My Tattoo

This is the first time sharing anything as intimate as a body modification online.

You can't really get this kind of tattoo in most places.  And if you find someone who's willing to help you get one, you shouldn't trust him.  It's unethical to do this to another person.  That's why I had to do it myself -- like a prisoner with a sharpened toothbrush handle and a sheet of carbon paper -- because there is nowhere to go if you want to put a tattoo on your retina.

For the first time ever, here it is.

That's a baseline scan the retina of my left eye.  For comparison, here's my right.

Here's what happened.

Tracey and I were married on May 7th 1994.  The honeymoon plans were left entirely up to me.  Neither of us knows why.

While I didn't literally throw a dart at a map, I did unfold a map, look at it and shrug.  We were WAY low on money, poorly traveled and easily frightened by unfamiliar surroundings.

So, Erie!  Erie, Pennsylvania.  Here's what it promised.

1. If you break down on the way, you're never far from a major thoroughfare.
2. The worst conceivable navigation error you can commit is getting back on the interstate in the wrong direction, which will just land you back home.
3. Lake Erie looks a lot like the ocean if you haven't seen the ocean in ten years.

Off we went.  We rolled into town on the 9th, we booked a room at the Econo Lodge (one with a hot tub).  We explored the town, played miniature golf and knock hockey, visited the zoo and went to a porno store (adventure!).

After lunch on our second day, we headed out onto the peninsula and drove around.  It was a beautiful, cloudless day.  Long sleeve weather.  We took the sunroof out of the 1987 Dodge Daytona Pacifica, rolled down the windows and watched the choppy water on the bay.  For some reason, there were a lot of people with cameras and telescopes.  I wondered out loud if there was a boat show or something going on.  Then things started getting weird.

It's hard to describe what was wrong.  I started to think I was getting sick .  I didn't FEEL sick, but there was something unusual going on in my head.  In the same way you can tell you're starting to get a fever before you actually become warm, I felt like there was something going on with my whole, um... system.

After a few minutes, I noticed something specific.  And it was so specific, that it made me question whether or not it was just going on inside of my head.  It was time to ask another person a scary question.  There was a lot riding on the answer I would get.

"Trace, does it seem like-"
"Yes," she interrupted.  "It's definitely getting darker."

That was very good news.  I thought I was having some sort of attack.  But now that I knew the wide open sky was getting darker, I could be comforted by the weird solace that the whole world was going to die at once.

If the aliens were coming, we figured the radio would say something.  We turned out on, expecting to hear Orson Welles.  Instead, we got the last ninety seconds of a Doobie Brothers song.  After that, a DJ updated us on the progress of the eclipse.

An eclipse! 

Really?

As a kid, I had been an astronomy enthusiast.  At twelve, I was standing in deep snow looking at the Galilean moons and the rings of Saturn through my dad's wobbly 32x spotting scope.  The first time I saw these things, I was, I'm sure, at least 70% as excited as Galileo was.  My home had a subscription to Astronomy magazine.  I memorized the catalog numbers of certain deep sky objects.

So, being surprised by a solar eclipse bummed me out on a very fundamental level. I think the Mayans knew this eclipse was coming, but I had no clue.  And here I was being physiologically responsive to diminishing sunlight.  I had less in common with early humans than I did with contemporary plants.

On the other hand, we had set out without any clear plans and wandered into one of the only places on earth where you could clearly experience the totality of this eclipse. Much of the northeast was cloudy that day. Tracey and I found an empty stretch of beach and watched the shadows of trees become flecked with rippling circles. We kissed and jumped around.

Well, I jumped around.

Here's the thing. This was an annular eclipse, which means a couple of things, First, the sun isn't completely obscured by the disc of the moon -- a bit of it sticks out on all sides, making those amazing shadows and scorching the retinas of anyone who stares at it.  Secondly, that damage happens more quickly than one might think.

I looked, okay? I don't drive around with a welding helmet.  And I didn't have Google in my pocket the way everyone on earth does now.  I did what primitive, clueless people have done throughout the ages when the sun nearly goes out, I looked at the hole in the sky.  I took very short peeks -- through a hole in a 3x5 card that I made with the smallest, sharpest tool I had -- my car keys.

All the quick peeks added up.  I didn't notice anything was wrong for a year or so.  I was fortunate enough (not smart enough... huge difference) to keep my dominant eye closed.  So later, while reading something and closing my right eye for whatever reason, I noticed the word I was reading was kind of not there.  I knew instantly what had happened.  And it was horrifying.

BUT,,, not as bad as it could have been.  Not nearly.  Nothing is noticeable to me unless I'm reading with just that eye.  Eye tests take a little longer, but I always pass and I have something interesting to
talk about with optometrists.

Now, here's the part where I go from being a kind of dumb guy to one who's a little dangerous.  You would do well to disregard the next few paragraphs if you're impressionable and have a history of poor decision making.

I really like the fact that I have this spot on my retina. And if I knew how much I would enjoy having it, I might have done this damage on purpose.

Is this just a coping mechanism for me so I can exist comfortably in the knowledge that I've done irreparable damage to my vision?  Yeah, probably.  But here in my skull, where I keep my eyes and brain and stuff, it feels like gratitude.  So I'm just going to run with that.

I'd feel very differently about it if I had gotten this injury by watching someone doing arc welding on some day when I wasn't on my honeymoon. But as it stands, it's a very direct connection to being that young guy on the beach with his wife -- his whole life stretched out in front of him like Lake Erie.  I don't have a lot in common with him anymore, and it's easy for me to imagine that we are not really the same person.

In August of 2017, there will be a total eclipse which will roll a shadow across the middle of the United States. My plan is to drag my family into it -- as an almost perfect bookend event. I feel, however irrationally, that standing there with my family will reduce the trepidation of the guy on the lake in 1994.

Total eclipses are safe to look at. Once it reaches totality (and only then), you can just stand there with your naked face and gawk at it like a cow at a helicopter. It will be surreal and heart-stopping for everyone in the umbral shadow, but I'll have the unique experience of standing under one eclipse with my wife after twenty-three years of marriage, and closing one eye to see the eclipse we watched when it all began.

I like to think that we'll kiss and jump around.

Epilogue

That eclipse occurred 21 years ago, yesterday.  I made this video for my wife.

And, seriously.  Wear eye protection.