• October Interviews: Blindbeader from Life Unscripted

    Blindbeader, age 31, is an office assistant and blogger from Northern Canada. She writes the blog Life Unscripted. She enjoys jewelry design, board and card games, running, cooking, goalball, and drinking too much coffee—which obviously pairs better with some hobbies than others.

    Blindbeader was born with low vision and learned to read braille. She has no vision in her left eye, and her right eye can see “light, dark, and really really big things in my way. But everything looks two-dimensional, like a pancake.” She travels with a guide dog and loves the fluidity of their movement together. She agreed to join in the conversation about blindness and blogging.

    What is the most consistent challenge or frustration you experience with your low vision? How do you handle it?

    People’s perceptions of what my life is like. I get comments about how great it is that my husband takes care of me (which inspired a blog post), or how proud they are that I hold down a job (which is a pretty big deal given the unemployment rate of the visually impaired). But it’s often the little things people think of as being so hard… like doing laundry or cooking, or dressing myself… people’s ideas that a blind person couldn’t possibly do these things is probably the most demeaning.

    But things that I, personally, struggle with, I would probably say it’s the not feeling like I really fit in anywhere. The blind community at large generally has certain social mores, hobbies, or interests that I don’t share, and I don’t really fit in with pop culture either, so much of what dominates contemporary sighted culture eludes me, too

    What resources have helped you to handle your low vision best, either in everyday matters or in moments of crisis?

    Friends! Oh, my friends! If it weren’t for friends, I doubt I’d be happy as a blind person at all. I have a couple of friends I reach out to when things are rough, and even when they’re not. They’re the friends who will laugh with me, cry with me, and tell me to snap out of it when I get obsessive and down on myself

    What do you look for in a good blog, whether it’s writing your own posts or reading someone else’s?

    I look for well-rounded writing. Everyone comes to the table with their own experiences, biases, and ideas. If a blogger can persuade me to their point of view, or at the very least make me re-evaluate mine and/or consider theirs in a different light, then they’ve done their job. I have NO use for blogs that are just mundane daily happenings (“I ate cereal for breakfast, I went to the store and they were out of milk”) or are so vitriolic and angry that they want to brow-beat the reader.

    Is your blog your main writing outlet or do you write or publish elsewhere?

    It’s my main one. I do write music, but it’s like reading my diary, so I keep it fairly close.

    What would you say is the most harmful or annoying belief that people have about vision loss? How do you cope with this belief?

    That we are not able to speak, think, or do for ourselves. I tend to be a little more abrasive than most, especially when someone asks anyone with me what “she” would like. I either answer for myself, which hopefully redirects the conversation back to me, or if that doesn’t work, I say something like “You CAN talk to me…”

    What’s your favorite way to celebrate autumn?

    Running. Autumn is one of my favorite times of year here, with cooler nights and warmer days, leaves crunching underfoot. I LOVE running through the leaves, and this year I’ve started taking my guide dog as my guide runner, which she adores!

    What is one dream you hope to accomplish in the next 10 years?

    To have children. I know that perceptions of blind parents really need to change, and I hope that I can be a small apart of that change when I become a parent one day.

    *  *  *

    Throughout October, I’ll be conducting more interviews about blogging, education, employment, and access. I’ll be asking the questions blind people always get asked—and the questions they’ve always wanted to answer. Stay in the loop!

  • October Interviews: Susan from Adventures in Low Vision

    Here at On the Blink, I’m celebrating Blindness Awareness Month by interviewing my blind friends and colleagues. The first interview in this series is with Susan, the creator of Adventures in Low Vision.

    Susan, age 33, is an administrative assistant in a law office. She enjoys reading voraciously, writing thoughtfully, and cooking with abandon. At Adventures in Low Vision, she writes about her experiences of vision loss in “Mayberry,” Maryland. She describes her low vision as “a tug-of-war of changes in the past decade or so.” When asked why she chooses a white cane, she says, “It empowers me to move freely and independently and signals to others that no, I’m not drunk or a snob, I have a visual impairment.”

    What is the most consistent challenge or frustration you experience with your low vision? How do you handle it? 

    Hmmm. Probably not recognizing people/faces like I used to before my vision loss. Friends who understand my disability will announce themselves or whatever, but for all those times I’m in a group or interacting with the general public, I can feel like I’m lost and struggling to understand what’s going on as silent communication like smiles, nods, gestures escape me. I focus on people nearby. When I don’t know what to do, I ask and if appropriate, let them know I have a visual impairment. Later on, when I’m just with him, I’ll ask my husband about things to catch up. Sometimes I’m frustrated, sometimes I can roll with it.

    What would you say is the most harmful or annoying belief that people have about vision loss? 

    How do you cope with this belief?  That people with vision loss are helpless. I cope with it by being myself and showing by example a disability means you learn new ways to do the things you want to do. I work and play and am a part of society and I happen to use a white cane and magnification to do so. (Has anyone seen my iPhone charger by the way?)

    What resources have helped you to handle your low vision best, either in everyday matters or in moments of crisis? 

    Wine. OK, seriously. My state’s rehabilitation services helped with services like OT, orientation and mobility therapy, job searching and assistive equipment for work. My iPhone in all kinds of ways. My husband and immediate family and friends, (my Stocktons if you read my blog!) provide incredible emotional support when needed, too.

    How has blogging affected you as a writer?

    The outlet allows me to experiment and get feedback from different styles.   It’s helped me to find my voice and connect with others.

    What do you look for in a good blog, whether it’s writing your own posts or reading someone else’s?

    Evidence of edited passion. I cast aside rants and long diaries of daily activity. When I find a piece that’s entertaining, interesting and thoughtful, I am drawn in and stick with it.

    Is your blog your main writing outlet or do you write or publish elsewhere? 

    My blog’s my first outlet, hopefully not the last. The Baltimore Sun published an essay I wrote. I’ve submitted other essays elsewhere and I’ve finished the draft of a manuscript, but I’m making major changes to it. We’ll see what the future holds.

    What’s your favorite way to celebrate autumn? 

    Sip mulled cider, perhaps spiked with a little bourbon, and sit by a crackling fire with my husband. Reading whilst wrapped in my Buffalo Bills snuggie with a terrier at my feet is a close second.

    What is a book that you could read over and over again? Why do you feel this way about it? 

    I don’t tend to re-read many books. I revisit my childhood favorite, Matilda, every few years. Oh, I do have a soft spot for the Harry Potter audiobooks narrated by Jim Dale, too. And, once I discover a writer I like, I will plow through most of their work. I’m more of a movie rewatcher.

