We are very much the same …
Part 1: In the Hotel
Peter closed the door carefully and without noise after having pushed the small trolley with his personal belongings into his hotel room on the sixth floor. It was not the first time, that he came here, he always booked this hotel on the last evening of his frequent business travels to the UK.
This was a nice place, old fashioned, the furniture and the carpets had not been renovated for twenty years, but the staff was extremely friendly. The majority of the guests were English people in their sixties or seventies, still preferred staying some days at the coast of Kent to a flight to Mallorca. There was a Bingo evening twice a week, and dance evening on Friday night.
There was the fresh air from the sea, the birds screeking. He remembered a nice seafood bar just opposite the hotel’s car park.
It was not early, Peter had left this month’s customer, a reasearch unit in a University Hospital in the British Midlands, and he had been driving all afternoon and the early evening on the M1, on the motorway ring avoiding London, then the Dartford crossing of the Thames river, and eventually the M20 motorway down to Folkestone (for those who are not familiar with England’s southern coast or with Kent – Folkestone used to be a port at the British Channel) and there he was now, at nearly ten in the evening.
He would have a nice refreshing sleep, a British breakfast in the hotel lounge, where everybody was on vacation, and where he usually was by far the youngest guest. And then he would leave for the A20/M20 to Dover, and he would have his trip through Flandres – Northern France, Belgium, and eventually the Netherlands. It was early in June, and well equipped with camera, binoculars and mineral water, he would enjoy the ferry crossing of the British Channel and the rest of his business trip as if he was travelling during his summer vacation.
He had unpacked his small trolley, had taken a new shirt, new trousers and a blazer out of the trolley and changed everything that he had worn during today’s trip from Birmingham to Kent.
He had taken showers, he had been freshly shaved, he looked into the mirror and now he was going to put two +8.00 contact lenses into each of his eyes.
Peter had still had not reached the age of thirty and had quite a healthy vision, with no glasses or contacts needed, not for distance, and still not for reading or near distance work. But he had always dreamt of being nearsighted, like his aunt and his cousin had been, and so many people around.
And now, after having put those two tiny little pieces into his eyes, he was strongly nearsighted, ‘blind as a bat’ as his preferred cousin, this aunt’s daughter and his playmate for many happy days during their childhood, and so beautifully nearsighted as her mother was, used to say. If everything went right, tomorrow would be another nice adventure and some new experience.
For this adventure, Peter was now substantially nearsighted, at a rate of approximately minus eight diopters. Eight diopters, you know what that means to you? Everything further than at a finger’s length is blurry! Not many people are nearsighted like that! Some are nearsighted with two, three or even four diopters, but he was nearsighted at eight diopters! In school, only one of the boys was nearsighted at a similar rate, at -7.50 on both eyes, Roger, one of his best friends. And in the university, one of his acquaintances wore – 10.00. But contact lenses with + 10.00 were much more expensive, and they didn’t come as disposables.
But Peter needed disposables for certain situations, as recently, when he met his neighbour travelling in the same Intercity train as Peter. Then Peter would take his -8.00 glasses off and put them in his pocket, and the lenses, the contact lenses he would take out (one of them at least), hiding them between the fingers, chewing like a chewing gum and eventually swallow them during the conversation that had developed during the train travel.
