Reflections
Wistful and Wishful
More than one letter divides these yearnings
From a pure orthographic point of view, wishful and wistful are differentiated by only two consonants, but in my reflections are worlds apart. As blindness conceals the world around me, I experience brief moments where these two feelings coexist; at some points they follow in rapid succession. While wishful connotes a hopeful forward-looking attitude, wistful presents a more sad, nostalgic, or backward-looking outlook.
To me, wistfulness pertains more to a past event I feel melancholy, regret, or angst over, such as something which has failed or is out of reach. In contrast, wishfulness relates more to a future longing as I proceed through my life’s journey. Wistful states bring more pain, while the wishful moments allow more positivity and hope, while keeping me grounded in the present.
Staying in a wistful mode keeps you stuck in the past and does not help you change and move on to forgiveness. I prefer landing more on a wishful stance than a wistful one, as it contains more forward moving momentum. In my thirties and forties, working 32 hours a week, parenting two daughters, and completing a myriad of domestic tasks, did not give me any time to be wishful. Now, even in writing my memoir, I construct my life in review.
One of the major moments I have had where I am still wistful, is not being able to see my reflection in the mirror. When my silhouette disappeared two years ago, shock and sadness invaded me. Touching my hands together or outlining my body contours became the only ways to keep me grounded.
Standing in front of the mirror, I support and soothe myself with an internal dialogue which runs like this: I stand, I breathe, I feel, I brush, I cleanse and moisturize, I floss, I gargle, I shampoo and shower, I imagine, therefore I am!
As I move away from my meditative stance at the mirror, I move fifteen steps to my walk-in closet and face a myriad of choices. Since I have a visual memory of my husband’s clothes to the right, and mine in the center and to the left, I move into making the next decision about what to wear for the day. The easiest solution is to choose my usual outfit that hangs on the back of a poster chair: a dark cotton skirt and knitted blouse. I grab these items almost mindlessly each day before I head out to the swim club.
My husband laughs at my ability to accept this uniformity instead of choosing new clothing items each day. I realize that it keeps my decisions simple. In some ways the fact that I cannot see the clothing combo falsely adds to the belief that I am invisible. If I had the joy of seeing every item, I would yearn for differences, but because I cannot see them, I languish in sameness.
Dressing up for a special occasion, lunch or dinner out, a movie or time with friends, I allow myself more choices than the mere uniform. My husband’s eyes assist me to locate the garment and color choices that I choose depending on the weather and formality. Additionally, I want to purchase a color identifier for the visually impaired so that I exert more autonomy in my color choices.
Thankfully, the five-drawer wooden chest underneath my hanging blouses is a repository of many things. My intimate clothing and socks in the first drawer, followed by nightgowns and slips in the second, purses in the third, and swimwear in the fourth. Since I have the top of the chest, my husband puts his socks and garments in the bottom drawer. Creating order and uniformity has facilitated ease in locating items and keeping wistfulness about what I used to see in the closet at bay.
Another area of loss that I have experienced, where sadly wistfulness exceeds wishfulness, is when traveling in a car with my husband, who whether we are going near or far, must assume the tour guide role and describe scenery or events around me because all I see is a white background, much like at a cinema where the movie screen is white before the images are projected.
After more than 40 years behind the wheel, in 2008 I stopped driving, thus losing my independence and agency for deciding where I wanted to go and what I wanted to do. Intermittent wistfulness greeted me every time I now entered the car as a passenger only. My ability to drive influenced my sense of usefulness that I then had to find elsewhere. The wistfulness has had to create wishfulness, hoping that I will continue to have competent drivers, amicable conversations, and engaging background music from the radio to accompany me on my passenger travels.
I prefer to travel at nighttime since I can perceive some white glimmer or red taillights of cars ahead. The pervasiveness of darkness brings me a sense of peace, as long as I am in the company of a clear-visioned and competent driver!
My current wishful hopes, desires, and dreams are quite simple, yet not within my absolute control. Although I wish for my family and people that I love to experience minimal pain, health concerns, or disabilities, I believe that my primary role is to maintain clear, supportive, and mindful communication with them.
Presently my wishfulness includes hope for maintaining enough cognitive health that I can stay abreast of current events, stormy as they currently appear within the US and abroad. I hope that I continue to swim four days a week, see family and friends at least weekly, host a beloved book club of fifteen women at my home, and maintain an inner life and hope that light prevails.
