The large statue of a monkey did not return my greeting. Once in Paris, accompanying my wife Louise to a couture house, I strayed into the fitting room by mistake. Before I beat a hasty retreat, I noticed a half-dressed woman trying on a gown. I had not. Reading faces and the signals of mood and temper, which I had taken for granted as part of the art of seeing, has become extremely difficult except when I'm inches away.
Eye contact is nearly impossible, which eliminates a vital form of communication.
When I drop a coin or anything very small, I usually have a hard time retrieving it. A doctor explained to me that I was probably looking slightly sideways on those occasions, moving the blind spot in my macula out of the way. Once when my son, Peter, came to see me, he was surprised that I did not notice that he had started to grow a beard. On the other hand, I was able to spot that one of his shoelaces had come undone. The eye enables us to reach out into life.