    What book, person, or perspective makes you feel most centered as a writer? 

    The kind of mindset I hold after I’ve meditated or done yoga. Also, when I read something from a writer who conveys their thoughts honestly and efficiently with a dash of humor, that resonates with me and reminds me to hold true to that kind of writing.

    What is one dream you hope to accomplish in the next 10 years? 

    The welsh terrier farm is probably unreasonable. I want to publish a book or two.

    *  *  *

    Want to know more? Head over to Susan’s blog to read some “evidence of edited passion.”

    Keep reading this month! More interviews are on the way. It’s exciting to have some new voices around here.

  • Open Letter

    Most people try in vain to put words to loss. Even as I sit here, with the fresh urge to write this post making my fingertips itch, I am staring at a blank screen. I have a date, a title, a few lines.

    I believe that this wordlessness marks our most intimate experiences—sensations born in a wordless moment defy expression on the page. My urge to write this letter came from a burst of sorrow that I did not expect. It’s an old grief, but I know its shape now; it comes in sudden storms.

    In a week, I’ll be turning 28. And as I sat in front of my computer, checking email and eating Greek yogurt, I imagined how I would celebrate. But my mind found a snag and it tugged—a long and powerful string connecting me to the friend that won’t be there.

    Christina died in July 2012, just weeks before I started teaching my first writing courses. When I knew she was sick, I wrote a tribute to her—to the memories we’d made. She read it and loved it. Since then I’ve written her letters, some public, some private. Now that the grief is three years old, I think I understand it a little more—even if I can’t predict when it will find me.

    This is my open letter to grief and everyone it connects. I am writing also for the part of myself that needs this letter.

    Grief comes from my emersion in a concrete world. Everyone says that Christina is always with me, that I can still feel her spirit. But I have a body that desperately misses her physical presence—the sound of her voice, the clicks of her power chair, the suddenness of her laugh. Replaying these memories is painful because I know I’m replaying them; I know that my supply is finite. I want more from her.

    It is not enough to say that I miss her or that she is still with me. I believe that grief wakes us up to the uselessness of words. No sentence can save me from this deep sorrow.

    And I don’t think writing is meant to save me. I can’t write to escape because there is no escape. I write to walk around my grief, to take its coat, to comprehend it. My letters form a silhouette, but even as they land here, the feelings change.

    I write to keep pace, to show that I won’t be swept away or left behind.

  • Review: BIstro AIX

    Tonight I am dining at Bistro AIX for the first time. While making the reservation through OpenTable, I inserted a note about needing an out-of-the-way table to accommodate my guide dog. I’m curious to see how the restaurant will interpret my specifications.

    Javier and I arrive at Bistro AIX for our 6:30PM reservation, confirmed by an amiable hostess. She escorts us through the restaurant; we make a few turns, passing occupied tables. The most noise seems to be concentrated in the first seating area, but our guide leads us to the farthest possible table—the last in a series of half-booth, half-chair four-tops. Our table glows with evening sunlight, pouring through the glass door to our right. I slide into the booth side, and Javier takes the seat across from me. Behind him, the pastry case beckons. Despite the glare, the table suits us well—plenty of room for York to stretch out underneath.

    After an initial conversation with our server, we decide to order the fried calamari appetizer. It arrives on a large oval plate with a cup of intriguing dipping sauce. Described on the menu as “red pepper and feta dip,” the sauce complements the calamari’s slightly salty batter. The dip is thick and spicy, and its flavors seem to linger on the tongue. The calamari are crispy and tender—no hint of rubbery rings.

    With the appetizer, we’re enjoying Bistro AIX’s thick rustic bread and sweet butter. The bread has a heavy crust and a fluffy, porous crumb. Each slice is larger than the palm of my hand.

    Each time our server returns to the table, he improves in my estimation. Not only is he friendly and helpful, but he readily narrates his actions: “Some more water for you?” or “Here’s some bread in front of you, butter in s small cup inside the breadbasket.” He must have experience with visually impaired patrons; his descriptions are brief, accurate, and willingly deployed.

    We receive other visitors as we polish off the calamari and bread. Each employee is courteous and helpful, and all are concerned about the sun’s zealous attention to our table. Everyone wants to make sure that we’re still comfortable as we wait for the late sunset.

    Dinner arrives: Ahi tuna for Javier and mushroom-fontina pizza for me. My pizza has a one-line description: “Sautéd wild mushrooms, truffle oil.” Its flavors are equally poetic. The pizza is large and round, cut into several squares and triangles. The crust is extremely thin—almost like a pita pizza. The toppings are strategically arranged: thin slices of mushroom and delicate mounds of melting fontina, all drizzled with the pungent truffle oil.  The pizza is light, and the portion is generous. I’m saving room for dessert, so I finish about half of it.

    The dessert menu is an exercise in exquisite misery. I’m torn between three of its seven options: the Provençal meringue, chocolate gateaux, and vanilla bean crême brûlée. Perhaps because I’ve been reading so much Peter Mayle lately, I choose the Provençal meringue: it seems the most unusual option. The menu offers these inviting syllables: “Lavender-Thyme meringue, lemon curd, mint basil oil.”

    After being flambéed (we catch the tempting smell of caramelizing sugar), the dessert arrives looking like a small campfire. The meringue is concealed beneath its blanket of lemon curd. Strawberries and blueberries mark the meringue’s perimeter, and a few mint leaves are nestled into the delicately browned peaks.

    The dessert is a celebration of textures. Soft warm lemon curd, slightly crunchy meringue, and crisp berries—in some bites all three textures dissolve. The flavors are equally symphonic: I feel like I am chasing the lavender and thyme through the lemon curd, and the berries brighten everything. The mint sounds a clear, clean note, and works best with the lemon. I don’t really taste the basil, so I will have to return and try it again.

    I consider this edible adventure a success, and I am already dreaming about another visit. Bistro AIX offers what I’m looking for in a restaurant: delicious food and empathetic servers.

  • I Ask My Poetry

    The young writer struggles with self-definition. So many incredible reputations hover above us, casting sparks in all directions. Every established literary presence is crisp and luminous, an identity in complete control of its own labels.

    So I ask my poetry for this control, and it withers. I find I possess nothing worthy of a poem. What could be poetic about my unestablished self? About my identity testing its limits?

    I ask my poetry to be perfect, to appeal to everyone, to help others feel what I feel when I read Rilke. Rilke advises his young poet: “If your daily life seems poor, do not blame it; blame yourself, tell yourself you are not poet enough to call forth its riches; for to the creator, there is no poverty and no poor indifferent place.”

