At about age ten i stayed like many times before for a weekend with my aunt Rita. She lived alone, worked as a officemanager and as long as I can remember she wears glasses. I liked her very much and I think, she enjoyed my company as well.
Because of the bad weather we did some construction on a longterm project, a model- castle with all kinds of figures and other details.
For this we needed some wooden matches and Rita told me to get them from the bathroomdrawer.
As I looked for them, I found a box in the drawer which rattled with loose items inside. I asked Rita about it and Rita opened the box and showed me the content. It was full of glassescases in different colours. Rita opened one and showed the glasses inside:”well I am shortsighted since I was 9 years old and every one or two years I need stronger glasses. So this is the collection of all of them, 24 cases with glasses, which I cant use anymore.”
I always liked Rita wearing her glasses and to me this was part of her.
Since I was 8 years old I collected items to remember important subjects of my life. So I got the idea to ask my aunt, if she could make a donation to my collection and give me one of her glasses. After short hesitation Rita said “ok. But don’t make stupid things with it! And I have an idea: to make the rememberance better, I give you glasses together with a corresponding photograph. ” She looked through her collection of photographes : “this looks good, taken maybe 7 years ago and look, these are the glasses that I had on this picture.”
Coming home I placed glasses and photograph in my collection. I liked the shape of the glasses they were oval with like a dropextension to the lower part, had coffeebrown rims and earpieces.
Through the next 2 years I took them out from time to time and cleaned them. Most of my friends, that I allowed to see my collection admired me to have such a beautiful aunt and liked here glasses as well.
One long rainy day I played with my classmate Doreen, which I had invited to visite me, because my parents and sisters were away on a familymeeting. We played chess for hours and after a while we made bets what the looser of the actual game should do. Doreen lost it and had to fullfill my wish to put on sunglasses and my fathers wintercoat for the rest of our day., what she did. “ ok next game if you loose I want you to wear your aunts glasses for the rest of this day” And I lost the game. “Oh no, I never in my life had glasses on” I said, but did what Doreen wanted. I never had tried to look through aunt Ritas glasses before and was astonished how strong they were,:”My god I am half blind Doreen” “Don’t start arguiing, you lost the bet” she giggled. Because of hardly recognizing anything Doreen won the next games. Though not seeing clear at all, after a while it felt more or less comfortable to wear Ritas glasses and I kind of got used to the impairement. It took about an hour and to my surprise my eyes seemed to learn how to see better through the glasses. My performance playing chess improved. Chess became boring to us and we changed to watching TV. The longer I had these glasses on, the better my eyes adjusted themselfes to the optical burden. While watching a TV- Show, we laughed a lot, Doreen with her sunglasses and coat and me with Ritas spectacles, and diskussed the show. “You seem to see well with the glasses” said Doreen “I think you look good with them”. I was embarrassed and said”Well I kind of got used to the impairment, but ill be glad to get rid of this menace.” And that was what I really thought about it. As soon as i heard my family come back I quickly took the glasses off and put them back into my collection.”You don’t want to be seen with glasses” teased Doreen. I completely forgot about my glasses expierience the next weeks and was busy learning for my favorite subjects physik and math. Then a familymember living a half days travell away died and my parents had to leave for 2 days to go to the funeral. My sisters and me were asked if wed like to go with them. I had a lot to do for school and wanted to stay at home, my sisters wanted to join in. So I would be on myselfe for 2 days.
