"He saved her life in secret, but his own secrets could destroy them all..."

Here it is, I can't stand to wait any longer.  Ladies and Gentlemen I give you: the cover for GODSPEED

Completely original artwork; layout and photography by artist Paul Brand, and I couldn't be more thrilled. I gave him a description that I had in my head and he saw the same thing and made it real- and went to a great deal of trouble to do it, too, above and beyond the call. Thank you, Paul, you are the best.

The back cover, which I absolutely LOVE, is every bit as gorgeous as the front...but that one you'll have to wait to see a little bit longer ;~)

And here's the blurb that will go on the sales sites. Have to leave some mystery, after all.

Abigail’s young life was saved by the kindness of strangers: Schuyler Algernon, the man who found her collapsed on cold city streets and Quinn Godspeed, the doctor who risked everything by breaking the law to keep her fragile heart beating.

As the truth about what she’s become and her feelings for her savior overtake her, Abigail is forced to ask what constitutes life, living, and what deeply dark secrets are held within Godspeed’s past and the walls of Schuyler’s house.

I truly could not be happier with the covers, and working with Paul was not only fun but it was so easy. I highly recommend him and his work and will continue to do so as GODSPEED is finally released into the world, hopefully by mid May (I'm striving to release it before my next birthday.)

Here's another small taste of what lies within these covers, hope you enjoy. For those who may not have heard me mention it before, GODSPEED is a literary romance with steampunk embellishments.

Now I was jolted by noises I’d not been expecting. First the scratch and bump of displaced furniture as it scraped the floor and toppled over; then the awkward dance of feet stumbling and rushing on before the dull thud of impact as a body met an unstoppable object with incredible force.

I managed to raise just one eyelid open long enough to see the sight that accompanied the racket.

Quinn had taken hold of Schuyler’s lapels and pressed his back up against the nearest wall. Schuyler’s feet actually elevated off of the floor, even though he was several inches taller than the man who pinned him there.

“If you value what remains of our friendship, Schuyler Algernon, I would suggest you be careful of taking that tone with me,” Quinn growled, and dropped him to the ground. Schuyler righted himself and staggered a lurching step forward.

I returned to the darkness beneath my eyelids as I wondered what it was that had come between them in the past, only to resurface now.

Schuyler’s clothing generated a soft, fluttering swish as he attempted to straighten it. The smallest act, I was certain, to try to show that despite Quinn’s anger he remained in control of his own composure. “If I am in any way to be party to this, I had to be sure.”

“Sure of what?”

“That you know what you’re doing this time.”

“This time!” Quinn roared, and again I startled. His rage set my heart to beating faster than even the shocks of energy he’d sent coursing through it earlier. He’d been so calm, so unaffected so far by anything he’d seen before now, to hear such passionate emotion in his voice stirred something deep within me, so much so I could scarcely bear it.

“You are already a party to this! You brought me into it only after you found this girl cold, wet and dying on the street like an unwanted animal. What was I supposed to do, Schuyler? Tell you no? Let her die?”

He bowed his head; I could tell because his voice became muffled. I pictured his hands moving up, coming together and covering over his beautiful, sculpted face. “I do still believe in the Oath. Even if…” his words were barely a whisper now. “Even if there are those who say that I show no regard for it.”

“The Oath.” Schuyler scoffed. “First do no harm. How do you reconcile…”

“Again I ask, is it better to do nothing?” Silence settled between them for a long moment before he continued. “Do you want to bury her in the morning, Schuyler, or are you going to insist I do that, too?” His voice dropped further still and I only made out half of his next sentence, which ended with the words “ … this time.”

Schuyler stopped speaking. He uttered a sound I could not readily assign emotions to, and then I heard him ask a single question more. “What do you need?”

“I need light, I need mirrors, and I need you to stay the hell out of my way.”

Schuyler’s breathing grew shallow and tremulous. I could have sworn from the forced, faltering control in his voice that it sounded as though he might weep. He strode to the door, unlocked it, and paused.  