    I ask my poems to be round and lively, filled with knowledge that transcends my individual experience. And as I reach for this transcendence, this selflessness, I realize just which parts of my self I am sacrificing.

    I am concerned that others will read my work and see only disability: a dismal vision that makes them turn away rather than turn toward me. I am concerned that their fear of blindness—so widespread in common culture—will tell them, “Close the book, and it will never happen to you.” I worry that any “blindness poems” that don’t offer some nugget of nonvisual bliss will tap into the well of pity carried by people who don’t really know me.

    “That must be what it’s like to be her. Poor thing.”

    So I ask my poetry to silence the part of myself that helps me interact with the world. I ask my poetry to censor disability so that it will appeal to more nondisabled readers. I cut off part of myself—and then I’m surprised when my poetry wants spirit and individuality.

    I didn’t realize how thoroughly I’ve been silencing myself. My prose is flowing smoothly, but I’ve only written 5 poems this year. Last year, I wrote 67. In 2013, I wrote 97. The prose is steadily coming, but the poems are being choked off. I’m telling myself the usual things: I’m not in the mood to write poetry, not all those poems last year were good, numbers don’t mean much when it comes to Art.

    But inspiration only works if you value the craft that asks for it.

    A year ago, I wrote an essay that helped me define myself as a poet. The essay happened in the midst of April—I was celebrating Poetry Month by trying to write some kind of poem every day. I was playing with forms: pantoums, villanelles, sonnets, sestinas. The exercises and the essay worked on paper. So I published the essay,  framed the thoughts, and forgot to engage with them.

    About a month ago, I applied for a slot in a series of local readings that will occur in November. I offered myself as a poet whose poetry would discuss “writing as embodiment and sensory experience”—a neat way of saying “blind poetry” without using the word. I didn’t see the fancy words for what they were: a cloak. Just in case the panel of judges would freak out over seeing “blind” on the page.

    I wanted to read my poems instead of my prose because they are generally shorter and won’t provide as much of a visual challenge. I’ve never felt overly confident about my ability to read aloud.

    My poems don’t mark me as a blind poet in as much as my essays mark me as a blind writer. My poems focus on minute experiences, rarely stopping to explain that they were written by a blind woman. But my essays are longer explorations of important aspects of my life: music, teaching, disability, dogs. In my essays, I don’t avoid the blind label: they flourish because of my perspective.

    So why do I hold poetry to a different standard, a standard of erasure? I can puzzle out a few reasons. I’ve met few blind poets on the page, though of course they exist. I even have several works by blind poets sitting on my poetry shelf.

    But poetry hinges on a paradox. We expect it to bloom with human experience—particular, poignant, real. And at the same time, we imagine that such a high and beautiful art must come from the minds (not bodies) of high and beautiful people. Prose seems to us the writing of everyday life—even if this is an unfair judgement. Prose can certainly be beautiful, graceful, evocative. But prose is the place where you discuss how to clasp the belly-strap of your guide dog’s harness; poetry is the place where you describe the wild warmth of meeting his large brown eyes—perhaps the first pair of eyes you’ve ever been able to meet.

    It is an unfair binary that segregates these two genres, and practicing this binary has helped me to make war on my writing self. I didn’t see it until I read it in a piece by Steve Kuusisto, a blind poet: “Its possible to have a disability and live your life pretending you don’t have one. Plenty of people have done so. But getting away with this charade in literary terms means the imagination has been suborned—bribed—you’ve tricked yourself into thinking there’s a pot of gold that will be yours but only if there isn’t a hint of physical difference in your work.”

    I am an advocate, an activist, a scholar, a teacher. I contemplate all day, and often into the night. I never imagined I could be so thoroughly tricked by the same myths that silence other disabled poets. I’ve been helping to sequester my own experience, and effectively telling others that it is nothing of value—all to avoid being misunderstood, pitied, alienated.

    Kuusisto echoes Rilke’s Letters to a Young Poet, saying:  I’m a poet who not only admits the defective body into literature—I think the imagination is starving for what that damned body knows.” But the difference is, he’s talking about me. I didn’t know Rilke was talking about my experience, too. And I couldn’t ask.

    I could’ve questioned poetry itself, but I didn’t have the courage or the imagination. If I didn’t ask for admission, I couldn’t be turned away.

    I’m going to stop asking my poetry not to come.

    I’m asking all poetry: Are you talking to me?

  • Divining the Catalyst: A Response to the Writing of Oliver Sacks

    I have always been a front-row student. Drawn to the first row of desks or tables by temperament and visual disability, I preferred to be as close to the teacher—and presumably the action—as possible. I never questioned this self-placement: to me, the front row was a reverential space, sanctified by scholarship and enthusiasm.

    Plus, the first row of desks was always easiest for me to find. Before I started traveling with a guide dog, I’d use my white cane to locate an empty seat. I hated threading through crowded aisles scattered with students’ bags. I could see the outline of the first row of desks—usually unoccupied—and claim my place without tangling my cane in the straps of someone’s lumpy Jansport backpack.

    On the third day of my Honors Chemistry class, I was a curious sophomore, sitting in the first seat of the second line of desks nearest the door. Slightly offset from the teacher’s large desk on its elevated platform, my seat offered a clear view of the class’s main attraction: the magic tricks performed by our teacher. For the first two days, she had confined herself to modest tricks—minor explosions and colored flames. She had even made water disappear with the use of three Solo cups and the powder from inside a disposable diaper. So she met our cries for more tricks with a quiet smile and a phrase that complicated my front-row-philia: “All right, I will bring out the shatter shield.”

    Two years later, the same teacher tried to begin our AP Chemistry class with more conventional housekeeping—going through the syllabus and explaining her policies. But we protested; most of us remembered the earlier displays of magic and were excited to see the more advanced versions. As she explained how each trick worked, she continually posed the question, “Is magic chemistry, or is chemistry magic?”

    There were many things I loved about those chemistry classes—from the newspaper-y smell of our carbon lab notebooks to the balancing of redox reactions and the intense calculations of dimensional analysis. Perhaps because I was so enthusiastic about the academic side of the course, I found the laboratory experience to be painful and frustrating. I say this because I never experienced parallel frustrations in my biology courses.

    Though my instructor showed me the equipment with painstaking care, many of our experiments were inaccessible to me. I learned to distinguish round-bottomed flasks from erlenmeyer flasks and flat-bottomed flasks. I learned to identify the parts of a Bunsen burner, the pipettes, and the clamps. But I could not read the measurement lines on the flasks to report a precise meniscus. I could not identify the colors of the various flames during the flame test lab. And I had to rely on my partner’s goodwill during the tie-dye lab as I squirted purple and red coloring onto my scrunched and bundled T-shirt. (Incidentally, the tie-dye shirt came out rather well.)