After my family had left, I thought about what to do with my weekend. And I cant say why,…the glasses came into my mind and I was like hooked to the idea of exposing my eyes to their power and find out if they would keep an learning. I knew I shouldn’t do that but I was like fixated. After putting the glasses on, it took only a couple of minutes til my eyes reached the aibility to see through them like at the end of my day with Doreen. This was far from seeing clear, but I was excited. My eyes seemed to remember what they learned weeks ago. I had two days to try and though having remorse I wanted to do it. First I did things around the house. While cleaning my room, which was more difficult with my impaired eyesight than without glasses, I looked out of my window into the landscape in bright sunlight. I was overwhelmed. Everything looked much clearer than inside the house. Everything was smaller, the sight to the edges was bendt by the optical glasses , coulors were more intense and contrasts seemed sharper. I knew what I wanted to do. I locked the houses door and went on the trail that led from our house over the fields to the forest and up th hills. Going with glasses was all but easy, I stumbled several times, because the change in dimensions that I saw was not in tune with my normal body expierience. But like learning to see through Ritas glasses my eyes and brain learned to cope with the new situation better and better. After two hours of walking I was going on more easy and secure. My head had to make more moves to check the surroundings than without glasses, but even that felt more and more common to me. From time to time I felt a slight headache and as if something pulled on my eyes. When arriving on top of the highest hill, I sat down on a rock and enjoyed the view. It was like seeing the world around my home with new eyes and more conscious than ever. I was excited and felt great pleasure. So I did not register, that beside me another person had taken a seat on an other rock. I felt slightly embarrassed, because I did not expect company up there. The person, it was a woman of about 50 years, wearing glasses that seemed quite strong, , said hello to me and smiled at me:”isnt it beautiful up here, what a day.” I unsecure smiled back at her and said “I like it too.” I was so afraid she could see as a glasswearing person, that I was wearing glasses that I didn’t need to wear and that I wear a womans glasses. We kept on with small talk so I found out, that she was from the next big town and had been driving to our village to go for a days hike. She was a very nice person and I started to feel more comfortable with her and realising that I was seen and accepted as a glass- wearing person made me kind of proud and happy. After a while she took a good look at me and said “ You are not older than 12 years , right? It´s unusual to need such strong glasses in that age. I hope you don’t need stronger prescriptions in the future.” I flushed and she apologized to have embarrassed me. “I need glasses since I am 6 years old and my eyes were getting worse in the past time, but I don’t mind the glasses anymore, i´m completely used to them.”I lied to the lady. She smiled to me and said “ Same with me, I started with weaker prescriptions and had increases over the years. But fortunately it stopped at age 24. I like your frames, they suite you well” She took off her glasses and held them towards me “I think we have almost the same strength, you want to try my glasses?” I was puzzled by that and took off “my” glasses gave them to her, took her glasses and slid them on my nose. To my surprise I could see as good with them as with Ritas. “Im right” said the lady that now had my glasses on,”we have the same prescription, how funny and your glasses fit perfect on my nose and ears, I have right eye -5.25 and left -5.5, is that the same as you?”. What should I say: ”Im not 100 % sure but I think I have the same” Without exchanging the glasses again- it seemed like an unspoken game we played- we kept on talking. The lady, her name was Laura, shared her fruits and sweets with me and we got into a very familiar togetherness. Then we started to go back to my village because the sun was going low. At the door of my house we said adios. Laura gave me her adress and phonenumber and invited me to come to visit her.
I went into the house and sat down and thought about what had happened to me this day. Wearing glasses was such a pleasure and every second of this day since my family left I had the feeling of something wonderful happening to me. And like a miracle I had found a new friend in Laura, which I sure would viste one day. It was not thinkable to be seen by my family, friends and schoolmates with the glasses, so I would just enjoy this new self with glasses til they come back and maybe find opportunities to wear them.
I tried to read the newspaper on the table but only could decipher headlines. Ok that’s something my eyes still had to learn.
I went to the bathroom and looked at myselfe in the mirror. It took a couple of seconds until I realised what I saw. I still had Lauras glasses on. They were different from Ritas, oval as well, but without the dropextension on the lower part and they coulor was black. I couldnt stop looking at me, my vision was really good by now and I was fascinated by my new appearance. I rang the number Laura had given to me and after a while she was on the phone “Hey Willi, I just arrived at home, are you longing to hear my voice again”she teased. “Maybe a little bit Laura, it was very nice meeting you, but did you look in a mirror since we split?”I asked. “ No, why, but one moment”..it was quiet for some seconds and then laughter”I cantbelieve it Willi, I still wear your glasses and you wear mine, yours are a bit outdated, but they suit me very good. How could that happen, to me it was like a little game to exchange glasses for a while, but now it seems to be a more extended situation. What shall we do now? Do you want me to come immediatedly back to your house or can you stand wearing my glasses for a while? Its because I have to leave tomorrow early in the morning for a congress in Paris, so I won`t be back before next Sunday.” I replied” No problem for me, I like your glasses too, we could make a date for next weekend “Laura laughed in a very warm way and said”Maybe we get used so much to each others glasses that we never change back” I laughed too, to me this situation was so surreal, me a novice glasswearer beeing in fear of beeing discovered in good friendship to a glasswearing scientist. We talked for another 10 minutes and split in good spirit and made an appointment at Lauras house next weekend.
After that I tried to do my school-stuff, which was not easy with glasses on. By trying different things I found out, that with good light and enough distance I was able to read and write with some difficulties. After some hours of learning my eyes ached, but they had learned to cope with the glasses. to be continued