          “May the angels guide your hands, and may God have mercy on our souls.” 

          “If angels offered protection this girl would be somewhere far better than here,” Quinn replied. “And if God had mercy, He’d save souls like ours from ever facing a day black as this.”

Copywrite February Grace, All Rights Reserved

Time and Energy

Hey all,

I hope your March is winding down nicely. As spring kicks into gear (aaa-choo! the leaves are out here already! I hope that they don't freeze off in the inevitable April snow we always get at least once...) there is a lot on my plate.

First and foremost the physical challenges I deal with every day are always there and always varying from day to day (and are, believe it or not, time and energy consuming). My daughter's move is coming up, there's the idea that we might potentially be moving too later this spring (it's long past time) and waiting on getting Godspeed back from my CE then reading it through again so that I can then hand it off to the amazing friend who is going to format it for me and finally get it out into the world...you get the point.

The next couple of months are going to be busy and stressful for me, and I have to be careful that I don't end up dropping (literally- it's happened before) from overdoing it.

So I am choosing not to add a bit more stress than automatically comes with my life. That involves sitting out some major stuff going on around the blogosphere in the months to come and know what? That's okay. No matter what any one else says, it is completely okay not to participate in a voluntary event.

I have stuff going on- and I have to focus on that stuff. So I am.

It might be that those events are the best possible use of time and energy to market themselves and their books for other folks and I say more power to you- you have to do what works for you. But if it doesn't work for me, that is okay too.

In other news, I will be able to announce soon that my poetry and prose have been selected to be published in a few more places (some have asked me to hold off announcing-- others I'd rather just wait until they come out so as not to bore you all by telling you about it more than that) it's exciting, since I never thought I would find a way to publication (and what an unlikely serendipitous road it was) and each publication is a stone laid on a path I never imagined before, and that is leading me in a different writing direction long-term than I had envisioned. But that's good- because I like it, it makes me happy.

So we'll see how it all goes and I hope you'll enjoy the pieces when they are out.

In the meantime I want to say too that I appreciate you all.  No matter how busy you get in the months ahead I won't lose track of ya'll. I'll still be keeping up on what you're up to.

Each of you brings something unique to the conversations we have here, and I value that.

I am both blessed and cursed by being an INFJ... we have, as Keirsey says, almost a sixth sense about people. We can, and I quote: "Counselors are highly intuitive and can recognize another's emotions or intentions - good or evil - even before that person is aware of them. Counselors themselves can seldom tell how they came to read others' feelings so keenly." -end quote.

So I want to thank those of you who are real--and I believe all of you who have stuck around here are.

Believe me, I can tell, and I love you for it.

Now sorry to cut this short, but I have writing to do, and c'mon, you know it, so do you.

I hope today gives you lots of opportunities to make the most of your time and energy in your own unique way.

xoxo
bru

New Painting

Just posting another small victory ... you see the multitude of medications I take make my hands shake, and so painting has become more difficult in the last six months for reasons completely unrelated to my vision.

Still, I was happy today to be able to sit down and put to canvas a painting I've had in my head for awhile. Third in the series following these two. Remember these?

"And All the Stars Wept With Her"

Swimming the Stars

Well here's the finale, and I am pretty happy with the way she turned out. Funny, without the wings she looks like I picture my female lead from Godspeed in my head...

"Keeper of Starlight"

Usually I am inspired to paint after I write a poem, this one, the poem will follow.

Hope you are all having a very happy Tuesday. Squeeze ever moment of peace and joy you can out of every last second of it.

xoxo

bru

Dashing through for a Monday Hello

I want to say hi to everybody and a thank you to my new followers! Hello there, I hope you'll enjoy your visits here. I will do my best to get by your own webspaces to check them out as I'm able.

Today's post is really just about the in-between time, and what you (or in this case, I) will do with it.

I'm waiting right now, on all fronts in my life.

