A clearer view of what matters most

The clarity of vision that comes with age is, interestingly, a direct contradiction to the physical changes that aging brings. Even that, however, has its ebbs and flows.

I wore glasses for distance vision from the time I was 10 years old (and likely should have had them even earlier had I not memorized the eye chart). Five years ago, however, age-related cataracts led to surgery that changed things. My vision improved to the point that I no longer needed glasses for distance. In fact, because it’s so sunny here in South Carolina, I even went on a sunglasses-buying binge, something I had never been able to do before. That part of the flow eventually gave way to the ebb of needing glasses only for reading. After years of wearing progressive lenses, it has been a relatively minor annoyance.

Clarity of vision, however, is not always a physical reference. As your position on life’s cradle-to-grave timeline moves ever more rapidly from one end to the other, you begin to look back, realizing, of course, that none of it can be changed. At the same time, you also look ahead with far greater clarity than you once had.

If you’ve read any of my previous columns, you already know that music plays a major role in my life and always has. The right song at the proper moment can open the floodgates of emotion, help me think and sort things out, or take me back to both the good and the not-so-good times. When I was in high school, I remember being required to read a little-known author named William Shakespeare, who is said to have wrote, “When words fail, music speaks.”

There are also the words of William Congreve, another playwright I am grateful I was required to read some 60 years ago: “Music hath charms to soothe the savage breast, to soften rocks, or bend the knotted oak.”

Whether it’s Antonio Vivaldi’s “The Four Seasons,” Mountain’s “Mississippi Queen” or Dan Fogelberg’s song referenced in the title, music speaks loudly when it is needed and soothes when that is what is called for.

Over the past week or so, several friends have experienced difficult turns in their lives. Again, the reality of aging is that when you open an email or receive an unexpected call or text, your heart skips a few beats.

Along with that ebb comes the flow of gratitude and the realization that your own small issues are insignificant in the old “grand scheme of things.”

That brings us back to the idea of music and the clarity of vision it can provide. A few days ago, a friend texted me out of the blue (yes, one or two heartbeats skipped). Along with that text was a wonderful song he wanted to share by the band Switchfoot titled “Beautiful Life,” and it arrived at exactly the right moment. This would be the proper place for part of it to play us out:

I’m still learning to breathe

I don’t have what I want

But I have what I need

Kevin Fitzpatrick is a retired teacher who, along with his wife Sue (also a retired teacher) is enjoying exploring life in the Lowcountry and all it has to offer.