Blue tears

Thursday, 8/24/2017. 2:55 PM. I awake from my nap. I'd slept about 30 minutes.

Earlier in the day I had made two pet visits and gone to the eye doctor. The eye technician had performed my yearly, simple test for glaucoma; one of the many possible side effects of long term steroid treatment. The test only takes three-and-a-half minutes per eye. I'm exhausted just after the first eye, almost to the point of tears. Not from eye strain, but the concentration involved.

God, I don't feel like going to work. I'm just so damn tired. And I still have a headache. Yuck.

I muster myself off the bed. I'm out the door within 15 minutes.

I walk across the street with my trekking poles. Slung over my left shoulder is the shoulder strap attached to the small, black canvas cooler. But today I have no ice pack in it. The cooler is my purse to carry my water bottle and, in the outside pockets, my cell phone and pills and wrist braces. I don't take a key today. It's just too much effort to lock the door. I won't be gone that long, and there are two cars in the driveway.

A couple minutes later I arrive at the studio. Kay is there. We exchange greetings and office chairs, which we do every time I work. I need the sturdier chair.

I retrieve the small, oval-comment-bubble-shaped pillow from inside the orange vinyl with white cord borders, box-shaped ottoman with a lid for a seat. The pillow is a golden color. It's worn and faded. One side reads love your life, set in floral fabric sewn to the golden. The other side reads embrace it, screen-printed in black on the golden.

I close the ottoman seat lid and walk to the sturdy office chair. I position the perfectly-sized-for-low-back-support pillow on the chair. I always place the pillow so that embrace it touches my back. I sit down, raise the seat, and position myself at the large, metal desk topped with a slightly angled drafting board. That drafting board really helps when I transcribe.

I open the drawer, bottom on the right, and pull out the folders that hold paid art orders. I clumsily, but successfully, retrieve the metal box that holds all the index-sized, green cards. At the top of each card is an artist's name. Below the name are lines on which I transcribe information from the paid orders to the cards - venue to which art was sold, state or country, how many pieces, and the monies to be paid to the artist.

After getting set up, I momentarily rest.

Maybe I'll be good for an hour or two.

A bit later, I need some note paper and can't find any in the studio. I ask Kay for assistance. She finds some and hands me the piece of paper. My finger-grasps, as always, are delayed. But I successfully grasp the paper, even though Kay hands it to me like I have regular reflex in my fingers. I don't think my delay is apparent to Kay, but it is to me. Bottles and such are a whole different ball game. If the person doesn't know my condition, I instruct them to go slowly to give me a moment to grasp the object. Otherwise, it might fall to the floor.

Such a small thing - this retarded paper-grasp. But a glaring reminder to me of my abnormality.

A bit later Kay leaves for the day. I'm the lone human in the studio, which isn't unusual when I work. The two dogs are there.

A bit later, Daughter texts me pictures she had taken of the longhorns she had encountered the day before on our Grayson Highlands trip. "Here are the longhorn and Yerba pictures, let me know if you'd like the ponies and landscape ones. :) "  I respond that I'd like the others too.

One of the others is a picture of the blue blaze over one of the boulder-scrambles along the Wilburn Ridge Trail. She and Yerba had hiked part way up the trail while I had rested on the bench at the park border. It's been years since I've seen that blue blaze. It's a bitter reminder of when I could hike that trail. But oh the sweet memories...

Some thirty minutes later, now three hours later from when I arrived, I cry heartily. The reality again of my disability. I recognize my hope has waned recently. I tell myself, You're fatigued. Things will look a little brighter when you aren't as fatigued. Maybe in the morning. Weather through. Maybe you need a good cry. You don't cry much anymore.