Not just waiting for my book to be polished and formatted and shined up (my GOD the cover art turned out gorgeous, thanks Paul! I can't wait to show the world).

That is the easiest thing I'm waiting for, to finally be able to publish GODSPEED and send it out into the world to be what it will be and do what it will do. My only expectation is to hold that first copy in my hand.

Beyond that, it will be what it will be.

Creatively there will be lots of poetry and painting between now and when that day of holding it in my hands arrives. I hope. I have a few more poems coming out here and there in that span of time too so hopefully that will be a distraction as well.

See, I'm really mostly waiting for my daughter to move cross country with her 'other' family.

More precisely I am dreading it, and waiting for the one chance I'll have to see her again before she goes. I am, quite frankly, nervous about how that visit will go. I don't want to make any scenes, but I don't know how I'll get through the whole day without crying at least once.

I'm waiting, too, to see if she'll like it there.

I want her to be happy, but I would be lying through my teeth if I didn't admit that some small (BIG small) part of me hoped that she'd change her mind about going and know that we meant it when we said she could come home.

But she won't. I know she won't.

I know all kids leave home. I just hadn't expected her to do it so young. I expected to get another three years. I wanted every single day.

I'm waiting to see how it's going to feel the day I wake up and that distance is really between us.

Though she's put so much distance between us emotionally due to the religious conflicts she feels (not my issue--I love her unconditionally) that she's been far away for a very long time now.

This will be distance of miles measured in thousands, and I know that is going to feel very, very lonely.

I miss her. For a long time, I've missed her.

I'm waiting to see what the future will be for us all. I have huge decisions that will eventually have to be faced and made.

I keep telling myself though what the experts keep telling me: that day is not today.

So even though it hurts, I suppose, today, I am grateful in this moment that I am, still, waiting. Because I'm just not ready for those big things, and maybe the time spent waiting is time in which I can try to learn how to be.

Before I go: new Keane.

Yes I am in love with it and no I don't want to wait until May for the rest of the cd.



Happy Monday, everyone.

Whatever you're waiting for, yourself, I hope it turns out to be all you hoped and dreamed of.

xoxo
bru

National Day of Action Against Violence and Bullying

When I saw a tweet this morning from Jessica Bell leading to her blog post on this subject, in which she discussed how Shari Larson started a bunch of bloggers writing about the issue of bullying, I just had to sit down and write this.

I was unaware that this is a National Day of Action Against Violence and Bullying,and I want you to be aware of that fact, and of just how bad the problem is, and has been, for years.

I for one am sick to death of seeing stories of kids who have been bullied at school, off campus, and sometimes even in their own homes when the harassment continues via cell phone and the internet, and I want to add my voice as a formerly bullied child to give another face to the problem and show that it's been going on for far to long.

Keep in mind, my bullying experiences started more than thirty five years ago. Back then the most we got out of the teachers, principals and parents of the offending children was 'kids will be kids'.

We have got to do so much better than that now.

There is no excuse for it. We know the problem is real and have seen the body count rise as teen after teen (and sometimes, even preteen kids and younger) break under the pressure. As parents we must be aware of how our kids are really doing and if they are the targets of bullies, as well as vigilant intervene against any tendencies in our own kids to bully if the problem is ever going to stop (in my experience, the worst bullies had parents who outright defended or worse encouraged their behavior.)

My own child could never bully anyone- but I have seen others kids and thought of the parents- why aren't you saying something to them?

My first bullying experiences began before I was in school. One particular child, and one particular memory stand out for me, back from when I was a preschooler.

I was playing in my own front yard, minding my own business, and I was nearly strangled by a neighbor boy, as he pinned me down in a culvert.

As I was beginning to pass out, I managed to pick up a rock and hit him on the head with it. Keep in mind this boy was several years older than I was and at least twice my weight. He dropped me into the culvert and ran away.

I went in the house and was too afraid to tell anyone what had happened- maybe too shaken, I don't know.

