something I think about kind of a lot is how little certain optometry tools for testing eyesight have changed over time. I've been going to the eye doctor for over twenty years and the test to see how clear the farmhouse (or the hot air balloon) has hardly changed (hardly any of them have changed, but that one stands out because the graphics do feel outdated). Optometrist equipment lasts a long time, too! I think this kind of adds to the mystique of the experience; new machinery or technology can't necessarily outsmart the optometrist.
As an art historian who has also been dreadfully shortsighted since childhood, (minus 9.0 for god’s sake!), I really enjoyed reading this and share your love of a good optician - I’ve had so many over the years and they’ve always seemed to me quite extraordinary people. And the images they now make of your eyes, and the way they can interpret them like clusters of galaxies - amazing. Plus getting an eye test has sometimes been the only ‘time off’ I’ve had when super busy, which makes me enjoy it all the more, slightly sleepy in the big chair in the dark.
Kate, I read your piece with delight. I too love going to the eye doctor -- until just recently, my optometrist was an older man with a walrus mustache who still used a typewriter (well, his wife did) and all the old, non-electronic equipment. This piece sent me down a rabbit hole searching for the "near card" he used to use -- one of those cards with archaic but charming sentences to test close-up reading. I can't find it. But now I'm a little obsessed with the near card as literary genre? https://share.google/images/8DWVFtjNRjiqcG64Y
A few years ago my son went to the optometrist. We left with a referral to a pediatric oncologist. The eye doctor noticed dark spots (CHRPE) on the back of his retina. That condition causes no harm to the eye but there is a correlation to colorectal cancer. He had years of colonoscopies and, more recently, a colorectal removal and reconstruction. We had a relatively new optometrist who was up on the latest in the profession. A more experienced eye doctor might not have known of the genetic research underlying the connection of CHRPE to colorectal cancer.
Gorgeous essay, lots to really sink one's teeth (...eye teeth...?) into. I recently had laser eye surgery that has made my vision very nearly 20/20 at age 45. I've worn lenses for nearsightedness since I was 8 years old. The experience of the surgery itself was extraordinary. In the clinic, I was one of the few people who opted out of the sedative pill they offered. I wasn't anxious, I was excited! It was a very cool experience, having my eyes numbed, my eyelids pinned open, and watching the bright-green light come into my eyes and dissolve my cornea, making the green light shimmer apart into painless migraine-like auras. The immediate aftermath, when my vision was nearly perfect but my eyes so sensitive (and very quickly, painful, as the numbing wore off) that I couldn't enjoy it except in brief glimpses between having my eyes closed or covered. And then the slow recovery, during which my eyesight reverted to as bad as it had been before, the myriad drops I had to infuse into my eyes on a regular schedule, the profound care with which I had to treat my eyes and eyelids, like they were spun glass. And now, the immense pleasure of seeing clearly, seeing far, without lenses! Eyes are so strange and beautiful, and tending to them is like tending to two captive rare jellyfish, fragile and buoyant and complex despite their clarity.
My first eye appointment, the doctor is shining that light deep into my eye and inches away when he asks: "So, who do you like better? Ginger or Mary Ann?" I don't know if he was checking pupillary action or panic response or what. Maybe that was a standard part of the exam at the time. I've always thought it a strange thing to assume I had an opinion about, even if he was right. What did he see back there?
I had a scare a few months back where my vision suddenly went quite blurry and I went to the hospital to get it checked out. They did a type of test I'd never had before: they slather a small metal lens with gel and press it directly on your eyeball.
I am not a squeamish person. I can take injections without a blink. But nothing on earth is as unpleasant as having that metal lens pressed against my eyeball was. I had to stay looking in certain directions, and if I blinked then it would fall out and the doctor would have to start all over again. Truly horrendous.
Absolutely beautiful. Here in China, the letter chart is replaced by a chart of capital Es only, rotating in random directions, and I’ve always felt vaguely disappointed by it. Your comment about the way the chart strips meaning away from letters perhaps captures the reason why!
I was also disappointed by this upon moving to China, but then someone whipped out the eye chart as a drinking game at a nightclub and I gained some respect for it.
I was at the eye doctor a month ago and completely forgot about all the details of the experience, as I do every time I get an updated prescription. Now I'll never experience it that way again. You might be having a harder time writing, but it's still brilliant.
Damn! What a brilliant piece (of writing, and of rumination!). My favorite line (among so many) was probably— Whither Narcissus! Whither Oedipus! Whither Georges Bataille! To which I can only append: Whither Sophocles! Whither Newton! Thank you, Kate, not merely for brightening my morning - but also clarifying my inner vision 👁️
Ahhh what a great read!!!! Reminds me of the last time I went to the opto. We had a fun conversation about eyes and object permanence, and then he recommended I go read Heidegger 🫣
"better or worse?" is my least favorite question. "A or B?" is my 2nd least favorite. Well, I guess "which casket do you prefer?" Is probably my least favorite... every other one bumps down a grade.
beautiful piece, made me think differently about my own eye-related perils. i was always incredibly proud of my excellent vision, then once a trip to the optometrist led to a trip to the ophthalmologist (wow i've never known how to spell that word) and now i am partially blind in one eye. it doesn't affect me at all really, even reading about your envy toward people with glasses made me envious too, but now i realise i can also escape "the tyrannical yoke of the visual", just by winking instead.
something I think about kind of a lot is how little certain optometry tools for testing eyesight have changed over time. I've been going to the eye doctor for over twenty years and the test to see how clear the farmhouse (or the hot air balloon) has hardly changed (hardly any of them have changed, but that one stands out because the graphics do feel outdated). Optometrist equipment lasts a long time, too! I think this kind of adds to the mystique of the experience; new machinery or technology can't necessarily outsmart the optometrist.