WITHOUT A FINAL REVISION AND CHECKUP …. Parts 2, 3: Part 2:
Well, Peter went through the hotel room, very nearsighted now, and this was part of the game. He was standing by the window in his sixth floor hotel room, a nearsighted young man without his glasses. His eyes were unable to paint more for him than an idea of the panorama that could be seen from here. The scene was more or less like an impressionist painting in a museum on a december afternoon, when the lights still were switched off. Turning to the inner room, the TV screen left to him the impression of a ‘Pizza Quattre Stagione’, with too much cheese melted on it – he didn’t like neither cheese nor pizza. And the picture out of the window gave him the impression of a blue dome above, a dark blue surface below, and a dark brown mass with some small flashing lights at the left. And below, this must be the street in front of the hotel, he saw nothing more than a long white box or container, some tiny shadows moving around, he could hear voices shouting. He knew, what all this was supposed to be
He cautiously moved over where he had left his luggage trolley, he found a small box, and there they were – his new black ‘Wayfarers’. Slowly they found their way onto his face, Peter had firmly closed his eyes, and now hesitatingly, not to end too abruptly the blur of his now very nearsighted eyes, as opening the eyes on Christmas eve or as a child for a birthday surprise, he carefully opened his eyes …
And there, it was such a great moment, Peter compared this to the sliding open of the scene curtain in the opera, there it was – the great feeling, the clear and sharp imaging of the scene: the sky with stars and moon, the sea with the flashing lights in the port and on the boats, and on the left the hills of the city, the pub in Harbour Street, not far away. Below, the white box, of course, was a coach, with foreign tourists alighting and forming a queue for the luggage handout by the driver. And now, turning to the mirror, he saw himself, a young man with glasses,
Now Peter was very impatient to go downstairs, a last look into the mirror, and out of the door and into the elevator. He went to the small van on the hotel yard, opened the sliding door and put his bicycle on the ground. He always took this bike with him, it was so nice for small excursion on an unknown beach, or in a mountaineous scottish town by the sea, or in places with huge pedestrian zones. He was fine, he could see very well with these new glasses, that had just arrived at the morning of his departure. When Peter was in a hurry for keeping deadlines, and for keeping up with his schedule, he was unable to fiddle around with lenses and glasses, and he was not sure, if he could cope with all that in contact with his customers. All this was difficult enough for him, he said to himself, negotiating in a foreign language, in a foreign culture, with customers or business partners he had never seen before, these things required full concentration. But now the job had been done, it was wednesday evening, thursday he would be on the road, and friday officially the company offices closed at 2 p.m.. In his company business travellers were supposed by their superiors not to disturb the peace of the long summer weekend to come and so Peter would not show up in the office, just ring them up, this had always been o.k.
Peter had left the hotel yard with his bicycle, and he was pedalling nearly a mile, Marine Parade First, then Road of Remembrance, The Leas, a hill called Cheriton Place, to arrive at Superstore of the Sainsbury Group. Before he had entered the superstore, Peter had noticed a dark blue Twingo with left hand steering from his country. Here, in England, all cars had a right hand drive, because vehicles were always travelling on the left side lanes of the street. Curiously looking at the small car, he noticed a sticker from his home town, the registration plates from his country, and a funny comics sticker with a bespectacled girl on it saying „Glasses are cool“.
He went along, looking at all those things, that were in the same moment equal and different to the things, he could buy at home. He decided to buy a small household appliance, that was so nice in design and functionality, of a brand that was not sold outside the U.K. Now thirty or fourty minutes after leaving the hotel, he had forgotten, how poor his vision was without glasses, he had even forgotten, that he was wearing glasses, he just felt superfine.
Peter noticed, that a girl in the queue in front of the cahier’s desk wore a substantial prescription around minus ten or even minus twelve. He was far behind her in the queue, but he had an impression, that she was curiously looking at him, and he started his best smiling. Bareeyed, she might not have given him the same attention as she had done, Peter thought for himself. Nothing more happened, and the unknown beauty went away, long before it was his turn to pay and checkout.
When Peter came out into the street to unlock his bicycle, the Twingo had obviously left the place. „Glasses are cool“ - this car, and the girl would fit very well together. Peter took his glasses off to clean them in the warm summer evening (how nice it was to be nearsighted), before he went back to the hotel. He locked his bicycle, entered, greeted and was greeted by the young people at the reception desk and went up to his room.
He decided, that this night, he would not give up being a myopic young man. He had experienced no problems with his contact lenses, and so he would not take them out of his eyes this night. The next morning, he would awake as a nearsighted person. During his sleep, he would forget the whole thing, he would awake and see the world in a blur, only to remember very slowly, that he could be helped by his beautiful new Minus-Eight-Wayfarers!
He had reached his room now, and there he went. Crossing the room, then to the window above the harbour, glasses up, glasses down, glasses up, glasses down, and then … tomorrow … glasses all the day long! Breakfast in the hotel lounge with glasses, hotel checkout with glasses, driving to Dover Ferry Port with glasses, on the ferry with glasses, on the road …. glasses …, France … glasses.
Peter was tired now from a long day, and there was no real barrier between day dreams and night dreams until the next morning.
Part 3
In a room at the seaside towards the North Sea on the continent, you always see the sun go down over the sea. Here, at England’s Channel coast, you see the sunrise in the morning, that is a nice start into the day. Peter just could not refuse to get out of his bed. His contacts were still in the eyes, there were no problems he was used to this from earlier nights he had already spent with lenses in the eyes. As if this never had been different, he took his glasses, slowly however, still enjoying his nearsighted vision. He went into the bathroom, prepared himself for the day as usual, packed his personal belongings and went downstairs. He locked his small luggage trolley in the car, and went for the breakfast in the hotel lounge. As table mates he had an elder couple from Manchester. Elder British people are always so nice and friendly with visitors from the continent, no, British people of all ages are nice and friendly with continental people. But when you are talking with elder Britons about the times, when they grew up, you will recognize, that the differences between life, society and behaviour in Britain and on the continent were bigger than they are nowadays in the age of omnipresent TV reporting, smartphone telecommunication and global fashion brands.