Then later that night, an angry knock hit our front door: it was the boy's mother, a child psychologist by profession, and she was there to tell my parents that I had assaulted her son. Apparently he had needed a couple stitches to close the gash from the rock- the blow that very likely saved my life.

My parents asked me then and there what really happened and I told them the truth- that I had hit him with the rock because he had "choked me". When the boy reacted by turning red- his mother then dragged him home by his ear- but never once do I remember him being disciplined or apologizing for what he'd done to me. He continued to terrorize me the rest of the time we lived on that street- and I heard years later that when he grew up, he spent some time in jail.

My problems with bullying in school began the first week of kindergarten- when a girl announced she was going to bring a gun to school and shoot me at recess the next day because she 'didn't like my blond hair'.

My Kindergarten photo

I went home this time and told my mother I didn't want to go to school the next day- and why- and when she called the principal he actually laughed- until he heard the girl's name. Turned out her older brothers were all in gangs and well known to the local police- likely she would have had access to a gun. In 1976. How much easier is it for kids to get a hold of firearms and act on those impulses today? I still am not sure what happened after that conversation but I believe that girl was transferred. I don't remember ever seeing her again.

I was religiously persecuted and bullied every day until my mother finally took me out of public school at the age of ten and homeschooled me.

I was spit on, I was physically assaulted, even by the 'safeties' (kids that were supposed to look out for the safety of other students like crossing guards) I had ketchup and mustard squirted all over me, I was called ugly, stupid, and fat by kids I wouldn't let copy my homework. I was bullied by boys and girls alike.

Fourth grade. They called me fat and ugly and I believed it. In fact, on many levels I still do.

Our house was vandalized on more than one occasion with religious slurs, and we lived in a 'good' middle class neighborhoods- it still happened in every one.

To put it bluntly, school was hell for me, and the experiences I had being bullied were not even the worst my family saw. One of my sisters was very nearly sexually assaulted by other students in high school.

My other sister got beaten up and her locker partner too, so badly the girl's nose was broken (both for religious reasons though they were different religions.)

I don't know how I could have taken it if I had continued on into middle and high school, the way that it was. When we told the teachers the response we got was "no one likes a tattletale". Well when someone is beating you up, I think that goes a wee bit beyond tattling to report it.

Enough is enough.

In fact it's too much.

We can't get back the young lives that have been lost already to bullying. Please, let us all as parents and professionals and kids alike try to get to the bottom of these issues and say we're just not going to tolerate bullying.

Not cause a kid is gay. Not cause a kid has special needs. Not cause a kid is this or that or the other thing.

No one deserves to be bullied- and these kids that won't stop doing it must- MUST be held accountable.

As should, in my view, their parents.

bru

The Brave Decision

Hi everybody,

I really want to thank everyone for your feedback and discussion on the last post, here and in emails it truly was immensely helpful.

I have spent a great time reflecting upon it all, and I know for certain now what I am going to do.

As I also want to thank the handful of you who have beta read Godspeed for me so far (and/or are still reading) and given your honest opinion. The feedback is helping a lot and in the end reaffirming what I already believed in my heart:

This is the one.

If I am ever to try to jump into the maelstrom that is indie publishing this is the one to do it with, and so I am. I know I could query it but I fear the toll of the stress would be too great on my health and my family agrees.

Right now I am up to my neck in final revisions before it goes to the professional copy editor (yes, I hired one. I have heard too many horror stories to trust myself.)

The cover art is- well- the concept shots alone make me cry. So that ought to tell you, it's not just going to be good it's going to be gorgeous and there will be much public applause from me to my cover artist after the book is out.

To tell you the truth when I think about doing this I'm still scared outta my mind.

Not so much of the reviews (which I have sworn not to read) because they will be what they will be. I doubt this will be a book people will feel 'meh' about. They will really like it or they will really find it a bore and cast it aside, there will be no two ways about it.

