On Seeing Clearly

Goldie meditating in India.

This morning I went for a pre-op appointment regarding my upcoming cataract surgery next week. To my dismay, the waiting room looked like the backlot for the movie "Cocoon." As one of the few people walking in there under their own power, I realized it's good to get this unappealing task behind me sooner rather than later, while I'm still ambulatory.

The fact is, every eye in every head will develop a cataract, which causes a clouding of the lens and blurry vision, as a natural occurrence on the path to old age and the inevitable you-know-what that follows. Still, most people are not bothered by them until they are well into their 70s or 80s. Mine are relatively new and not yet debilitating, but since they will only worsen over time, and since seeing clearly is my prime mission in life -- both optically and emotionally -- I'm going for it.

The waiting room was enormous, with at least fifty people there to meet with one of the five doctors in this top-notch medical group offering "Tomorrow's eyecare today." There was a free coffee staging area and bottles of water for the taking, a nice touch I thought, making the experience quite comfy and non-threatening. The only sour note was sounded over at the floor-to-ceiling magazine rack stocked with popular fashion magazines, all flashing cleavage-baring photos of Hollywood starlets like Scarlett Johansson, Cameron Diaz, Dakota Fanning and Jennifer Aniston, each more glamorous than the other and all of them half the age of this particular assembled audience. (Talk about pouring salt into a wound....)

I opted for the only remaining copy of the AARP magazine, which seemed appropriate under the circumstances, and flipped to an article blurbed on the cover as "Goldie Hawn: Why She Is Better Than Ever!" This I gotta see, I thought, since Goldie is actually six months older than me and how could that be? Turns out she's heavy into meditation and mindfulness and all that deep breathing stuff I've been toying with of late, and she claims to feel happier than she ever has before. No word on whether or not she has had cataract surgery.