    So I took notes while my lab partner carried out the kinesthetic tasks. And perhaps because my experience of chemistry was chiefly literary, I was primed to value the first chemistry memoir I read.

    For extra credit, my teacher invited us to report on Oliver Sacks’s book Uncle Tungsten: Memories of a Chemical Boyhood. The book detailed Sacks’s intense love of chemistry, his fascination with the periodic table, his forays into the lab, and his family’s relationship with science. But Uncle Tungsten also offered something new to my 16-year-old self (in love with Jane Austen and James Joyce). It offered a glimpse into what nonfiction beyond the textbook could be—an organic wandering through memory in which discoveries are unbound by time. I realized that revelation was nonlinear, that truth didn’t always march so neatly across the page.

    Unlike our conventional and unappealing course texts—and the labs that accompanied them—Sacks’s memoir made room for the student I was. I could understand and revel in his experience without feeling like an inadequate scientist. In the lab, I squinted at measurement lines on graduated cylinders, always conscious that such visual data was beyond my grasp. But in the pages of the memoir—where phenomena were rendered accessible through text—I could calculate, realize, conclude. I could bring all I had learned into one powerful, imaginative space.

    Though I’ve read several of Sacks’s articles and books, I resonate most with his writings on chemistry and music. I adored Sacks’s Musicophilia: Tales of Music and the Brain, for its discussion of art and science, mystery and measurement.

    These two books, more than Sacks’s other work, helped me come to terms with what felt like insurmountable exclusion from the scientific world. As a high school student, I was just beginning to understand disability rights: I didn’t know what I was allowed to ask for and what I was expected to put up with. Now I know several blind people pursuing careers in the sciences. Lab equipment can be adapted, colors identified. But when I was taking these courses, that terrain seemed so daunting. And in the same way that I coped with the difficulty of sightreading piano music, I did what I knew would work: I turned to writing.

    In July, Dr. Sacks published a piece in The New York Times called “My Periodic Table”; in this piece, he explored the elements that made his life worthwhile—literal chemical elements and different human experiences, like a night filled with stars. Sacks wrote:

    A few weeks ago, in the country, far from the lights of the city, I saw the entire sky “powdered with stars” (in Milton’s           words); such a sky, I imagined, could be seen only on high, dry plateaus like that of Atacama in Chile (where some of the world’s most powerful telescopes are). It was this celestial splendor that suddenly made me realize how little time, how little life, I had left. My sense of the heavens’ beauty, of eternity, was inseparably mixed for me with a sense of transience — and death.

    I told my friends Kate and Allen, “I would like to see such a sky again when I am dying.”

    “We’ll wheel you outside,” they said.

    I have been comforted, since I wrote in February about having metastatic cancer, by the hundreds of letters I have received, the expressions of love and appreciation, and the sense that (despite everything) I may have lived a good and useful life. I remain very glad and grateful for all this — yet none of it hits me as did that night sky full of stars.

    When I imagine my own night filled with stars, I realize that most of the lights have been literary—voices outside of time that I return to again and again. It is easier to be in love with the voices that are already gone—Austen, Joyce, Woolf, and most recently, Seamus Heaney. It is more heartbreaking to feel a voice moving out of our finite, knowable space, because it seems that all their brilliance will cross over, become unfathomable. There is something so necessary and vital in the pieces of life we can touch and smell, like the rough carbon pages of lab notebooks.

  • I’m Asking the Readers…

    Inspired by my fellow blogger over at Adventures in Low Vision, I’m offering this poll to my fabulous readers. Please take a few minutes to answer it. Your feedback matters to me!

  • Surprised by Disability

    This essay appeared in the Winter 2013 issue of Narrative Inquiry in Bioethics, a journal published by Johns Hopkins University. The issue’s theme was “living with the label ‘disability.’” As the issue is no longer in print, I am sharing the essay here.

    *   *   *

    Today I am meeting Diana, one of my young blind students, for coffee. Soon she will enroll in our summer program that teaches blind teenagers independent living skills and self-advocacy. Her teachers explain that she has prepared questions for me.

    “So,” Diana begins, as we follow the uneven sidewalk toward the restaurant. “What would you do if you wanted to go outside without your sunglasses?”

    I can guess why she poses this question, but I conceal my theory for now. Instead, I smile and adjust the large, dark sunglasses that fit over my regular glasses. “Why would I want to do that?”

    “I don’t know…Just say, you wanted to,” she finishes diffidently. She walks slightly in front of me, the familiar sound of her white cane scraping and tapping against the bricks laid in the sidewalk. I rarely travel with other blind people, so the sound of her cane comforts me.

    “I’m so sensitive to light that I’d be miserable without my shades,” I explain.  I’m careful with my tone here. Like me, Diana is unable to read facial expressions—she listens attentively to vocal cues. She is a smart thirteen-year-old, and she will notice if I start to sound preachy.

    “Okay, so what if you wanted to go out without your cane?”

    I’m ready for this one: “Diana, my cane keeps me safe. I’m happy to have it with me.”     The cane alerts me to vital environmental changes, like the textural difference between sidewalks and streets. Unexpected curbs, sudden stairs, perilous signposts, and wayward children become apparent to me through the white cane. It is as if the cane helps sketch the boundaries around me; its contact with objects creates a vivid spatial awareness.

    I sense that my responses fill Diana with a mixture of defeat and frustration. I have not validated her reticence to use the shades or cane. Nor have I handed her a rhetorical placebo, a catchy phrase she can pull out whenever she feels uncomfortable with her disability. Resisting her white cane and dark glasses, she loathes the idea of looking different. Though neither of us can see others staring, we feel the judgment and pity—and the occasional sense of wonder from those for whom we’re still a novelty, the ones who want to point and exclaim, “Look Ma, a real blind girl!”

    Both Diana and I carry emblems of blindness that are easily recognized from a distance—visible signs of disability. Other disabled people can “pass” as nondisabled. If they don’t use wheelchairs, crutches, canes, dogs, or braces, no one will know that they have disabilities. Hence, the disabilities that don’t require visible accessories are called “invisible disabilities”—a term that strengthens the connection between disability and appearance.

    Diana doesn’t want to “look” blind. She wants me to give her an out, to divulge the strategies I’ve devised for leaving the house without my cane and shades. Underneath her casual questions lies the prevailing obsession, “What’s the secret to looking normal?” As a successful blind woman, I must have it figured out. The secret, Diana, is easy to articulate and difficult to enforce. I can write it more readily than I can live it.