But whatever it is that I am afraid of, at this point I am more afraid of not doing it than doing it.

The beautiful thing is that I have seen people get the story- and when they get it- it touches them and that is what matters to me.

I won't be giving it away (at least not all the time, I do plan to give away e copies for free from time to time) and I am going with Lulu for print despite some folks saying Amazon is better because they have a few policies (and a book size) I like better.

I have someone standing by (a couple someones have offered actually; thank you gentlemen...) to format the whole thing for me so my vision/health issues/chronic exhaustion won't be an issue with figuring all that out.

The dear friend who will be doing it for me has experience with Lulu and so knows the ins and outs of working with them and Amazon too. My cover artist is even taking the time to be sure the art fits the template I want to use (what a guy, I tell you.)

So I'm pretty excited. Nervous, but excited.

This is my baby. This is a book I have put my heart and soul into like no other novel and like few other stories I've written. Since that night when I was up late and in extreme pain and listening to the ticking of my favorite three-faced clock and the idea for a story came to me, I have not been able to forget it for a day. This is a book I simply had to write.

Why do this now, this year? Maybe it's that my prose and poetry finally got published this year (with a few more to be published in the months ahead) that finally told me it was time. Maybe I'm just getting old and know it's past time.

Whatever it is, though, this is the time, this is the book, and I hope that it will find its audience, no matter how small it might be.

I think they're going to be loyal one, once they fall in love with the characters.

So stay tuned: GODSPEED is coming soon: hopeful release date: late Spring/Summer 2012.

Thanks again to everyone for your encouragement.

xoxo
bru

...now what?

NOTE: Apologies to those with readers who get this twice- it is not visible in IE I'm trying to see if republishing the post will fix it. May just be a blogger bug today. Thanks! ~bru 
 -----------------------------------
"May I ask a question please?"

"Of course, my dear. Though I must warn you that I might not always be able to give you an answer, you may always ask."

"At times when I was half awake and half in dreaming in the laboratory, I thought that I heard music. Was it a delusion?"

"It was not. The piano is played on a fairly regular basis."

"By whom?" I wondered if the good Doctor or Schuyler himself possessed any musical ability.

"A friend." Schuyler said, his intentional vagueness a warning to me that now was the time to give up asking any more questions for the day. Still, I could not stop myself from asking one more before I relented.

"One thing more."

Schuyler sighed as he moved onward now, and held the door to the hall open once again.

"If you must."

"Where does Doctor Godspeed live?"

"Inside his head," Schuyler answered simply. Without another word he moved away, forcing me to follow in order to protect the tenuous connection between my body and the box that powered my continued existence.*

---

Godspeed is finished.

Finished, as in I've done all I can do with it until I get it back from a couple readers and the professional copy editor I am in the queue for (and feel so lucky to be! This is money I didn't think twice about spending.)

Two people close to me have read the book so far (so I know their opinions will of course be skewed toward the favorable) but they both came to the same conclusion that I initially did: that this, my third novel MS, is the one to publish.

So I hired the editor and consulted another content editor for advice on the opening pages (some of which I took, some wouldn't work because the editor hadn't seen the whole book or they'd understand why certain things were done a certain way) I'm lucky that a few blogging/twitter/FB buddies have said they'd read it and give me their overall impressions. I'm grateful.

So I've been doing my research. Part of that meant stumbling quite by accident into an #IndieChat discussion last night on Twitter (thanks @lbdiamond! Your tweet alerted me to it!) and asking questions that left me with more questions.

Meantime my husband was looking around online, reading about taxes and Create Space and all of this- and suddenly my throat seized up and I felt like I needed to scramble for my inhaler.

I started wondering if it's worth all this just for the sake of my pride.

Because I can go to Lulu and have copies printed for the few people I know would buy the book if it did go on sale- and then, I thought, I could give the file away.

Yes, I am seriously talking about giving the labors of my blood, sweat, tears, and sleepless nights for almost two years away for free.

