Wandering Eye
I was at a lovely fourth of July party this summer, the late afternoon light settling in on the trees and grass and houses, when the sweetest looking, chubby-cheeked little five-year-old walked up to me and yelled, loud enough to sound the alarm for all the others assembled, “You’re creepy!” He was staring directly at me, his little body stiff, fists balled at his side, deciding whether to fight or flight. He wasn’t looking me in the eye, or rather, he was, just not the eye with which I was looking at him. He had identified something amiss: my lost and wandering left eye. Cross eyed at birth, I had surgery to correct the problem, which left me with one sometimes zombie eye. If I focus, I can force it with attention to look forward, but if I am tired or lost in thought — and it seems this happens more and more often as I age — it drifts up and to the left, unruly.
The boy’s mother was sitting in a lawn chair nearby, listening to what I had to say for myself. I patiently explained what the matter was with my eye, with the same kind tone I attempt to explain all the world’s marked imperfections to my children when they asked how these things could be — people living on the street, cancer, wars. He listened, his two perfect eyes staring exactly forward, and then ran away to play.
The eyes of course are windows to the soul, and so because I am literally not always able to meet people eye to eye, people can be unsettled at my shifty appearance. This didn’t used to bother me so much, I could explain my problem if it was asked about it and then it was never mentioned again, a non-issue. I dated, married, had children. I don’t think it’s fair to say it has hindered me. But as I’ve aged, it has become more of a problem. I and my eye have gotten a little more tired, a little more lazy.
My husband, who used to pretend nothing was wrong with my eye, something I very much loved him for, started calling me Mrs. Crawley (a friendly lizard with a glass eye that never looks in the right direction from the Sing! movies). He has a teasing sense of humor, and I know he doesn’t mean to be mean (does he?), but the teasing doesn’t sing, it stings. I told him to cut it out (he has). I wish I could laugh about my eye. On some level, it is funny.
I used to laugh about it. Years ago, my brother got into researching our family tree and turned up a sepia toned grainy photo, from the very early days of photography, of a distant cross-eyed relative. With combed hair, sitting ramrod straight and dressed to impress, his severely misaligned gaze was frozen forever for generations to see. We laughed and laughed, because clearly the unfortunate state of his eyes had not prevented him from passing on the gene. And clearly, he was not too ashamed to be photographed. He looked, if this is possible while not staring forward, proud.
The advantage of aging is supposed to be that we are wiser and care less about the long list of things that don’t really matter. But to my horror, in this regard I seem to be aging in reverse. I’ve started to wonder what my life would be like if my eyes were normal. Would I be more confident? President of the United States? Or at the very least, occupier of that corner office?
Although I have become more aware of it, I suspect my eye has very little to do with my insecurities, my inner imperfections. but has nonetheless come to represent them. There is nothing else to do, I suppose, than to own it. I am Samantha, of the slightly broken. If I were to be a doll or a leather jacket, I would be discounted for my noticeable imperfection. If I were of the animal kingdom (and we really are but for argument’s sake we will pretend we are not), my lesser sight would have made me easy prey.
All of us exist at once in the physical world, with its immutable facts and shorthanded judgements, and a as a self that exists disembodied, a mind, a soul. An uncomfortable tension exists between the two — and my mind casts about in the nether regions to find a solution, to make them marry -up, make them whole. I feel I am so much more, I feel boundless and large, but in they physical world I am a middle aged white woman with limp hair (and a wandering eye). This may seem overly self-deprecating, but I think we can all relate to living in a world we know can be astoundingly beautiful, but also often leaves something to be desired, and over which we really do not have control.
In this way, my wandering eye is perfectly imperfect. Would a Samantha with a perfectly fixed gaze be as sweet?