Peter said good bye to his new acquaintances, checked out and took the road out of Folkestone, first uphill through the streets of the town, then on the A20 to Dover, the last miles on the left lanes before continental driving on the right side lanes would begin. It was eight in the morning, he might have to wait for the next ferry between some minutes and one or two hours, and there would be an hour lost due to the timeshift between England and France. Peter was happy, that he always could book on the ferry boats. He thought, that a 90 minutes boat ride on an early summer morning is much nicer than to be shot through a dark tunnel below the sea. After a short ride, he arrived at the last downhill gradient of the A20 and eventually at Dover Harbour. The inspection of the car was much easier at Dover (this year, there were so many people trying to enter the UK, so that very strict UK boarder controls took place now in the port of Calais, for the England-bound ferries).
He got the ticket for himself and for the car, and his place for awaiting the embarkment was lane 191.
Peter always brought scientific equipment to the UK. Typically these were appliances, not very heavy, but they had to be protected against shocks, against extreme temperatures and against humidity. Some of them had price-tags right over 100.000 Euros or Dollars or Pound Sterling or whatever your currency might be. These were the reasons, why those items were never sent by airfreight, and Peter and his collegues were not really unhappy about these company regulations, they opened them a lot of nice travel opportunities. At this trip, there was too much load for the car he usually used, and so he had travelled with a ‘Vito’. This car was not an ordinary van for deliveries, usually it was a luxery minibus with 8 places, with aircondition, alloy rims, navigation and trip computers, a superengine, superperformance and very nice ont the road, and they used it, when they had delegations from abroad, as an Airport shuttle, for excursions or for evenings out. To make room for the equipment transported, three back seats had been taken out, and there was a big luggage/freight department in the back of the car now.
There was still an hour to wait until departure. Peter went to the WHSmith shop and bookstore and bought the last edition of ‘Amateur Photographer’ and a small London Routemaster as a money bank for his little niece. Then came the announcement, that drivers and passengers for the 9.30 departure to Calais should join their vehicles.
Now, what about his glasses? Peter had totally forgotten about it, and only, when he passed by the mirror during a last visit to the mens’ cabinet, it was a real surprise for him, that he saw himself wearing glasses, but he liked it. Yes, everything was slightly smaller, but not as much, that he would be irritated by that difference.
The queuing for the 09.30 departure started with lanes 179 to 185, full with passenger cars. Lanes 186 to 190 were filled with trucks, half of them with goods from the UK or Ireland to the continent, and the others from countries of the continent. Many of them were from logistics companies in Germany, the Netherlands, Belgium or France, but the trucks and trailers had registration plates form Poland, Romania or Bulgaria, and the drivers were from these countries as well. Everybody knew, that low taxes and wages, lower in these countries than in the traditional EU countries, attracted business activities. Most of the trucks were new, they had bright colours, looked indeed very good – a certain beauty of technologies. Dover Harbour on a summer morning was a huge parking space, that could not be seen in many places.
Peters Vito was the third vehicle in lane 191, together with vans, cars with caravans, mobil homes and a small van transporting two ponies. Lane 192 and 193 were still kept empty, and lane 194 was obviously a lane for more passenger cars, two or three limousines were just arriving.
The drivers in lane 191 had just started their engines and so did Peter, when in his back mirror he saw two small cars approaching, a Mini and a Twingo, and they drove up behind the limousines in lane 194. Peter turned his head, and there she was, the girl, the pretty glasses lady from Sainsbury’s the evening before, and now she had a certain smile on her lips as well. She was just driving the Twingo he had seen in front of the shop.
Peter was looking forward to the trip on the ferry – this girl on his ferry! Such ferries are very much like small villages, everybody is nice with everybody, and nobody would refuse a friendly conversation. If somebody wants to go more in depth, this has to be decided, but a nice conversation, I feel, that is always possible and within the rules of the game. It’s a bit like in the Bible: your speech should be yeah, yeah, no, no, if it is more, it’s no good.
As he was half dreaming and half preparing for the unavoidable encounter on the ferry, a steward, member of the ferry’s crew or of the Port Authority came over to lane 194. They needed every bit of space on the boats, as this would be a very busy day, with so many vehicles in the waiting areas early in the morning. The man came over and directed the two small cars, the Mini and the Twingo, to the ‘Spirit of Canterbury’, the boat scheduled for the 8.45 departure, and then, the ferry’s tailgate was closed.