You might be screaming NO! Why? Why would you DO THAT?

Simple. I want it to be read.

I want my book to have the chance to be read rather than sit amidst a swirling torrent of self-pubbed books that are out there right now.

Last night an author who was part of #IndieChat said something about how some 80% of indie books sell a hundred copies or less.

Is it worth putting my friends- my family, the people who have offered to help me with the formatting and the paperwork and all that goes with it (since with my multiple disabilities I can't do it myself- if I was that healthy I'd have a day job!) through all the hoops just so I can point to a page on Amazon and say "I'm an indie author?"

Or is choosing to give the book away (and I have ideas on just how that I would do it it'd be ebook format of course I'm not a Trump...) the ultimate in Indie publishing- completely circumventing the system altogether and going straight to the reader?

I never imagined I'd get rich from writing anyway- face it, few do. But I would rather my book be read and have a chance to be loved than just another number on a very long count at Amazon.

What do you think? If you self-published a book, are you glad you did or did it turn out to be more hassle than it was worth? Anonymous commenting is on so you don't have to use your name. Tell me your tales, good and bad. And tell me about the IRS- does Amazon withhold the taxes from sales or do you have to do it out of your percentage? I think that part scares me most of all. Or maybe I could ask each reader to donate fifty cents to any charity. I don't know.

I need more coffee just to contemplate all this.

Looking forward to your input.

~bru

PS if anyone would like a sneak peek at Godspeed and would be willing to give me overall impressions of how you liked the story (or not) please send me an email. I don't want to put anyone on the spot, I know how busy you all are, especially since with my eyesight beta reading for others is something I can't do. But I wouldn't expect in-depth critiques, just overall thoughts if you were willing to share them (remember I hired an editor to fix my punctuation mistakes it's in the works LOL)

*excerpt from The Clockwork Heart of Doctor Quinn Godspeed © February Grace All Rights Reserved

Losing The Light Part Three: One Year Since...

It's nearly one year since my last (and, I hope, FINAL) eye surgery...and I'm thinking back over it all; what the last several years have meant for me, my vision, and my view of my life and the world.

Since most of you are coming in on this movie late (grab a seat in my row, I saved you some popcorn...) you may want to read Parts One and Two, which I wrote when this blog was new, to get the full story. Or not.

For those who don't want to or don't have the time here's the short version: I was born with a genetic condition that the experts cannot quite pin down to one side or the other between two well-known conditions: Marfan and Ehlers-Danlos. So they call it 'diffuse connective disorder unspecified' and I call it 'being a Muppet in the human world' because they cannot do things to me medically they can do to other people and expect it to turn out at all the same way, or anywhere near the right way.

Just ask the many surgeons who shudder at the sound of my name- not because they dislike me personally but because my body set them back, and I quote, "A hundred and fifty years" as far as what they can do to help me. So when this genetic condition destroyed much of the interior workings of my eyes, well, there was only so much they could do.

When I wrote Losing the Light parts one and two I had no idea there would be a need for part three- or maybe I should call it 'looking back on surgery number six'.

But there is a need- because the truth is that by February of last year, even after all the surgeries in 09-10, I was back to blind. And it was driving me crazy.

It wasn't total darkness blind. No, it was a bright, angry, burning, painful blind- and though the problem was in the right eye only this time the brain is a tricky thing- and I saw that inescapable, summer-bright windshield glare (the only thing I can compare it to- it actually hurt) in both eyes. Dead in the center of my vision and obscuring everything. Sound crazy? I thought it did. My doctors just said "The brain is a funny thing, bru." I was forced to close my eyes to seek at least the cool blackness that total blindness offered- to escape the pain as much as possible.

The question was what to do. They were running out of parts of my eye to remove, to put it bluntly. But there was one or two last things they could try, so we planned for them. And I had to really gut up because I knew that again I would only be lightly sedated- and would be fully aware what was going on. Like I was for four of the previous five operations, I would be aware of all going on- and going wrong.