    The secret begins with  a very broad spectrum of acceptance. First, I must accept myself as a blind woman who needs a cane and dark glasses to travel in safety and confidence. Then I must accept that these mobility aids are uncommon and highly visible—which means that, almost every time I go out, people will approach me. And lastly, I must accept that the attitudes of others do not determine who I am, that their idea of blindness does not define my experience of it.

    The white cane was not always easy for me to carry. Though I have been legally blind from birth, I did not use the white cane in my daily life until high school. Before my freshman year, I could pass as nondisabled. At high school, I found myself on a large, crowded campus with only six minutes to travel to and from classes. The cane supplemented my limited visual fields, letting me know about approaching stairs, curbs, potted plants, and people. In a blink, I was visibly disabled, consistently referred to as “blind” or “legally blind” instead of the mild and familiar “visually impaired.” With the cane, this new “blindness” brought me braille and the dark glasses. As I picked up the cane, put on the shades, and placed braille labels on all my textbooks, I began to learn that everyone saw my blindness differently.

    When I became visibly blind, strangers started to approach me with more regularity. I received unsolicited comments that revealed the discrepancy between who I was and who everyone thought I should be. Unable to mask their disbelief, people said, “You don’t look blind!” or “If you hadn’t used the cane, I’d never have known you were blind.” I wondered what it meant to “look blind”—did they expect me to stumble, to spill food or drinks all over myself, to grope for the objects around me? Absolutely they did. Some exclaimed, “Wow, you dress so well for a blind person!” while others consoled, “Don’t worry, I run into walls all the time too!”  (For the record, I rarely run into walls. That’s what the cane is for.)

    To outsiders observing the blind experience, blindness is signified by shuffling feet, stained clothing, wild hair, and a general lack of confidence. A blind woman should look lost, frail, and naive. No wonder Diana and my other students are afraid to look blind; they know the stereotypes and dread fulfilling them.

    The prevailing attitude is that blindness, and any other physical (visible) disability, indicates an eternal deficit—a life clouded by insurmountable tragedy in which the disabled person can never accomplish her goals and ambitions. It’s not difficult to imagine the heart-wrenching scenes created by sympathetic ableism: the wheelchair user who dreams of being a ballerina, the blind man who wants to be a neurosurgeon, the deaf person who longs to hear music. Often, popular ideas about disability create images of disabled people whose genetic lottery pits them against impossible desires. And the righteous sympathy that nondisabled people are supposed to feel for these tortured “innocents with disabilities” emerges when real nondisabled people encounter real disabled people.

    Called slippage, this attitude insists that the disabled person should be inept at all tasks. Slippage is the idea that an impairment in one area, such as blindness, causes all other abilities to deteriorate. Perhaps this is why some people choose to speak to me in loud voices, slowing their words, while others seem amazed when I move without encumbrance. Because I carry the cane, the performance of routine tasks—swiping my debit card at the grocery store, tying a scarf around my neck, or walking down a hallway—wins me the most effusive praise. This problematic attitude moves indiscriminately among disabled and nondisabled people. Even disabled people can believe in their own incompetence.

    My experience with blind teenagers shows me how easily they internalize the cultural attitudes about disability. On the first day of our summer program for blind teens, I stood in front of the class and introduced myself. I said that my name was Miss Emily, that I had my Master’s in English, and that I enjoyed singing and cooking. I added, “I’m also blind. I have some vision, but I use a cane.” On nearly every day of the six-week program, I walked to students’ desks, using my cane, and sat down, folding the cane. Every blind person recognizes the familiar clicks of a cane folding or unfolding and the subtle pull of the bungee cord as the user slips the loop over the folded segments. So, imagine my surprise, when in the following weeks, my students exclaimed, “Hey, you use a cane?!”

    Their disbelief communicated many things to me. They couldn’t believe I was blind; they were surprised by my disability. I wanted to know what they expected from a blind person and what made me so unexpected. Did they expect never to find a blind woman in the teacher’s role, speaking authoritatively? Did they never expect a blind person to sound confident, to reprimand their bad posture, to know when they were working or slacking off—as I did?

    Like my students, Diana acknowledges that the label of blindness conveys a more-than-visual deficit. Many have accepted the message broadcasted by the sighted world: impaired vision means impaired judgment. My students are in the process of learning the power they can exert over their own labels. I want Diana to understand this power: the white cane does not represent one idea of blindness—it signifies all ideas of blindness. Diana has the unique power to embody blindness for others, and she can decide what kind of blindness it will be. I want her to know that she can use her cane and shades in innumerable ways—as implements of independence, as shortcuts to the assistance she needs. I decide to tell her the following story.

    On Friday afternoon, the tutoring center is noisy and crowded. Since our official tutoring hours have finished, the peer tutors gather for our monthly training, queueing by the sign-in computer. I thread through the lobby, my white cane catching between the thin chair and table legs, and walk toward the computer. I’ll ask for help signing in as I do every time I clock on and off; unlike my personal computer, the sign-in computer isn’t equipped with assistive technology. I stand near the computer, waiting as the tutors in line ahead of me sign in. I begin listening for familiar voices.

    “Hey, do you need some help signing in?”

    The voice belongs to a dark looming shape that has just appeared on my right. I look up to see a broad-shouldered guy in a dark shirt. His facial hair, contrasting with his skin, makes it easier for me to find his face. The friendly voice and the eagerness to assist make him familiar to me. “Hi, Patrick! Sure, could you type in my ID?”

    He obliges, holding my cane and purse while I enter my password. He walks with me into the meeting room, where he helps me find a seat among the indistinguishable tables and chairs. Unable to identify colors by sight, I can only attest that the low-contrast hues of tables, chairs, and carpet make the room a challenging place to navigate. After helping me find a seat, Patrick retreats to his customary place at the front of the room, where he interprets for our deaf tutors.  When I stand up to avail myself of the refreshments, Patrick meets me at the snack table. “What would you like?” he asks, offering me a plate. He narrates the contents of the refreshment table and puts the requested items on my plate. Again, I haven’t asked for his help, but I appreciate it.

    As he leaves, I marvel at two things: how quickly he spotted me and how readily he assisted me. Technically, Patrick isn’t at the meeting for me—and that makes his attentions seem especially considerate. Unable to ignore the graceful and unexpected help he gave, I begin to analyze the circumstances that brought Patrick to my aid.