„Oh no!“ exclaimed Peter, and took his glasses off, for the first time since he had left the hotel.
AGAIN – without check-up and quality control
Part 4:
Five minutes later, the embarkment took its way. He went on a deck with trucks, but vans and mini busses were arranged to fill small spaces, where a truck and trailer could not move in. Peter, with some experience from nearly twenty Channel crossings during the last two years, had some small hand luggage prepared, and he went upstairs, as every passenger and every driver was supposed to leave the car decks during the passage. It was a bright sunny morning in June, but during the Channel crossings it never had been as warm as the day before on the motorways in the South of England. It had always been windy on the Channel, and if the air happened to be calm for more than some moments, there were at least turbulences caused by the travelling of the ship, whenever passengers went out on deck, the speed of the ferry was an estimated 20 mph.
Peter had arrived on deck 8 of the ship now, and he started cleaning his glasses. For Peter, bareeyed in this moment, the counter for tickets and currency exchange, the coffee bar, the duty free shop, the restaurant, the stairs leading to the other decks, all joined together into a colourful minus eight myopia impressionist painting, and he squinted towards the sun in the panorama windows of the corridor.
Glasses, what an outstanding invention in the history of technologies. We all know about Graham Bell as the inventor of the telephone, or Daimler as the constructor of the first passenger cars, the brothers Wright, as the first people to fly a plane. Men remembered the first step on the moon, or Bill Gates and Tim Berners-Lee as pioneers of personal computers and the Internet, but who are the names linked with glasses? Glasses are so important for today’s mankind, Peter thought for himself, more than half of the population are dependent on glasses now, everybody who has got a somewhat imperfect vision, relies on lenses and glasses, sometimes weak lenses, and sometimes strong lenses. And then he put his glasses, and he came from blurry sight to clear sight (from minus eight to perfect vision), but not only his eyes had a clear vision now, in his mind appeared the image of that unknown beauty, he had first seen in the superstore the evening before, and who had embarked on the ferry to Calais, that was about an hour ahead of this ferry.
In Calais, he would not loose too much time. On the last trip, he had spent two hours at the beach near Calais, on a trip before he had visited the city centre of Calais with the town hall. He had taken photographs of the group ‘Les Bourgeois de Calais – The citizens of Calais’ by the sculptor Auguste Rodin in the open park surrounding the town hall, but that day had been a rainy day in March. The year before, he happened to arrive in the Pas-de-Calais (the province of Calais) on May the 8th. May the 8th 2015 – there were war veterans on visit from the UK and from the US to remember May the 8th 1945, and they had prepared a parade with historical vehicles, mainly private-owned jeeps from those days, and Peter spent the rest of the day in these villages near the beaches.
Peter enjoyed very much travelling independently. He could just follow the impetus of the moment. There were no travel companions suffering from or pretending hunger, symptoms of burn out, sore feet, being tired, exhausted, or bluntly desinterested in museums or historic places. When he was offered a collegue as a second driver two years ago, when these travels were taken up, Peter said, he would prefer travelling on his own. Most of these collegues saw travelling as a burden, had problems with foreign language and culture, pretended not liking English food and restaurants (not liking France, Italy, Spain, Switzerland or Scandinavia as well) were ill-tempered when more than fifty miles away from home and wanted to return as soon as possible to ‘Mummy’ – this could be the spouse or ‘Hotel Mama’ for the younger ones.
But of course, if he would be travelling together with a collegue – could he play the glasses game? Could he be travelling with his minus-eight-Wayfares, as a nearsighted man, without questions asked?
And would it have been easy to travel on the motorways in France, now looking out for a blue Twingo with a sticker ‘Glasses are cool’?
He filled his car tank with gasoline (he tried not to fill it up in England, as fuel was much more expensive over there), and he had to do some shopping of French food (Atlantic mackerels, crepes, cakes, mineral water – there were many items, that were not available out of France) as gifts for family and friends at home. He did all this at the Grande-Cynthe shopping center near the motorway A16 towards Dunkirk and the Belgian border.
Then he had been travelling, had entered into Belgium, had left Belgium after nearly three hours of driving and entered into the Netherlands near the town of Breda. Between France, Belgium and the Netherlands there were no borders nowadays, only the radio programmes had to be adjusted from time to time. There were blue traffic signs with the name of the country, and the mobile phone always made a ‘beep’ – that was all. When, as a child, he had travelled to France with the family, they had always carried different bags with coins for small payments on the motorways, but nowadays, all these countries had the same currency, the ‘Euro’.