If light perception leaves me in my right eye, I hope that I maintain my strength and that my friends and family will help me to deal with total darkness. Admittedly I do not know how living in the dark inspires wishfulness, but I guess I will cross that bridge only when compelled to.
Entry into my seventies brings with it a plethora of frailties in others whom I love, that I did not anticipate. One family member currently struggles with stage four lung cancer, and since she lives out of state, consistent contact proves more difficult. Two other women, one 94 and the other 87, have each fractured their hips within the last six months and have brought with their injuries a personal wrestling match to me — what can I give and what is outside my control?
For my 94-year-old stepmother, I contend her injured state, intense pain, and imminent task of letting go. I can do little for this woman other than carefully orchestrate a phone call to her daughter, who then in turn places the phone to her mother’s ear so we can talk for a few minutes.
I wish for more personal contact than this, but accept the limitations that I cannot ask my husband to drive me the 120 miles to her skilled nursing home. I find contentment with making peace with what I am powerless to change, and those small steps which I can take to facilitate contact. Now, I focus instead on the last forty years of my relationship with this maternal figure, always showing my appreciation to and for her.
For my 87-year-old friend and nursing comrade, my role is simpler and more obtainable. She lives with her 90-year-old husband in our community and has two wonderful daughters, one local and one in Texas. My husband and I write weekly phone texts, prepare meals, and visit them in their home despite my friend’s low energy level.
Upon a recent visit, our friends termed us as “VIPs” within their network, since they do not often invite others into their home. With such dear friends in need, we feel fortunate to help and to have them in our lives. Vision or not, the requirements of being a friend universally extend beyond what I can see, into what is in my heart and soul.
Four days a week, I engage in 45-minute swim sessions that assist me in feeling limber, strong, and social, especially as I swim adjacent to my husband, Ted. I feel clarity and gratitude for the 83-degree swim pool, followed by the 103-degree jacuzzi, where I connect with many tubbing friends. I believe that the swim-jacuzzi duo brings me one of the highlights of my days because it keeps me connected to others. In a real way, these activities keep loneliness and despair at bay.
Completion of my laundry tasks occurs several times a week and brings me face to face with the wishful/wistful duo. As I attempt to remove wet laundry from the washer’s tub, my shrinking height (from 5’3” to 5’1”) reminds me of the greater heights of my past. Now, I stand on my tiptoes and exert my calf muscles to retrieve all straggling wet items. As I nostalgically remember my tallest height where retrieving laundry did not represent such a Herculean task, now I settle for the “it is what it is” version.
Rather than remaining stuck in what used to be, I choose to remain wishful or hopeful that my days of completing laundry are not hindered by further disability, since laundry brings me such a sense of joy. My height luckily does not prevent me from moving clothes from washer to dryer, although sometimes wet clothes land on the floor, and I locate them with my slippered feet.
This loss of height also follows me around the kitchen, and I cannot reach anything beyond the second shelf, where I used to be able to reach up to the third. Each day I encounter food that is incognito. Whether we dine in a restaurant, at a friend’s, or just within our home setting, I wish for a more complete picture of what is in front of me.
I usually rely on my husband or daughters to orient me to the foods available or what is on my plate, using the face on a clock to specify the exact location, i.e. whether an item is at 12, 3, 6, or 9 o’clock. My husband often cuts my pieces of meat, especially those with bones, so that I end up with more in my mouth than on my lap or the table.
I have further adapted to blind eating by using salad forks or soup spoons to more deftly navigate from plate to mouth. I am grateful to have a memory bank full of food images in my life so that once the nature of a food item is mentioned, I can conjure up what it looks like. Some of my favorite food items are also some of the simplest: meatloaf, ground beef patties with parsley and onions, many versions of baked chicken, or a daily green salad topped with protein of fish, eggs, or cheese.
For much of my food prep, I maintain sous chef capabilities: I wash, peel, and cut fruits and veggies necessary for a given menu item. Recently, two of my favorite culinary contributions have been a 10-item variety fruit salad for a family event, and a German influenced Yukon Gold potato salad, with mustard, vinegar, olive oil, and Italian seasoning for the dressing, rather than that old-time mayonnaise version.
I love the inner glow I feel from both the cooking process and all diners being sated. Food prep and cooking also represent amicable time with my husband as co-chef. These culinary achievements allow me to transcend wistfulness into gratitude.
