Friends, colleagues, virtual associates: here is a thing I've been thinking long and hard about saying—or not.
Possibly you've noticed that I have not been updating this blog very frequently lately, not even with routine posts sharing work I've made for other publications. Possibly you haven't. Maybe you've wondered why an email or DM might have gone unnoticed for days at a time.
My thing is that I actually cannot SEE this page very well right now, because of a fairly rapid recent deterioration of my eyesight. Black type on my laptop screen looks pencil-lead gray. I can't read my iPhone at all in ordinary daylight, and struggle to do so otherwise. Correspondence is a challenge, as are reading and writing. As is discerning faces, in some instances. Work is unusually arduous and time-consuming.
Around three weeks ago, my issue got a name: cataracts. This is a good thing, because it means I've now embarked upon a process of recognition, repair, and recovery. The first steps have happened already. There's more to do. It won't be quick, necessarily, but it shouldn't be difficult.
I'm not severely impaired, though there was one serious exception, a recent experience of disorientation and vulnerability I wouldn't care to repeat. Mostly, things are just hazy, like looking at the world through a persistent gauze. It's for that reason that, even if music criticism is chiefly an aural exercise, I've not trusted myself sufficiently to do any critical writing for the last month or so—particularly with regard to works involving staging or multimedia. (Which is rotten, because I've seen and heard so many excellent operatic events in the last two weeks alone!)
I'm not putting this out as a call for public sympathy—I presume most people here know me better than that, and know as well that I have the best possible support at hand right here at home. But I am opening up about it now so that everyone might understand when I'm slow to react or respond in certain instances and situations, or if I can't get as much work done as quickly as has been my custom—or if I missed celebrating some bit of good news or extending due sympathies on some social-media platform, too.
Please don't feel compelled to respond to this post—honestly, I won't be here much for a while longer. If you need to reach me promptly in the weeks to come, PLEASE do not use Facebook Messenger—it's the worst possible option.
Thank you for taking the time to read and understand. This, too, shall pass.
-Steve
May 18, 2019