After hours of driving, and the climatisation fan on his face, Peter felt some irritation in his eyes, and when he looked into the car mirror, he saw, that his eyes had slightly reddened. He didn’t want to abandon his game now, and so he made a short stop at a services area near Eindhoven and put some drops of an herbal eye lotion into is eyes. After a minute, he felt much better and he continued on his way. He was just entering new coordinates in the car navigation system, and programming the 80kmph speed limit into the car computer, when he became aware from very far (as his eight-diopters myopia was not a handicap for him, and he had excellent vision with his minus-eight-Wayfarers) that a dark small vehicle was standing on the hard shoulder, with the hazard warning lights flashing. Coming nearer, he could not help feeling his heart beating faster than the flashing hazard warning lights of the dark Twingo.
PART 5
Peters smoothly stopped his ‘Vito’ and the car came to a halt just behind the Twingo. And there she was, that girl, waiting behind the crash barrier. The motorway was quite noisy, with all the cars and trucks passing by. And, if a speed limit of 80 kilometers per hour, that is 50 miles per hour, makes you feel travelling very slow from the safe position inside your car, from the perspective of the driver of a broken down car, the sounds and the windwaves are like hell. That is why she had not seen Peter approaching the scene.
„Hello, you have got a problem with car …!“ Peter had looked for some empty thirty seconds to step out of his Vito and had gone towards the girl. This was not a question, and now „… how could I help you?“ Again not the question, if he could help her, Peter clearly insisted on helping her, and only enquired about her priorities.
He was determined to help her, not to let her go for a third time. „You have been in England, I have already seen you and your car in the queing lanes in Dover“, he tried to start a conversation. „By the way, my name is Peter“.
„I’m Sandra, and, honestly, I saw you in Dover, and I’ve seen you already the evening before in a supermarket in England, I had been staying at the place in a B&B pension.“
„And what is wrong with your car now?“ „I don’t know, but I already got the ‘Wegenwacht’ (that’s the Road Assistance of the Dutch Automobile Association) on the phone. They said, one of their assistance vehicles is just 10 miles behind us, and in some minutes they would be here and would look for my car, I’m just waiting for them.“
With his Minus-Eight-Wayfarers Peter looked into Sandras eyes behind these fashionable Minus-Twelve-Myopia-Glasses, and her eyes were so small now, giving space to the cut-ins and reflections in the lenses, that he really was unable to read in her eyes. But carefully listening to her voice, and to the said und to the unsaid words, he knew, that she was not saying: „the road assistance will soon be here, you can continue your trip, I’m fine“.
He was sure, that she was fine now – not only, for not being unacompanied in such a difficult situation at the roadside. She might feel fine, as he did, that eventually they had met now – he took this for destiny!
The road assistance vehicle arrived, the technician looked under the Twingos bonnet and decided, that a control cable had been damaged. He thought, the cable had been bitten by one of these smallmartens, as some of them love the savour of plastic cable insulations. Unfotunately, he had no spare wires or cables with him, and the Twingo would need seeing a repair shop. His vehicle was not the regular service van, he had come with a small truck with a sliding platform as a car transporter. So they decided that he should pick up the Twingo and bring it to a repair shop. Sandra got offered a replacement car for the rest of her trip, all this was covered by Sandras automobile club membership, but here Peter made an intervention.
„I’ve got a better idea, it seems that both of us are travelling nearly to the same place, I’ve got a roomy car with sufficient space for both of us – I should be too happy if you would accept travelling with me.“
And, without hesitating, Sandra accepted. In her mind she felt relief, as she had been hoping „… don’t let ’m go away!“, every moment, since Peter had arrived and offered his help to her.
Part 6: From Eindhoven to Leeuwarden
With the help of a motorwinch, the Twingo had been towed to the plateau of the transporter, and the plateau (shift plateau) was then pulled into a stable position on the small truck. For reasons of their safety, they had decided to unload the small car in the parking area of the next sevices station, just 5 miles away from the place of the breakdown. Peter saw, that everything in Sandras Twingo had been neatly packed and arranged, and with the help of the friendly road assistance driver, the unloading of Sandras belongings from the Twingo into Peters Vito was completed in less than three minutes. Peter accompanied Sandra to her seat on the right side, and carefully closed the door.
For a last time, he went around his van, checked his vision and checked the outer impression he would give to his travel partner.