Each day as I live up to my nickname of “Chatty Kathy,” I seek out the electrical outlets for my iPhone which must be recharged after long use, as it screams, “Charge me up!” As charging cord meets outlet, my hands brush against myriad objects littering the desk — pens, post-its, a water bottle, and Spanish books — all belonging to Ted. I quell my interior mutterings which say, “You don’t belong here,” to be grateful that I don’t have to manage all these items alone. He always consults with and/or waits for my approval about joint decision-making ventures.
Nostalgia suffuses me because a few years ago, I occupied the desk with letters to write, bills to pay, or computer business to attend to. I wistfully remember those days when I possessed more executive function as a sighted person and could pay bills, read the mail, or wrap a gift. Instead, I relinquish this “official space” to my husband, Ted, for his financial use, household tasks, and other recreational tasks, like his review of Spanish vocabulary, Spanish reading, or his daily crossword puzzles.
Although I can take a seat at the desk, I now find minimal reason to sit there. I replace resentment for the losses with gratitude that my husband accomplishes these tasks with such fluency, albeit at times voicing his frustrations over the sheer volume of what he must do, or the growing inefficiency of institutions such as banking or healthcare.
Ted’s being is so solid that he only requires the mere presence of others in his life without a constant outpouring of verbal or psychological support. As I see Ted poring over the computer, bills, emails, and news, I spontaneously offer him a cervical area neck rub to decrease his tension. This reminds me of my nursing school days circa 1970, when I offered my patients a neck rub or back massage as they readied for sleep. He inhales with satisfaction and that is all I need to know that I have made a difference.
Reading a book, magazine, or newspaper represents joy to me and is a coveted leisure activity. However, since 2010 I can no longer read large print text. I circumvented this loss to my great surprise, with the utilization of the National Library Service (NLS), and/or Audible for my reading pleasure. Currently, I read at least one book per week, and have enjoyed a fifteen-member book club within my home for fourteen years. Although I do not find many perks for my blindness, the audio versions of literature provide one that is irreplaceable and valuable.
The work required of me as a reader is much less intense than those sighted readers who must diligently scroll from one sentence to the next, even through a 700-page book. In contrast, in my audience of one, I become a front seat participant with such narrators such as the famed Tom Hanks, Meryl Streep, or Trevor Noah. On NLS, my favorite narrator is Martha Harmon Pardee, who has gifted her audiences with more than 3,100 narrations over her years with them.
A huge area where wishful and wistful coexist is within the arena of social gatherings of both friends and family within my home or theirs. Now I must content myself with the vibes of their company rather than a previous whole picture, which included facial expressions, or physical attributes. Instead of seeing the total picture of those I converse, eat, and laugh with, I now relish a more diminished sensory connection where aural connections must suffice.
Most of all, I am grateful that family and friends of all ages continue to light up my life. I wish I could play a more active role running or playing hide and seek with those eight and under, but now I adapt by singing songs, placing them on my lap and singing “Row, Row, Row Your Boat,” or imagining them running, playing, or cavorting in their yard. An essential part of enjoying interactions with these small people comes from their parents or my family providing editorial comments or verbal descriptors.
I love that I have taught, especially my husband and my daughters, what I need to fully participate with play in the background — to hear descriptors of what they are doing, and then I can imagine how they are doing it. From the earliest ages of around two years, my family and I provide information that Aunt Kathy has “eyes but they don’t work” and teach them how to make necessary adjustments for me, like “come close,” “let me feel what you are playing with,” or even by age eight, including my nephews in bringing snacks or drinks to me as I sit outside.
There are times, however, where I feel an invisibility encroaching on me as the children revert to watching TV, playing hide and seek, or car and truck games outside. I recognize in these times that the choice is mine — whether to stay submerged in self-pity or moroseness, or just be grateful for the sounds, tactile sensations, or tastes around me.
One area that vision loss has not obstructed is my ability to look inward, even though I don’t meditate per say, I enjoy regular periods of vegging out where I review the day’s events, a poignant interaction with friends and family, or philosophical journeys like those Will Kabat-Zinn goes on in “Wherever You Go, There You Are.”
I strive to never lose my wishful state with myself or others while minimizing wistful ruminations. I aim to minimize wistful preoccupations, and instead magnify my wishful dreams. Although stars have been out of my view for at least twenty years, I maintain a vibrant sense of wishing upon a star in my soul.