    I reason that Patrick must have seen me come in. Among the tutors, I am the only one using a white cane and wearing dark glasses. Because of my extreme sensitivity to light, I am also wearing a gray cloche hat with a bow. Add that to my dark purple coat, and I suppose I become pretty visible. So, Patrick spotted me readily, and, because of our long acquaintance or his own personal merits, he came over to see if I needed help.

    Patrick doesn’t see the cane and dark glasses as signifiers of eternal deficit. His offers of assistance are kind, even-keeled, and respectful. He doesn’t patronize, snatch items out of my hands, or insist on helping after I’ve refused assistance. He respects my agency, my ability to know what I want and need. In essence, Patrick lets me define myself. Perhaps because of his work with disabled people, Patrick has come to understand the absurdity of the stereotypes. Patrick responds to the needs I voice, rather than the issues he perceives. Through these interactions, I remember that I experience disability on my own terms.

    To navigate the language of disability, a disabled person must develop a resilience to the commonplace reading of the terms. Instead, she must advocate for the signification she desires. Accepting the labels of disability and blindness signifies my commitment to expanding the space around such labels.

  • Of Dogs and Dragons

    In May of this year, I followed a friend’s recommendation and began reading His Majesty’s Dragon, a novel by Naomi Novik. The book is the first in Novik’s Temeraire series, a historical fantasy narrative that chronicles the adventures of Capt. Will Laurence and his combat dragon, Temeraire. Reviews often describe this series as “the Napoleonic War…with dragons.” Laurence and Temeraire fight for England, and each book places them in a different cultural setting, complicating their sense of patriotic duty. There are eight books so far, and the final Temeraire novel is expected at the end of this year.

    After discovering the Audible version of His Majesty’s Dragon, I wanted to experience the whole series in audio rather than print. Fortunately, the series maintains the same narrator throughout: the incredible Simon Vance. Vance is already a staple in my audiobook library—having narrated my favorite versions of Great Expectations and The Picture of Dorian Gray. His low, supple voice never cracks or stumbles. His native British accent complements the mostly British cast and setting of the Temeraire series. His narration is smooth and expressive, and his gift for dialects produces believable character voices.

    In these novels, dragons are highly intelligent creatures, able to speak the native language of their captains. Temeraire, a rare kind of dragon, masters several languages throughout the series—most notably French and Chinese—and often tutors Laurence and the other members of his crew. Despite their intelligence and the love of their captains, dragons are underestimated or disrespected beyond the ranks of the aerial corps, and Laurence and his fellow aviators must constantly challenge the public’s opinion.

    The most remarkable feature of the Temeraire series—what keeps me awake late into the night, laughing and crying—is the relationship between Temeraire and his captain, Laurence. At first, Laurence is unwilling to leave his Navy career for a position among England’s questionable aviators, but love for his newly hatched dragon begins to change the shape of his whole life. As they embark on a more-than-working relationship, Laurence uses Temeraire’s happiness to measure his own.

    Like most readers, I am drawn to this relationship because of its intensity. Laurence learns to love his dragon above anyone else in his life, and Temeraire protects and adores Laurence as a true friend. To the “civilized” civilian world, Laurence’s affection for Temeraire seems indulgent or delusional—like a lady’s fondness for a favorite lapdog. But Laurence has recognized Temeraire as one of the few people in his life who truly understands him. This relationship is beautiful, dynamic, and sincere.

    I experience a daily parallel to the Laurence-Temeraire bond in my relationship with my guide dog, York. York is not a talking dragon—he’s a quiet Labrador—but some similarities are obvious from the start. Like Temeraire, York is a shiny black, and his appearance receives frequent notice. Like Temeraire, he works in harness, a leather contraption that connects us and enables him to perform his job. And like Temeraire and Laurence, our relationship has far exceeded its original motivation.

    In the series, British dragons are only assigned to aviators so that they can be trained in combat. To a poorly informed public, a captain’s relationship with his dragon is a working relationship only: the dragon is a beast of burden, not a conscientious, unique creature with a mind of its own. People beyond Laurence’s circle of friends often assume that he can leave Temeraire behind without hesitation; they doubt that Laurence could prefer the company of a nonhuman companion to their own.

    With the same ignorant benevolence, strangers often assume that I will be content to leave York behind—especially in situations where they see him as an added obstacle. I’ve often struggled for tactful answers to the questions, “Wouldn’t it be easier to leave your dog and take someone’s arm?” or “Don’t you think it would be better to leave York at home?” The reply that rises to my lips is always a call for empathy: I want people to recognize that what they see as drawbacks—keeping York calm, helping him stay focused, taking care of him—comprise my half of the bargain. As Laurence cherishes the company of Temeraire, I enjoy York’s presence for more-than-practical reasons. Yes, he keeps me safe and helps me travel independently, but he is also a source of daily joy.

    As Laurence and Temeraire discover one another’s passions, strengths, and weaknesses, their affection deepens. Laurence often sees Temeraire’s friendship as a remarkable privilege that he doesn’t quite deserve: Temeraire is a superior scholar and he seems to possess an endless supply of fantastical abilities. Only Temeraire’s unwavering affection can help Laurence recognize his own value. But Laurence’s never ceases to regard Temeraire as extraordinary—and their relationship as an extraordinary gift.

    Laurence’s feelings of thankfulness and wonder most closely resemble my own. My companion is not magical in the way of fantasy novels; he does not command natural forces or speak my human language. But his skills are far from ordinary—and any glimpse of the extraordinary in our lives is a glimpse of magic, of miracles, of power beyond ourselves.

    York can stop for a flight of steps or an unexpected car, the sudden motion of his harness sending a message for my hand alone. He can guide me through a crowd of people, shopping carts, wet-floor placards, line ropes. He solves complicated problems, altering our route to accommodate new obstacles. And he shows me, through his attention to his job, that I am worth keeping safe.

    Stories rarely revel in the literal. We love metaphor because it takes us beyond our bread-and-butter world. If York and I cannot fly, I’m glad that Laurence and Temeraire can, because their relationship reflects the delights of living in a more-than-human world.

  • Two Essays Published!

    Today two of my essays appeared in the June issue of Wordgathering: A Journal of Disability Poetry and Literature. The first, “Designing the Parachorus,” was originally posted on this blog (that’s right folks, you read it here!), and is now in a section of the online journal called “The Arts.” In this piece, I described my problematic position as a blind musician and my thoughts on the ultimate disability-friendly ensemble.

    When Wordgathering asked if they could (re)publish this post, I proposed a follow-up piece that would describe how my theories played out on a real stage. I wrote “Quartet Beyond Measure,” an essay that describes my quartet’s first experience of Regional Competition. Here’s how it begins:

    In the noisy hotel lobby, Jeanie and I take our places behind several women checking in at the front desk. We guess that they are fellow Sweet Adelines—barbershop singers who have arrived in Daytona for Regional Competition. As we step forward to offer our names and credit cards, Jeanie turns to me: “Is it too bright in here for you?”

