despite a florescent glow on screen. I itched to go with the rest of the family that opening weekend.

But days before I awoke to black dots and a curl twirling about my left eye. I ran to the bathroom mirror. No stray eyelash. Not makeup bits. I let fear freeze me. God and my beloved got me to call my eye surgeon who said to come in ASAP.

“Floaters,” Doc E confirmed, along with retinal bruising. A hit must have dislodged protein gels, impeding clear sight as they swam in my eyeball. I learned it could take months, maybe a year or two for these floaters to fade away as my brain learns to ignore them. Meanwhile, I use solar shields into the cinema and as I type to you. Funny how sight centers when filtered of temporal glare and flotsam.

So I live, move, perceive shaded and patient, a bit fuzzy on diamond faith! The letters on this Blog's marquee need not change. I’ll still share with y’all the explorations of the every day. And I won’t need Rome’s fire god to get me off my inertia to move at warp drive.
I’m singing:

Savior, he can move the mountains!
Our God is mighty to save! He is mighty to save!
Forever, Author of Salvation!
He rose and conquered the grave!
Jesus conquered the grave!

Blindsided, Part 2 of 3: Submissions

Dawn slipped through the bedroom blinds to sprinkle onto my eyelids at the appointed ordaining, all too soon for my willing.

When I finally awoke, I had a headache and a late breakfast. Of course Buddy came to the rescue after I asked. He served me a cup of water and half of a caffeinated tablet. If I took the whole tablet, my eyelids would close and my head tilt off, proof that I could take Ritalin for my whirling dervishes.

My head stopped pounding while I nursed my melancholy baby of a mood.
I prayed and paced. No, I begged. I begged, as always, for my kids who did not receive job news or contacts the previous week, this week.

Surgical recovery was my excuse for not submitting manuscripts since Thanksgiving when Doc E first corrected my eyes. The left dominant eye just would not focus beyond 20-40. Nevertheless, I had not submitted any good manuscripts since the previous year’s Thanksgiving when my beloved lost his job.

In this merry, merry month, the books and checks have arrived for my 2007 submissions for A Cup of Comfort Devotional for Mothers and Daughters and A Cup of Comfort for Parents with Special Needs. These printed pieces quietly prompt me to tell you fellow writers or those yet to be published, “Keep on, keeping on. Write, then submit what you write.”
For you without good jobs, the encouragement is the same: “Keep on, keeping on.”

Like Buddy does with his Abilities Discovered counselor, he submits. In dashing dress shoes, pants, and casual button down shirt, Buddy smiles as he submits resumes all over town.

“Hi, how are you?” he’ll respond in greeting. Bud is challenged by direct questions. He knows how to work through his blind spots, to grin a dashing smile as he turns to his counselor for her to answer. Even if he’s turned down, he continues to smile and submit.

I turn to my own Counselor, but discover it’s me, myself, I who must finish the queries. I must keyboard to submit and also submit to the One who gives me the fuzzy faith to overcome the frown of rejection with the smile of trust.