I have written and shared two little essays about my eyes and I still have more stories to tell. I hate having to write about it this way but no matter how much I run from it, I am always confronted with the dreadful certainty of a life-long eye sickness. In this regard, I am alone and even with the best intentions, I am often misunderstood. There are very few of us with this long procession of eye defects. I have been searching for a community and I have found none.
The writing is killing me, it is corroding the basal joy that all living beings possess. It is making me depressed. I have tried not writing, for months I ignored the clawing at my brainstem begging me to write about it. Even when people read my essays and brave questions, I did not write. I only said the narrative is not complete and it may never be complete.
And the universe punished me for it. A friend had a scare with their eyes, I thought it was my fault because “why did I not share my story and the boatload of medical information I learnt on the way.” I heard about a young man with retinal detachment issues, there was nobody who knew what it was like to talk to him about it. I blamed myself for not writing more about it. For not writing about it well enough.
During the whirlwind of the eye drama, I did not keep a journal, I just texted and called friends to share. Things I could not share, I locked up in my memory. Later I went searching for these memories but they were not enough. There was no context, just isolated events. The memories were leaving faster than I wanted them to. I needed to remember.
I found a few letters I wrote to somebody I have never met, nor seen. We became close enough to share intimate parts of ourselves. These letters were the only places I alluded to my eye problems and also coloured it with context. I was not just the eye surgery patient; I was a verbose and effusive human being thinking about music and poems and anime.
Here is the first instalment.
02, June 2021
My reply to her first letter
Hello M
Your opening paragraph is doing a lot to me. More than I thought it would when I read it first. I have no idea why. I had to leave it for a bit till I was sure I won’t tear up. I love tenderness. I live for [tenderness]. Softness. Vulnerability that won’t compromise your safety.
It’s been a while since I wrote a letter or received one. It’s something that I loved doing. A thing of beauty. Letters hold pieces of ourselves, mirror shards of our images.
This is a lament for innocence or something resembling it. Because all nostalgia is underscored by innocence. That is how we know memory is not a reliable witness to truth. Truth as an absolutism.
Your talk about [your magical experience] brings to mind my favourite poet, Christopher Okigbo, and my favourite poem by him: “Distances.” He said the poem came to him while he was either under (I’m not sure now) or just coming out from anaesthesia. I just had my first experience with anaesthesia few months ago. First procedural anaesthesia and then general anaesthesia for eye surgery. But no poem was revealed to me. Sigh.
FROM FLESH into phantom on the horizontal stone I was the sole witness to my home coming…
Serene lights on the other balcony: redolent fountains bristling with signs -
But what does my divine rejoicing hold? A bowl of incense, a nest of fireflies?
I was the sole witness to my homecoming…
For in the inflorescence of the white chamber, a voice, from very far away, chanted, and the
chamber descanted, the birthday of the earth, paddled me home through some dark
labyrinth, from laughter to the dream.
– Christopher Okigbo. “Distances” 1964.
You were the sole witness to your homecoming. Your experience is something I think I’ll try. Your spiritual awakening. This thing is making me excited and I do not know why
I am happy you don’t hate yourself anymore…
No matter what anybody says or does, it won’t do any good if you hate yourself. Nobody can love you into wholenessm if you don’t decide to do the work. You deserve love. You deserve tenderness. You deserve kindness. More importantly, you deserve dignity. Because you are here. Because you exist. All these things automatically accrue to you. It’s your birth right. And I do care what you have to say. I’m very curious about you, M. I’d very much like to listen to you.
“Every single limitation…” Yes, you said it.
There is no limitation. Nothing.
I can’t wait to come out of this depression and continue with life. Writing this is like putting up a road sign on a desert road, reminding me of hope. Because I told someone the sometime ago that I’ll rather die than be depressed again. Because the last time was hell. It was worse than death. But apart from the thrall of nonexistence, I will not give up for the depression. I may go through dumps but I will beat this thing. I will not die here. I want your freedom. I thirst for it. And I rejoice with you and welcome you to your awakening. May it never wane. May darkness never find you.
My request:
Please write me back before Friday. I will be having surgery on Friday. It’s on my eye so I will not be able to use my phone for a while. Except to receive calls. If you cannot, it’s fine.
Forgive the typos. I don’t see much out of my right eye.
Yours curiously,
Emeka
