When your glasses get scratched you plan for the apocalypse.

A month ago I noticed that the right side of my glasses was scratched. Since the left side was clear and eyes are wonderful and compensated, I ignored the scratch (because of my deep dislike of calling people and making appointments) until the left side started showing problems and now IT IS THE END OF THE WORLD.

To make matters worse, nope, I don’t have backup. I lost my backup glasses in the move, and I don’t have contacts because until fairly recently we didn’t have vision insurance and contacts were just out of reach for us. Believe you me, I am now taking advantage of having vision insurance and getting backup. I’m going in today to see if I can just reorder my old prescription and get the ball rolling (it takes up to TWO WEEKS …. why can’t I just throw money at people and make it come faster? Yes I know how privileged I sound, I am not proud) and will see if I can go in Friday and have my eyes fitted for contacts, so I’ve done what I can to make sure I can see my kids’ faces.

But as anyone who depends on vision correction knows, suddenly not having clear vision is an anxiety-producing event. I once lost my glasses at sailing camp (and now that I think about it I think I had angels there, making sure I didn’t lose consciousness and fall into the water … I’m glad I didn’t think about that as a kid) and due to familial circumstances I went three days (it may have been shorter but my young brain imprinted THREE WHOLE DAYS) without glasses, really not being able to see a thing. It was awful, and I’m not taking the current situation all that well because of that memory.

And it got me thinking … what would I do if we had a cataclysmic event and I no longer had access to glasses? How would that affect my art (let’s forget that in a cataclysmic event art probably won’t be a priority and I won’t have access to materials)? My first thought was to go completely abstract-big, bold paints on huge canvases-but I also could still arm knit, I could draw with the help of a magnifying glass of some sort, and the same goes for bookbinding. So all would not be lost, and that, funnily enough, was a comforting thought. Along with the remembering that my Nook can increase the letters to a size I can read without glasses …. I am finally calming down a bit.

So! After I go in to the office I start my countdown to new glasses, and I get back to work because even in a post-apocalyptic world with no access to glasses Art goes On.