This is an intensely personal post, my apologies. It is written as I make final preparations for a 4-week journey to Europe to deliver an academic paper at an international congress and to conduct more research on my major life’s project. By the time you read it, I’ll already be on the road.
At age 69, I’m working on my book with tense passion — doing further research [still, after 6 years], organizing my findings, and writing as often as I can. I’m facing a looming deadline: I’m going blind.
It’s been a frightening process that started when I was still an infant. In 1942, my mother wrote in her secret little black book”:
I cannot cry — for tears are not enough. I used to hold my breath at Tommy’s beauty — from the moment he was born his beauty was unusual. The golden curls we cut off a few months ago are in a box, and now his beautiful blue eyes will be forever shadowed by thick disfiguring lens. For we have just found his eyes are very bad — the doctors say they will never be any better and how much worse they get is is in God’s hands. He is only three — our baby. May his truly captivating personality ever remain triumphant over this physical handicap.
I’ve been lucky. I’ve been able to sustain an eyesight-intensive career right up until today. But each year has brought its slight deterioration. Now I’m left with only one working eye, and it’s field of vision is extremely narrow. I can look at a nose and recognize a face. If I look at an ear, the face dissolves into an unrecognizable murkiness. I’m just not sure how much longer the eye will hold up.
I’m working on a huge research project into the first international medical expedition in history, which set out from Spain in 1803 to carry the newly discovered smallpox vaccine throughout the sprawling Spanish empire. For me, telling this story has become a mission.
Long-term readers of this blog have read from time to time about the contest waged for my time: my blog calls for attention every day; my book wants long stretches of time.
On this trip, I will be delivering a paper at the 5th International Congress on Maritime History in Greenwich, England. I undertook the commitment primarily as a non-negotiable deadline to force me to finish a major portion of my research and to get it down on paper. It worked. I should write the final section tomorrow morning, one day before I depart.
I recommend such deadlines, whenever you can establish one. This deadline has certainly pushed my race against time forward by a major step. Next? Two polished chapters and a fully developed outline for the entire book — for the agent I’m pursuing. Deadline? I promised this package by mid-fall.
Soon I’ll post the rather personal description of why this project of mine has become so paramount: You see, I’m on a royal mission. I’ll explain.
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Comment by
Ray-Anne
13 Jun 2008
Thank you for being courageous enough to share this very personal part of your life with us Tom.
I cannot imagine how traumatic this condition must be for you, but your post certainly helped me to put into perspective some of my own problems and opportunities.
What an amazing and exciting Project you have chosen. Fantastic.
Thank you again for the reminder that this precious life of ours is not a rehearsal. Take care and I do hope you are enjoying your visit to Greenwich. Ray-Anne
Comment by
Dustin
13 Jun 2008
Tom,
Hard to read such a heart-breaking personal story — but I can’t help but think of Borges, who shared your love of the written word and your loss of eye-sight, continuing to write and read long past the dimming of his sight. At the very end of his life, he was meeting regularly with a group of students to study Icelandic epic poetry, which was read to him by an assistant (or by one of his legion of devotees). Some of his most beautiful writing came after he’d turned his attention to the only world he could see, that in his mind.
I wish you the best of luck in finishing your book and for your trip, and know we’ll keep hearing from you for quite some time still. Ironic, though — sight is wasted on the young, who these days fear books like their grandparents feared polio!
Comment by
Peter Paulenz
23 Jun 2008
Tom, as I am preparing to meet you in London at the end of this week, driving over from my own place in Bonn, Germany, I too want to thank you for the courage and your openness in publishing on a website some of your – or rather your mother’s – most intimate thoughts, and to write about your predicament.
But that is not only topic that you write about, it’s about your plan and personal mission to finish an immense research project and a book…
As the moment of delivering your paper during the Conference draws nearer I do hope you still have time not only to post more thoughts on your blog, but also to read the reactions of your readers, admiring and encouraging as they are.
And that of course includes myself, enjoying the privilege to know you personally since many years now (each one of them bringing us nearer to each other), and to be able to travel in Europe together with you soon.
I can’t tell you how much I am looking forward to that, and to introduce this wonderful friend of mine to some of my friends over here, so I would like to share this happy thought with every reader of this site…
See you soon, then, Tom, and GOOD LUCK with your paper.
I just KNOW it will be a success, as will, by the way, your book! Peter