One day while I was on a Zoom session, James piped in and said, “My Mama doesn’t need her glasses.” It was funny. He was mistaken, but for a good reason: I don’t wear my glasses very often at home.

I have had glasses since second grade, though I refused to wear them for almost a year. My left eye is far worse than my right. On its own, the left one has bad astigmatism, and poor, nearly blind vision. I gave up on contacts long ago, because the left eye contacts would wear out three times faster than the one for the right eye.

With glasses on or off, I don’t really notice the weaker eye. But this spring, my right eye suffered an allergy, and was partly closed. I nearly fell down the stairs one morning due to loss of depth perception. And I had to wear my glasses all the time, because trying to do all the work was straining my left eye.

The last time I had my eyes examined, the optometrist noted my eyes had found an interesting way to work together. Instead of working together overall, one focuses on close things, and one on more distant things.

I wear my glasses for my day job, and to drive. That’s mostly all.

I wish our leaders could work together as well as my eyes do, overcoming differences to find common ground. It’s happened before, in my lifetime, and I think it is possible to surpass partisanship for the greater good.

I hope it can happen again. There are a lot of people needing help right now, and a pandemic that is not nearly done with us. I don’t need perfect vision to see that.