Personal Evaluation

The time has rolled around for the latest evaluation of the functioning of the most important machine I own, now that, of the two people responsible for setting it on the world's stage, my father has already been gone for more than 70 years and my mother for slightly less than half that. But of course even from the very beginning there was never any question of being able to replace it with a new model, so that in this matter we are always left entirely with the mechanism that we have and with how well we've managed to keep it maintained in the days since, though mainly that works out to be almost entirely a matter of sheer luck, with a dash of good genetics thrown in.

I've been diagnosed with glaucoma for some years now but I can still see well enough to do most things without the need to wear glasses, though recently for closeup stuff like my stained glass and reading, I've had to make more and more use of reading glasses. To keep down the pressure on my optic nerves that causes the glaucoma, I have to take two kinds of eyedrops daily, one of them twice a day. But that's no chore, and the only other regular med I have to take is for high blood pressure, once a day.

Of the other faculties centered in and around my face, my senses of taste and smell seem to be totally unimpaired so far, and I believe that my hearing is also still just fine, due to a lifetime of staying away from over-loud sounds of every kind. And meanwhile my facial appearance has, like so much else about me, changed ever so slowly, and I am still quite recognizable as having once been that small boy whose picture you see up there on my sidebar.

Meanwhile the sense of touch associated with my skin seems also to be just as acute as ever, and I've been thinking of how handy that comes in, especially at this time of the year when there are so many bugs constantly on the attack. My potter neighbor across the road, K., just recently finished a regimen of taking antibiotics, after, while conducting pottery classes in New Jersey, he contracted not only Lyme's Disease but also Rocky Mountain Spotted Fever at the same time. The place where he was working had lots of deer walking around, along with signs warning of Lyme's Disease, and I have always wondered why, even here in much more benign Virginia, I haven't yet caught one or the other malady myself, because I am bitten by ticks so often that I must have long since used up all my probabilities

I have a heart murmur, but not much is known about that. Otherwise my main physical problem right now involves my feet. Some kind of thing keeps moving out to the surface of my sole on the right foot, causing pain that I can only alleviate by cutting the hard growth away with an X-acto knife, about once a week. I've been told many times that I need to go to a podiatrist for that. But you don't just find them on any street corner around here.

The problem with my left foot is more recent, and I don't know what it can be. It feels just as if I've stubbed my big toe on the same sofa leg every night for two weeks.

From looking around, I've seen how supremely important the simple act of walking is, and this restriction on that ability is worrisome, but so far not worrisome enough.

Meanwhile I still have the same numerous tiny demons flitting around up in my cranium, which causes all kinds of little hallucinations, ranging from thinking the little bugs have infiltrated me all the way from inside my throat to down on my ankles and on to seeing but never hearing numerous mice scampering just past the corner of my eye, and then on farther still to the overwhelming toxicities of regional, national, and world affairs. But that has always been so.

All in al, though some things about my invaluable mechanism could be better, many, many more could be much worse, and I couldn't be more aware and thankful than I am for that great, good fortune.