Oh yes, he felt fine with his black minus-eight-Wayfarers, that he had to wear due to his severe myopia (the GOC-myopia, that stemmed from the plus-eight contact lenses in his eyes). Peter was not unhappy about his myopia, no, he felt unhappy that he was not really myopic meeting this beautiful really myopic girl. At least, he was myopic or nearsighted today, and this might make things more simple. The vision with his minus-eight glasses was excellent, and he was very satisfied how the situation had developed this afternoon.
Peter opened the door and swung into the drivers seat. His travel would bring him to Groningen.
There was no hurry, three hours of travelling to Hollands North lay ahead of them, and both knew in that moment, that they would know each other much better by the end of the day.
They enjoyed a certain tranquility between them, they felt great empathy for each other, and, both of them, for themselves felt a warm and impatient desire for taking the other one into the arms and press the lips into the others lips. It was like fire under the ashes, that calm and quite situation would certainly not last for too long.
We already know about Peters reasons for travelling to the UK and now coming back to Holland. But Sandra, what was the purpose of her travelling? Still Peter did not know exactly, where Sandra had to go. Timidly, more behaving as teenagers than grown-ups, they started their conversation, I think, they knew that they had started something that would last very long. Later they knew, that this moment had been equal to the moment in the Casino, when the players had made their games, and the croupier would say: „Les jeux sont faits ..!“. The cards of life had been on the table, Peter and Sandra were together now, and they just had to seize the opportunity, life had given them in just that moment, and make the best out of it.
Sandra lived with her mother near Leeuwarden, that was as far from the central Netherlands as Groningen, but more towards the North Sea. Near Leewarden, the ‘Afsluidijk’ ws a 25-mile road through water on both sides – the North Sea and the Zuidersee, and around there was an important region of power generation from windpower nowadays. Peters company had also developed around the electronic control equipment for windpower. The marriage of Sandra’s parents had broken up, as so many now, when it was obvious, that her father and mother had quite different approaches to life, and her father obviously had behaved as he should not have done in a marriage. Nevertheless, Sandra had a good relation with her father, both of the parents had supported her, and she had completed her studies as a prime school teacher earlier in spring. As she was going to teach English in the primary school as well, she had used the time awaiting her first appointment (hopefully in autumn of this year) for two months working as a language assistant in a school in England. And today had been her trip back home.
Peter read „Leewarden 123 kilometers“ , and he felt, that it was time now to make further arrangements. Sandra had been on the phone with her Ma, and had explained the problems with her small car, and that a nice gentleman had picked her up, with all her luggage, and that she would not be delayed too much, they would arrive in the early evening hours. The radio was playing a title by David Bowie, and both agreed, that they liked this music very much. Peter mentioned the David Bowie exhibition in Groningens Museum and asked Sandra to accept his invitation – if she would accept, this would be their first arranged meeting together – how happy he was in that moment!
The afternoon temperatures were still warm, and the cars air condition had been blowing cold air into he faces and the eyes of the passengers for hours. Sandra felt her eyes itching and aching, she couldn’t cope with that any longer and so she asked Peter for a short stop at a service area, when there were still only twenty minutes of travel time to Leewarden. She went into the ’ladies’, and joined Peter again after three minutes, but, with no glasses on.
She knew, that Peter would ask her about not wearing her minus-twelve glasses, she felt like naked and unprotected in the face, she had been so used to feel these glasses on her eyes now, and so she had an answer for him, before he could ask: „I have changed my glasses for contact lenses now. We are approaching our place now, and my mother always insists, that I should wear contacts, as they are soaked with a medication for my eyes. I don’t want her to ask questions, when we arrive.“
‘Medication in contacts, never heard of that, seems interesting, I’m going to ask her anyway“ thought Peter.
Peter just couldn’t help, he bent over to Sandra, and … we should better leave them alone for a very long moment, they kissed and hugged each other …. endlessly … until a first taking of breath, when Sandra eventually said: „…. we’re awaited, and we still have to travel“.
Obviously, after this long day on the motorway between Dover and the north of the Netherlands they had started becoming ‘Peter and Sandra’, instead of ‘Peter’ and ‘Sandra’.
Peter was driving again, but there was such a warm feeling for his copilote. They were surprised and happy, and they travelled were engaged conversation moments of silence and daydreaming. The air conditon made Peters eyes suffer, however. Would he had travelled alone, now he surely would have taken out his contact lenses and would have been Peter with decent vision, without glasses. But that was impossible now. He thought, that one day he would have to confess his fake nearsightedness – how could he do that, how would this girl Sandra take this, without being deeply hurt? Would she understand, accept and forgive what he had done to her today?