It is a very bad thing when your surgeon makes the first incision in your eye and, without thinking, blurts out a single profane word.

That sixth surgery, which they estimated should take thirty minutes or so (I kinda hoped they'd have pizza and pop waiting at the end) ended up taking a  hundred and ten minutes and I was aware of every goddamned one of them.  Worse, I was in pain for all but about five of them.

I managed to make enough noise (just sedated enough I couldn't speak) and they realized I was feeling it but after a point there was no more they could do to help it, they just had to finish. I felt bad for the surgeons and the nurses, I think it was as hard on them as it was me.

In the end, the moment they unstrapped me from the table I started shaking so hard I almost fell off of it. They asked me if I was cold, and sweet nurses brought me heated blankets.

I wasn't cold.

I was scared to death, in retrospect.

I found out later I wasn't the only one who had been afraid- my surgeon, who is one of THE names in his field in the country- was scared too and almost left the operation half done for fear of my losing the eye entirely.

I did not know this until the post-op appointment. He said that the resident observing the surgery, whom I had spoken to before I was sedated and asked only to observe (I know it's a teaching hospital and all but my surgeon agreed, my eyes are way too weird for people to learn on) spoke with him privately a moment when the doctor was considering stopping, and said that he was sure, having spoken to me, that I would want them to see it through, no matter the outcome.  Because then at least they would have tried everything they could to save my sight.

And he was right. And I was so grateful that he not only spoke up but that my surgeon did see it through despite the risk. 

It is because of that, that I am able to sit here with my big ol' font blown up sky high and type this to you now.

But to answer the question for the curious- as I was recently asked a question that gave me pause- I am still only partially sighted, and without special (aphakia) glasses will always be legally blind. Even with them, from many angles I am still legally blind (if I try to look above, below, or to the side of the lenses, for one thing. Makes travel and shopping and things a real challenge.)

I, like your average possum, am completely blind in broad daylight. With ultra dark wrap-around glasses the likes of which you rarely see outside the Senior Centers or Boca, I can see a teensy bit in the daylight.

My sight works to a very limited degree under a very limited set of circumstances. And it seems like my other senses have not picked up the slack, maybe because some sight remains. Combine this with the numbness and post-stroke balance defecits and I fall a lot. 

A lot.

I have to be watched in parking lots (I don't see cars coming from the sides)... too many little things to try to explain it all.

Yet, as you know if you wear glasses, you cannot always leave them on; so there are many times throughout the day when I am reminded just how blind I still am. Without lenses in your eyes, you can't focus. Period.

With the big honkin' glasses I have limited use of my ability to read (always painful, and taxing on my eyes at best) yet I can't write by dictation, it's just not the way my brain rolls. Just like I have never been able to read sheet music (have tried to learn many times) but can play music, just like I see colors when I hear music- my brain is wired differently.

Recently I was asked how I paint with such bad vision.

The answer is 'as best I can', with +15 reading glasses and my face close to the canvas. I can also only see from certain angles and my vision is always moving (iridodonesis) like earthquake footage so believe me, it is a challenge.  Some of my paintings have crooked buildings from skewed perspective and what I do is never technically accurate anyway (and likely wouldn't be if I weren't partially sighted.) but the work is mine, and it's something I love and am grateful to be able to do. I'm just glad I can, when I can (which is not all the time. Painting, like reading, is hard on my eyes.)

my latest, Windows to the Soul multimedia on glass. You can see much more of my artwork by clicking the "slapping paint at unsuspecting canvas" link on the sidebar.

So in closing, let me just say that as the anniversary of my sixth (and again, hopefully final) eye surgery approaches, I am grateful, to my doctors, to the friends and immediate family that saw me through it all, and for the fact that even though when I first open my eyes in the morning all I can see is light, color and motion, that when I first open my eyes in the morning I can see light, color and motion.

~bru