As an art historian who has also been dreadfully shortsighted since childhood, (minus 9.0 for god’s sake!), I really enjoyed reading this and share your love of a good optician - I’ve had so many over the years and they’ve always seemed to me quite extraordinary people. And the images they now make of your eyes, and the way they can interpret them like clusters of galaxies - amazing. Plus getting an eye test has sometimes been the only ‘time off’ I’ve had when super busy, which makes me enjoy it all the more, slightly sleepy in the big chair in the dark.
Kate, I read your piece with delight. I too love going to the eye doctor -- until just recently, my optometrist was an older man with a walrus mustache who still used a typewriter (well, his wife did) and all the old, non-electronic equipment. This piece sent me down a rabbit hole searching for the "near card" he used to use -- one of those cards with archaic but charming sentences to test close-up reading. I can't find it. But now I'm a little obsessed with the near card as literary genre? https://share.google/images/8DWVFtjNRjiqcG64Y
A few years ago my son went to the optometrist. We left with a referral to a pediatric oncologist. The eye doctor noticed dark spots (CHRPE) on the back of his retina. That condition causes no harm to the eye but there is a correlation to colorectal cancer. He had years of colonoscopies and, more recently, a colorectal removal and reconstruction. We had a relatively new optometrist who was up on the latest in the profession. A more experienced eye doctor might not have known of the genetic research underlying the connection of CHRPE to colorectal cancer.
Gorgeous essay, lots to really sink one's teeth (...eye teeth...?) into. I recently had laser eye surgery that has made my vision very nearly 20/20 at age 45. I've worn lenses for nearsightedness since I was 8 years old. The experience of the surgery itself was extraordinary. In the clinic, I was one of the few people who opted out of the sedative pill they offered. I wasn't anxious, I was excited! It was a very cool experience, having my eyes numbed, my eyelids pinned open, and watching the bright-green light come into my eyes and dissolve my cornea, making the green light shimmer apart into painless migraine-like auras. The immediate aftermath, when my vision was nearly perfect but my eyes so sensitive (and very quickly, painful, as the numbing wore off) that I couldn't enjoy it except in brief glimpses between having my eyes closed or covered. And then the slow recovery, during which my eyesight reverted to as bad as it had been before, the myriad drops I had to infuse into my eyes on a regular schedule, the profound care with which I had to treat my eyes and eyelids, like they were spun glass. And now, the immense pleasure of seeing clearly, seeing far, without lenses! Eyes are so strange and beautiful, and tending to them is like tending to two captive rare jellyfish, fragile and buoyant and complex despite their clarity.
My first eye appointment, the doctor is shining that light deep into my eye and inches away when he asks: "So, who do you like better? Ginger or Mary Ann?" I don't know if he was checking pupillary action or panic response or what. Maybe that was a standard part of the exam at the time. I've always thought it a strange thing to assume I had an opinion about, even if he was right. What did he see back there?
I practiced optometry for 40 years. Your article is very interesting and surprising to read! I shared it with colleagues…
I had a scare a few months back where my vision suddenly went quite blurry and I went to the hospital to get it checked out. They did a type of test I'd never had before: they slather a small metal lens with gel and press it directly on your eyeball.
I am not a squeamish person. I can take injections without a blink. But nothing on earth is as unpleasant as having that metal lens pressed against my eyeball was. I had to stay looking in certain directions, and if I blinked then it would fall out and the doctor would have to start all over again. Truly horrendous.
Absolutely beautiful. Here in China, the letter chart is replaced by a chart of capital Es only, rotating in random directions, and I’ve always felt vaguely disappointed by it. Your comment about the way the chart strips meaning away from letters perhaps captures the reason why!
I was also disappointed by this upon moving to China, but then someone whipped out the eye chart as a drinking game at a nightclub and I gained some respect for it.
I was at the eye doctor a month ago and completely forgot about all the details of the experience, as I do every time I get an updated prescription. Now I'll never experience it that way again. You might be having a harder time writing, but it's still brilliant.
Damn! What a brilliant piece (of writing, and of rumination!). My favorite line (among so many) was probably— Whither Narcissus! Whither Oedipus! Whither Georges Bataille! To which I can only append: Whither Sophocles! Whither Newton! Thank you, Kate, not merely for brightening my morning - but also clarifying my inner vision 👁️
Ahhh what a great read!!!! Reminds me of the last time I went to the opto. We had a fun conversation about eyes and object permanence, and then he recommended I go read Heidegger 🫣
Check out this routine eye exam
https://youtu.be/xzSdRztwuSI?si=dOHOIVhzTKFhucd9
"better or worse?" is my least favorite question. "A or B?" is my 2nd least favorite. Well, I guess "which casket do you prefer?" Is probably my least favorite... every other one bumps down a grade.
gorgeous writing Kate. It really struck me about the 'being a child again' chart. In the 'high chair' etc. So good and so clever.
beautiful piece, made me think differently about my own eye-related perils. i was always incredibly proud of my excellent vision, then once a trip to the optometrist led to a trip to the ophthalmologist (wow i've never known how to spell that word) and now i am partially blind in one eye. it doesn't affect me at all really, even reading about your envy toward people with glasses made me envious too, but now i realise i can also escape "the tyrannical yoke of the visual", just by winking instead.