Peter, fake-nearsighted with a myopia of eight diopters, had presented himself to a girl who suffered from a real (in his opinion) minus-twelve myopia? „Why did I do that?“ This new relation was totally at risk! This was not daydreaming, this was a nightmare!!! But then he found back to himself – everything an earth has a solution, and he came back from nightmaring to daydreaming. I’ll do everything, to keep this here going, and he had an idea, how he would explain his faked nearsightedness to Sandra.
„Glasses all day, contacts for Mummy, you’re quite nearsighted, aren’t you, Sandra. With this you remember me of my favourite cousin, just today …. I always wanted to know how nearsighted people can see …“ (he knew very well, that the vision myopia plus glasses is second to none). In this moment Peter was determined to confess now, right now, at the speed limit of 93mph (130km/h) on the motorway, so much he felt sorry for his pretending being -8 nearsighted.
But in the very moment Sandra interrupted him bluntly: „Some people can be happy and others are unhappy with their eyes. I don’t like talks about this, everybody is always asking silly questions, no respect for us glasseswearers, you know that, as you are wearing strong glasses as well, not as strong as mine“.
„Let’s talk about this museum visit. This weekend, I want to stay with my mother, and, I have to prepare for an interview with a comittee of a school, where I have applied for an appointment. This is very important for me. But I should be very happy, if you would show me around the David Bowie exhibition in Groningen next Saturday morning“. And then she said: „no phone, no visit during the week, both of us are going to have very busy days“. Peter wanted to answer, that he would not survive the week without at least hearing her voice on the phone, when she said: „…then you have enough time to decide whether you are able to accept such a blind mouse with horrible glasses near you …“ and he knew, that this could not be negotiated.
They arrived in Leeuwarden, were greeted by Sandras mum, unloaded Sandras belonging from the Vito. Then Sandras mother invited Peter to stay for an early evening soup, they had a nice conversation and the hour came to say goodbye.
Peter was just leaving the street, where Sandra and her mother lived, as he heard a loud ‘beep’ signal from the right seat. Sandra had forgotten her smartphone.
He went straight backed and Sandra had already remarked his coming, when he tapped at the door. „Your smartphone“. „Your eyes look so sore, love, why don’t you take your contacts out and put your glasses on, just for reading – oh, I did not know, that you’re still here“ - it was Sandra’s mother, with a pair of glasses in her hand, handing them over to Sandra. „I left my smartphone in his car, and he just came back to bring it to me.“.
Sandra turned the glasses up and down, more to her side and to her back, than in front of her. „I’ve been caught“, she thought. Again they said goodbye, they wouldn’t kiss and hug as they had done at the service station, the message would reach Sandras mum in the immediate future anyway.
On the last 40 miles between Leeuwarden and his place near Groningen Peter always reflected this beautiful day and thought about the future with Sandra.
But he had been puzzled about the last scene in Leewarden. These glasses from Sandras mum were not the minus twelve glasses, Sandra had worn all day long and the day before in Folkestone and Dover. But at first sight, they were not just readers with +2.00 or +3.00 lenses, he had seen them clearly as prescription lenses around +4.00 or + 5.00.
Peter was unable to put the pieces together.
Part 7: Sandra
The following days, Peter and Sandra were quite happy. Impatiently they were awaiting the weekend now. Sandra felt remorse about having said „no communication this week, no phone calls, no SMS – because you and I, we are the people communicating every other five minutes, I would be unable to concentrate on my tasks.“
And now, every five minutes she remembered Peter as her prince from the fairy tales, from the supermarket, from the ferry, from the motorway, and eventually her prince as her travelmate, companion – could she already say (would this going to become true), as her lover? And, indeed, it was absolutely impossible for her to concentrate on the least issue.
She had not been very easy going with relationsships, and it was nearly a year now from last autumn, when her relationship for several years had broken up. But that is another story.
Sandra had already decided what outfit she would wear for the first ‘rendezvous’ with her prince from the fairy tales. But much more important, should she wear glasses or contact lenses that day?
She thought, Peter appeared somewhat to be attracted by glasses wearing girls, and he had shown interest in her vision when travelling together. She herself, had been feeling more confident wearing glasses for many years, without glasses she saw herself unprotected and naked in the face. Glasses would be a must for that day. But which power of the glasses were adequate for this rendezvous?
The same glasses as during the travelling home from England? This high nearsightedness had been an interesting experience, but -12.00 would never become her favourite vision. Everything was too small, and moreover, people were constantly staring at her and even talking. She preferred to be unobserved and from her nature, she had been a bit timid as well. So with nearsightedness up to -7.00, usually people let others in peace. But, would Peter accept a weaker myopia prescription as identical to last week’s minus twelves? Anyway, she had to give Peter an explanation about her mother approaching her with her much-hated plussies during the farewell scene last week.
