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One More Time
Tomorrow is the day for left eye cataract removal. Looking forward to being rid of the sepia tone overlay entirely. Not looking forward to the recovery period.
Change The Eyes
Since we cannot change reality, let us change the eyes which see reality. ~Nikos Kazantzakis
So, the gain I’ve made so far is that in my right eye, colors are closer to true. White looks white.
From my left eye, something white looks like this.
Will be nice to have both eyes seeing the same color pallet.
The downside is the recovery time.
It’s a month later and I can’t see very well from my right eye. Having both eyes in this state is going to make it nigh impossible to get any work done.
That’s not going to make anyone happy and it’s going to help my bottom line.
I am, however, very grateful to live in a time when this sort of surgery is available, reliable and safe.
I’m looking forward to being able to see clearly once the recovery is complete.
The Conclave’s Early Days
What can be learnt from a 17th century American town
The founding members of The Conclave were Dutch settlers of the area we know as New York City.
If you watched the video I included in the previous post, you’ll see that New Amsterdam was metropolitan from the earliest days. They already had a burgeoning international empire because of the Dutch West India Company and the Dutch East India Company sailing far and wide in search of profit.
In 1624, they began planting settlers in today’s New York, New Jersey, Pennsylvania and Connecticut. The 30 families they were planting from as far north as Albany to as far south as the mouth of the Delaware River were not exclusively Dutch, but Walloon, African, German, English, Swedish and Norwegian.
In 1626, Peter Minuit withdrew the settlers from the beaver pelt trading post of Fort Orange in the vicinity of today’s Albany to the newly minted Fort Amsterdam on the southern tip of Manhattan. This is the home and timeframe of Priscilla Vrendenburg.
The Evil That Men Do
The evil that men do lives after them; the good is oft interred with their bones. ~William Shakespeare
It’s not clear whether Priscilla would have heard this line from Shakespeare’s play, Julius Caesar, but the sentiment was certainly something she’d take to heart in her struggle to get her piece of the pie in New Amsterdam.
Life expectancy for Europeans in that time is said to be 35-40. The settlement that would eventually become New York City had a reputation for being unruly, so Priscilla didn’t have a lot to look forward to unless she could maintain her health and wealth.
When the patroon system came into effect in 1629, settlements in the greater New Netherlands region opened up opportunities for Priscilla to prosper. She became wealthy but she wasn’t getting any younger.
The old chestnut that you can’t take it with you weighed heavily upon her rapidly shortening days.
She had defied the odds by becoming well to do in this frontier wilderness and she was determined to keep it for as long as possible. Alchemy? Witchcraft? Lenape or Iroquois spirit work? Stay tuned to find out…
That’s it for today. Tomorrow’s a big day and the first step on a seemingly long road of recovery. Should be interesting…