MATISSE OVER MELANCHOLY

After restaurant critic suffered a stroke, he saw the world differently

Former New York Times restaurant critic and columnist Frank Bruni was at the top of his career in 2017 when a rare kind of stroke turned his world upside down. A loss of blood flow to his optic nerve had caused non-arteritic anterior ischemic optic neuropathy that damaged vision in his right eye and threatened the possibility of complete blindness.

The event altered not just Bruni's professional life but his whole outlook. “My world blurred, but it also sharpened,” he writes in his book about the experience, The Beauty of Dusk: On Vision Lost and Found.

Bruni, now 57, emerged with a new perspective on illness, recovery and aging. His insight into how he used the experience to live more fully provides a blueprint for resilience. The Washington Post spoke with Bruni, who is now a Duke University journalism professor and contributing writer for the Times, at his home in Chapel Hill, N.C. The interview has been edited and condensed for length and clarity.

Q Can you describe what happened to your eyesight after your stroke?

A I had this dappled fog over the right-half of my vision. Things looked a little slimy and shimmery. I was trying to transcribe this tape and the computer screen was just very shimmery. The lines of text were even tilted a little. It is more the norm for people to lose peripheral vision, not central vision. My most profound vision loss is central vision, which if you are a reader and a writer is the absolute worst thing.

Q You wrote that you went to bed the night before the stroke with more grievances than you could count, and you woke up with more gratitude than you could measure. What do you mean?

A In a way that I'm ashamed of now, I think I was really good at feeling sorry for myself. Why didn't I have a fast metabolism? Why had I had so many food compulsions in my life? Why wasn't I more outgoing? Why did I feel awkward in so many situations? I could be unreasonably focused on what I didn't have or what didn't come easily to me. (After the stroke, the idea of possible blindness led me) to be realistic in a way I wasn't before, in a way people can't be about the mix of advantages and disadvantages that come along in life. I did a more realistic accounting of where I had been extremely fortunate: I had a great education. I had uppermiddle-class parents ... and I can function extraordinarily well with what vision impairment I have.

Q What did you learn about doctors through all this?

A ... You are never anything near the kind of priority to them that you are to yourself, because you are your only priority. There's such an incredible discrepancy between the urgency that you understandably feel about your situation and the urgency a doctor feels about it. I called (one of the top ophthalmologists in New York) and was told they might be able to see me in a month ... I was really grateful to the neuro-ophthalmologist who saw me in four days. She told me there was a 40 per cent chance that it would (also) happen to my left eye.

Q I was interested in what you called the “sandwich board” theory of life. I'd never heard of that. What does it mean?

A Most of the struggles we go through are invisible. How many people have we crossed paths with today? How many of those people lost a loved one in the last month and are carrying around an enormous amount of sadness? I kept thinking to myself, if I wore a sandwich board that said, “Compromised vision, living with a threat of going blind” or if the person over there wore one that said, “One week ago, I lost my wife who was 32 years old” ... we would be way less prey to selfpity. And I think we would all be a lot more patient and empathetic to the people around us. What we sometimes experience as aloof or rude behaviour is just the product of invisible pain.

Q It's now been five years since your stroke — do people ask you, how you're doing?

A Almost never.

Q Would you like them to?

A It can feel lonely not to be asked, and sometimes I want people to understand that things are taking more effort than they realize. Not because I want applause for that, but because there may come a moment when I need an adjustment for that.

Q This book is really as much about aging as it is illness. You talk about being able to train yourself to “lift Matisse above melancholy.”

A (Imagine) being in a wheelchair and going through a museum of art. You can either be focused on the fact that you're not moving as freely or you can focus on the fact you're looking at a beautiful painting by Matisse. ... You can either choose melancholy or Matisse ...

I could be unreasonably focused on what I didn't have or what didn't come easily to me. (After the stroke, the idea of possible blindness led me) to be realistic in a way I wasn't before, in a way people can't be about the mix of advantages and disadvantages that come along in life. Frank Bruni