My vision was perfect – better than twenty twenty - until I reached forty-five, but in the last few years, it has degraded quickly. Now, a slim pair of plastic glasses are my only way back into the smaller places, the land of words and little details. I’ve read of folks who’ve gained sight, having lived without, who become surprisingly disturbed by the messiness of it all, the chaos of the world unveiled. It’s easy to imagine scenes more beautiful and orderly than most, and I’ve felt largely at ease, unbothered by the newly inaccessible, but there is also a feeling of helplessness that outweighs the relief of not having to decode what one cannot see, and the indistinguishable bottles in hotel showers have led me to wash my hair with conditioner more often than I’d like.
Thirty years ago, when I still saw quite well, I enrolled in an ancient Greek language class. My professor was a round, young, red-headed Dennis the Menace-looking fellow who got very excited about ancient Greece. He was also a huge Washington Redskins fan who believed American football was the closest thing to phalanx warfare. We read poems by Sappho, plays by Aristophanes, and the Gospel of Paul, which was – who knew? - originally written in Greek. We also read Homer, the blind bard from Ionia, and bits of the Odyssey have stuck with me, particularly one seemingly unremarkable scene, which our teacher presented as an example of Homer’s realism. After a terrible day at sea, having lost many shipmates, the remaining crew set up camp, and cooked dinner expertly. The key is in the final word; Odysseus’ men were experts at boating, fighting, camping, and cooking, so naturally, although they were certainly sad and tired, they also made supper in the fine fashion that was their custom. An odd detail, but very real.
There is comfort in a familiar task done well, and though the world continues to fade from sight, to burn and crumble around us, we needn’t lose our expertise, rather we must cultivate and exercise our skills, and exert a noble agency in the face of great loss and a future unknown. Daniel, for one, has been flexing his technological muscles, and he’s now got nearly all of our selections listed on the Oakland Yard website, with photos and prices, for your perusal. We appreciate you buying blindly for these many months, and we’re really excited to let you see, once again, all that we have to offer.
Cheers,
Max