right v left

First, please go vote for my friend CONDUIT over at Nathan Bransford's blog. He's in the running to win a first line contest! Yea! Go Con Go!

I wear glasses. Or, well contacts. Actually, I'm wearing glasses at this very minute, but by the time you read this, I'll probably have my contacts back in. I am not blind without them. I can see to walk around my bedroom, and I could even go downstairs or outside--anywhere familiar.

Except at night. My vision SUCKS at night. With my contacts and astigmatism, when darkness falls I am virtually blind. One eye is completely black; the other is grey. I step on the dog. I stumble over the fan or clothes left on the floor. I have no distance vision at night, especially without correction.

Now I'm losing my hearing, too. This is common in my family. Both my parents are totally deaf (ok, not totally. But you have to SPEAK UP!) We all listen to the TV way too loudly, and I sound exactly like my mother when I watch TV with the husband, who has bat-like hearing and perfect vision. "I can't hear a word!" It's embarrassing, but I keep saying it, damn it!

Too many concerts, too much Ipod, no doubt.

I have more problems with one ear than the other. Oddly, it's the same side as my "bad" eye--the left side. Wonder if this is common. I also wonder if this is an effect of my creativity being back on overdrive in the past four years--and especially lately. Most regular readers know I don't sleep all that much--last night it was 11:30-5. I wake up between 4 and 5 every day with my right brain roaring, full of creative adrenalin. I'm a definite right brain thinker; the husband is a definite left-brainer.

My daughter is amazingly whole-brained. She has logic and math down--she's been adding since she was three, and now she's adding in Spanish. She understands sequences, as in: "When I ride my two-wheeler bike, I'll be able to ride a motorcycle." (Her idea, not ours!) She's also got wonderful spacial memory--which will help in reading and math. She remembers where lost things are, or finds them easily. But she's a creative thinker; her art is magical and brilliant, especially once you hear the story to go with it.

It's just a little disconcerting when your four-year-old brings you her first "perspective" piece.

"Why is the pond so much smaller than the turtle?" I asked her.

"Because it's far away."

I'm not sure if my deadening senses are because of age or because of my right-brainedness, but I do wonder what, if any effect, it will have on my creativity. I've spent the last three years on craft--solid, left brain work. Lately, though, I feel myself sinking inward and rightward. I've been able to tap into my own creativity and direct it like it's a sink sprayer. My craft has become a pot to fill--something to hold and shape my wet, slippery ideas.

It's a cool, cool thing. Interesting to think that perhaps my body is actually shutting out the part of the world that influences my creativity (at least on that side!) so I can focus on my own fountain.