And at the interview, how should she present herself?
Barefaced, with contact lenses? Dull, unattractive, no, absolutely no way for that.
Hyperopic, like an ugly duckling in the fairy tale? She could not forget certain difficult times in her childhood. Should she go as a lady teacher with bugeye plus glasses and her left eye patched as twice nearly for a year in her early childhood she said sarcastically to herself. Spectacles with plus lenses? Never!
Her landladies old minus twelves (these had been a gift, when Sandra had left her after six weeks in her flat, as Sandra had expressed, that these glasses were really fashionable - „Every optometrist will change the lenses“ the landlady said), yes that had been an interesting experience, but, these minus twelves were were too difficult to wear for everyday. She remembered a young teacher of her beeing asked undiscrete and unpolite questions about her eyesight, and some parents had even begun a conspiracy at the headmistresses office against that girl, pretending that she could not cope with the requirements of primary school children with such a poor eyesight
How hateful some people can be!
Part 8: Ten, nine, eight, seven, six, five, four, three, two,one, …… go! – we’ll meet in Groningen tomorrow!
The following week, Peter was very busy in his job. Reports writing, on the phone with customers, negotiating with suppliers and participating in meetings within the company.
Among the farmers at the central marketplace, there was a saying, that they were looking out for raising an animal producing eggs, wool, milk and beaf, all at the same time.
And with working days up to 10 hours starting Monday through to Wednesday, Peter compared himslef to these fiction animals. He always had a feeling of being burnt out in the evening in his flat. Thursday was easier then, and Friday, the company offices would close at 12.00 noon.
Friday afternoon, he was more or less at home. Invitations for grill parties or zoo visits with collegues he had not accepted for this weekend, and he had visited his parents already on Thursday early evening, not on Saturday or Sundays as on other occasions. He sat there, looking at his smartphone, dreaming, that Sandra would already ring him up on Friday evening.
But they had their appointment for Saturday morning.
Sandra would take the train, leaving Leewarden at 09.21 with train No, 37421, and arriving on track 4a at Groningen Centraal, where Peter would meet her.
At his place, Peter had a last look into the Museum info, where he was going to show Sandra around.
http://www.groningermuseum.nl/en/museum-building and http://www.groningermuseum.nl/en/exhibitions
Sandra and her mother were jointly using the black Twingo.Her mum was working not more than half a mile from their place, and Sandra was convinced, that only very rich students should have a car of their own (and then a riding horse as well). Always living at quite reasonable terms, mother and daughter had not been very wealthy, but in a good balance between dreams, wishes and real capacities, and both of them always stylish and elegant.
This Saturday her mum would spend with her sister, Sandras aunt and the family. Usually Sandra would have joined her, but today her preference was clearly for Peter. So it was her mother’s turn to bring the great news to her cousins A, B, and C – Antje, Beatrice and Catherine, 17, 16 and 11 years old.
The sisters, very pretty girls, in difficult years now, were glasses wearers now, Antje R -2.00/L-2.50, Beatrice R-5.50 cyl – 2.00 A85 degr // L -5.00 cyl -0.50 A 100 deg and Catherine R-3.25//L -2.50 cyl -1.00 A 180 deg, but all proud about their appearance, as all glasses wearing girls are nowadays. Antje had started wearing glasses three years ago with 14 years at -1.25/-1.00, Beatrice had needed glasses already at the age of four with -2.50 approx. on both eyes, and Catherine was supplied with glasses, when her elder sister eventually got them, at the age of eight. Catherines nearsightedness was increasing with the fastest pace of them, as she never could be seen without her smartphone close to her eyes. Her parents were already enquiring about bifocals for her, but she was very much against that, saying these were ‘Grandma’s glasses’ and sho would never, never wear them.
Tomorrow would be a great day in the life of Sandra. Tomorrow would be a great day in the life of Peter. Tomorrow would be a great day in the life of Sandra and Peter.
Tomorrow would be a great day in the life of Sandras mum and Peters parents, and in the life of their uncles, aunts, of Sandras glasses-wearing cousins A, B and C, and in the life of all people, who were caring for Sandra and Peter, and who were loving them.
However, only Sandra and Peter and Sandras mum knew about this on the morning of that day.
… to be continued
https://vision-and-spex.com/story-we-are-very-much-the-same-part-1-8-now-t781.html