    “Absolutely,” I flick one brief glance over the receptionist’s shoulder. Behind the tall desk, huge windows offer a view of the sunny Florida beach. I look down, grateful for the dark surface of the desk, the small black wallet in my hand, and the even blacker Labrador in harness sitting by my left foot. Through my sunglasses, I watch as my guide dog slides to the floor, enjoying the feel of the cool tiles against his belly. While I converse with the receptionist’s blurry silhouette, I bless York’s dark coat—a visual anchor in an otherwise unfamiliar place.

    As my fellow singers and I walk to our rooms, I steel myself for the unfriendly or intrusive comments that other handlers have warned me about. Although York and I have completed two pleasant hotel stays, I still feel compelled to prepare myself for incivility—or at least ignorance. But I meet neither of these as we traverse short flights of stairs, carpet, and tile. Instead, I listen to our porter’s cheerful commentary: “Yes, this is one of my favorite weekends of the whole year! We just love having you singers staying with us.”

    Read the full essay here.

  • “Affluentia Poesis”: Meeting Poetry in the Universe of Possibility

    “To let each impression and each germ of a feeling come to completion wholly in itself, in the dark, in the inexpressible, the unconscious, beyond the reach of one’s own intelligence and await with deep humility and patience the birth-hour of a new clarity, that alone is living the artist’s life, in understanding as in creating.”

    -Rainer Maria Rilke, Letters to a Young Poet

    The title of this blog comes from one of my former students, a science-minded young man who asked Google Translate for the Latin equivalent of an English phrase: flow of poetry. I know the translation is incorrect, and exchanging several emails with colleagues (whose knowledge of Latin surpasses mine) has not helped me to find the accurate rendering of this idea. The Internet at least tells me that “affluentia” is closer to affluence—an overflow. Nevertheless I build my philosophy of teaching poetry around Affluentia Poesis, poetry as living, incalculable current.

    Affluentia Poesis was born on a writing assignment, inspired by Kenneth Goldsmith’s Uncreative Writing course. As a class, we read Goldsmith’s “It’s not Plagiarism. In the Digital Age, It’s ‘Repurposing’” an excerpt that appeared in The Chronicle of Higher Education. In describing his methods and motives, Goldsmith (2011) questioned the value of literary originality and praised the general repurposing and imitative practices found in other arts. He relayed the testimonials of students whose most creative work came from a period of strict constraint, a course in which Goldsmith punished their attempts at originality.

    After our discussion of Goldsmith’s article, I offered my students an opportunity for uncreative writing. I gave them a handout titled “Plagiarizing Poetry” which included these eleven poems:

    I chose these poems for their variety. Some offered classic poetics like St. Vincent Millay’s sonnet and Bishop and Thomas’s villanelles, while others—like Williams and Lopate—scarcely used punctuation or capitalization, resembling a prose paragraph scattered over a sheet of paper. Rich and Owen both offered social critique, one in short, provocative form and the other with rigorous, hypnotic sound repetitions. Heaney and Housman used earthy language to describe domestic conflict, one poet talking to himself and another offering dialogue between a friend and a ghost. Each poem was manageable in some aspect and daunting in another: complex messages offered in short, simple lines or familiar meaning wrapped in elaborate language.

    My instructions were straightforward; I asked every student to create two poems using only words or lines from the eleven. Like Goldsmith’s students, mine were piecing together poems rather than writing them in a more traditional way. They could wander through the poems as gardeners or naturalists, picking out the words or phrases that struck their fancy and situating them on a new page.

    To make beautiful bouquets, gardeners do not have to invent flowers. To make meaning, my students did not have to invent language; they had to arrange it, place it, shuffle it around. Soon, their playful and determined efforts resulted in a surprising number of interesting poems whose components—wrenched from their original context—hummed together to reveal new depths of meaning.

    As my students read their work aloud, some sheepish and others gleeful, I witnessed the collaborative power of creating. Tradition elevates the solitary genius, who labors beneath the light of inspiration, but our creations are more often the work of many voices, both present and faded, some half-remembered and others daily cherished. None of us compose in a vacuum.

    Though most students strictly adhered to the exercise, some could not help but flaunt their originality in titles. The student who weekly professed his loyalty to science and medicine took from “Ars Poetica” a need for Latin: he titled his first poem “Affluentia Poesis.” When I asked him what this phrase meant, he proudly replied, “Flow of poetry.”He was the only student to offer a Latin title for his poem—a touch of creativity that I could never have anticipated.

    By harvesting their poems, rather than inventing them, my students realized the pleasure of serendipity—of seeing meaning spring up as words come together on a page. This is the moment when the poem you think you’re writing changes shape, and you’re awash in moments you haven’t remembered in years. The tingle of a sharp perfume, the metallic slam of locker doors, the raucous laugh you heard around the corner—these are memories you could not have forced to the surface. This is your poetry talking back to you, telling you what it wants to become.

    Teaching poetry is too often a one-sided conversation. The poem, positioned beneath the glass display case of the printed page, is never allowed to rise up and take part. Teachers cling to the value of moving line-by-line, so that students can understand what the poem “means.”—as if understanding a poem’s meaning is as easy as swallowing a multivitamin. But of course, in these arenas, the meaning of a poem is finite, digestible, and controlled by the instructor.

    Students complain about interacting with poetry for a simple reason: they don’t want to be “wrong” about it. Difficult or confusing language wouldn’t be so annoying to them if they felt no pressure to parade their nuanced understanding—smartypants fashion—before the judge who delivers validation in the form of grades. But no one expects a first-time cook to master a complicated French dish right away. No one expects the young musician to play flawlessly with sophisticated interpretation. In these novice stages, we applaud and encourage the heart needed for someone to step forward and expose their inexperience.

    Poems may contain finite elements—a certain quantity of syllables and sounds—but their meaning and reception can’t be predicted. When we as teachers remove the capacity for error—and its cohorts of diffidence and exclusion—we take the surest step of bringing students to a love of the arts. Students who can play with poetry will lose their fear, their hesitation to touch and be touched by language.

  • Market Day

    I love the shape of the Starbucks in Riverside. The open doors reveal a wide, welcoming interior with counter and pastry case along the back wall. Seats at short round tables are the most common, but a few high-tops and one long wooden table break up the monotony.

    The pathway to the counter is easy to travel. Katie, York, and I don’t have to fight our way through displays of teetering ceramic mugs or bags of whole-bean coffee.

