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From KQED.

I moved to San Francisco in the summer of 2013 with a giant patch the size of a maxi pad covering my left eye.

Just a week before my move, I had eye surgery to repair a partially detached retina, a

condition that could have left me blind. The first month or so

after surgery was tough. Anytime my pulse got a little elevated, I would feel it pounding in my eye.

And so my first month in San Francisco was profoundly dark and lonely. I spent most of it lying in bed,

listening to audiobooks in a darkened room.

As healing progressed, though, I started to venture outside. First on short walks to the coffee

shop, but soon on little runs through Golden Gate Park. I started off on the main thoroughfares.

I'd pass by the conservatory of flowers,

loop around Blue Heron Lake,

stopped to admire the bison.

As my body recovered, my runs grew longer,

and it was the sense of discovery in the park

that propelled me to add a mile or two here or there on my run each day.

Follow an uncertain path into the woods,

...