Withdrawing my senses: pratyahara off the mat
Tuesday, February 23, 2010 at 3:48 PM I’d been waiting years to feel comfortable with the level of safety and experience the medical community could offer for laser eye surgery before committing to doing it. I only have one set of eyes, after all. When I’d recently read that the procedure had been approved it for astronauts and US air force pilots, I figured that was close enough. Those are expensive eyes to screw up. Plus, with wavefront technology they talk about vision in HD - sweet! So I booked it for February 18th.
The surgery went perfectly, under the guidance of one of Canada’s top laser eye surgeons. My recovery excelled the first day. The second day, however, I had an allergic reaction to the anti-inflammatory eye drops I was given. The unfortunate best solution to this problem was to remove my bandage contact lenses - which were saturated with the drops - earlier than scheduled. That meant my raw eye surface nerves were exposed while also being swollen from the allergic reaction. I nearly vomited from the pain when my eye doctor slid those lenses off. Percocet was my friend for the rest of that day and night.
Fortunately, though, eyes heal quickly and mine recovered beautifully after that little, horridly painful bump in the road and as of today I’m pretty much back to normal, except without the glasses and with crisper, clearer vision each day. In the mornings I reach for my glasses for a moment, and then smile. Perfecting vision feels good.
Interestingly, I found another ‘bandage’ of sorts being removed during this recovery phase. I’d booked off all teaching and let myself stay in bed as much as possible for five days following surgery. During my time unable to drive, see, read, type, or even send texts, I simply had a whole lot of time with me. My entire visually based life had been removed, exposing me to the uninterrupted flow of my own, real life and self.
At first I had cycles of cabin fever. But after a while I noticed initial agitations, like OCD tendencies to get into gmail or facebook, start to subside. I let the rhythm of my body’s needs dictate my schedule. While keeping a blurry-eye on potential emergencies, for the most part I detached from my outside life and rested. I used to do this kind of rebalancing when I would go camping in the backcountry alone, immersed in nature and utterly without clocks, phones or computers. But I’ve been too busy these past few years to camp.
Now emerging from this recent rest, I’m asking myself how much of what I spend my day-to-day time on is important and how much is just me being busy. Having allayed much of my constant daily activity I feel a newfound desire to cut out what feels like it’s blocking my vision for myself and my life. To that end, I’m going to try an experiment. I’m going to remove myself from twitter, sprouter, facebook, and extranneous emailing. I’m going to be less searchable, not worry about my Google ranking, and dedicate more of my time to being in the tangible world around and within me. This isn’t a Luddite rebellion so much as it is me wanting to see how much of day is about distraction and how much is genuinely useful and desirable.
I have, you could say, a new vision for myself that I feel emerging with increasing clarity. Time alone in silence without distraction reminded me of things I used to love, things I simply got busy enough to forget and neglect. In meditation I came alive again thinking about these forgotten dreams and desires. Now, I feel compelled to revive this part of myself.
This blog and website are lifeblood to me, definitely an exercise in joy and creative endeavour. As such, this site will become my online hub. I feel a renewed desire for less quantity, more quality and I hope this site will come to better reflect that.
And so it begins.