    As we wait in line, enjoying the rush of cold air from beneath the pastry case, I overhear a conversation near the central wooden table. A mother instructs her young child, “No, you can’t pet that doggie. He has very important work to do.” Without knowing exactly where she stands, I turn and smile at this benevolent educator; I’m touched to hear a stranger illuminating service dog etiquette without my help.

    Behind me, another customer acknowledges York: “I’d love to pet him, but I know he’s working.”

    “Thank you,” I offer her a smile.

    After paying for my iced latte, I ask the cashier to transfer my remaining gift card balance onto the aged braille Starbucks card I’ve been carrying in my wallet. In October, Starbucks always releases gift cards for Disability Awareness Month—some autumnal design with the store name in braille. As this is the only braille card in my wallet, it’s always identifiable as my passport to strong coffee. So I transfer every new gift card onto the braille one and hand the blind-friendly card to each cashier: fulfilling my duty as a responsible consumer-activist.

    At our own round table, Katie and I hash out plans for our morning. Because of the lovely breeze and sunshine, we’ve decided to visit the Riverside Arts Market. While we converse, a man approaches our table and greets us.

    “Hi, can I pet the dog, or is he considered working?”

    I explain that even though York looks to be taking a break—lying half-asleep at my feet—he is a working dog and shouldn’t be touched. Accepting my words without complaint, the man collects his coffee and moves away.

    As we head to the car, Katie and I compare notes on York’s treatment: in 30 minutes at Starbucks, he has received three positive interactions and no negative interactions. We contrast this with the treatment he received last night when we attended the season finale at the Jacksonville Symphony.

    Though all symphony personnel were courteous and respectful, several patrons were rude or intrusive. To justify his attempt at a pet, one elderly man insisted that York “doesn’t know he’s working”—a sentiment disproved by the very presence of York’s harness. If York couldn’t treat the harness as his work uniform, recognizing that his priorities and responsibilities change when he wears it, he would never have graduated as a guide dog. It’s the thoughtless dog-lovers, not my thoughtful companion, who disregard the difference between work and play.

    Another woman attempted a stealth-pat as I conversed with an usher. Luckily, Katie was on the alert, and used her knee to push the woman’s hand away—a maneuver she explained to me after getting us out of the woman’s range. The stealth-pat is a particularly insulting gesture; it shows that the person knows the petting isn’t allowed, yet does it anyway.

    If I have to find a silver lining in these moments, it’s the incontrovertible proof that York understands his role better than most humans. And when I feel embittered by these unpleasant interactions, I remind myself that I am surrounded by friends and family who respect my relationship with York.

    Unlike the symphony, the Arts Market presents no particular doggie challenges. Katie and I enjoy our cool walk from the car to the market—though York is determined to inspect several smells in the bushes along the sidewalk. As we approach the Market, I experience a rush of music and traffic mingling with the smells of lavender soap and beef jerky. Now I know why my mobility instructor told me not to follow my nose; the savory smoke of the beef jerky coils around the corner, well before we actually reach the stall. The wind tosses and scrambles the scents, so that I can only navigate by smell if I’m standing immediately before the vendor.

    The Arts Market is a dog-friendly place, and the presence of many dogs on leashes makes York less novel. Even so, several people stop to comment on his looks, asking about his breeding and training. I overhear the familiar parental advice to children: “The puppy is working, so we can’t pet him, okay? He’s helping that lady.”

    Perhaps because dogs are a part of this market culture, patrons are more familiar with service dog protocol. Though more people stop to speak with me, no one pets York without asking—which means that no one pets York at all. Every person understands that he is working and is pleased when I thank them for asking my permission.

    Apart from York, Katie and I have developed our own market protocol. As it’s hard for me to read prices at most of the stands, we use a code phrase to signify the two most awkward messages: “This item costs more than you’re willing to spend” and “This item is not very attractive.” Because we’ve just eaten breakfast, today’s phrase is, “No, I’m really hungry.” While strolling through the wide aisle and enjoying the unfamiliar melodies of a saxophone, we test the phrase to see if it works:

    “How do you like that jewelry over there, made from old board game pieces?”

    “I don’t know—I’m still really hungry. Starving actually.”

    We exchange grins. Today’s code is a success.

    Fortunately, we don’t find much need for the code as we visit some of our favorite stalls. The FreshJax display offers homemade cookies, trail mix, and spiced nuts—with the added charm of free samples. After a tour of the entire stall, I settle on the chili-lime cashews, and Katie snaps up some cookies, oatmeal-chocolate-chip with macadamia nuts.

    After cookies and trail mix, we find another stall that offers samples: Little Black Box. A bakery that sells cookies as well as homemade jam, their display boasts several neat rows of jam jars—dark with the promise of their delicious contents. Here, we sample numerous jams, including Plum Gin and Blueberry Red Wine Lavender. Katie and I both prefer the Blackberry Bourbon Vanilla, dreaming up occasions to use the jam as we slide our money toward the friendly vendor.

    Making our way toward the quilts, jewelry, and other crafts, we enter a pottery stall with beautiful mugs, plates, and pitchers. Here, Katie takes down pieces that she thinks I’ll enjoy, while I keep York’s curious nose from nestling among the fragile creations. As Katie hands me each piece, she directs my attention to certain colors or styles. My particular favorites are the small round-bellied pitchers that narrow to a graceful spout. Together we discuss the remarkable colors and textures and fantasize about  taking pottery classes someday soon.

    Feeling the abrupt wagging of York’s tail against my left leg, I turn my head toward the stall’s entrance. A family stands some distance away with their dog, and judging by York’s posture, he would very much like to meet her. He pretends to sit, keeping his rump hovering an inch off the ground, his tail thrumming against my leg. The adults laugh and remind their child that York is a working dog. I ask him to sit again, and he resumes his good posture, aware that he’s on display.

    As we leave the stall, I ask Katie, “Was there anyone running that display?” and I’m surprised to hear that the stall’s proprietor was present throughout our short visit. Completely silent, he (or she) was totally undetectable—his behavior an inhospitable contrast with the friendly vendors who welcomed us and spoke readily. Perhaps he guessed that we wouldn’t buy and didn’t want to waste energy in talking. But by not acknowledging us, he turns a hasty guess into a certainty.

    Just as inconsiderate patrons won’t keep me away from beautiful classical music, rude vendors won’t deter me from visiting the Arts Market. I am fortified by the many courteous conversations—alive with genuine interest—and the dozens of people ready to honor the intelligence and heart of my nonhuman companion. I wonder how it must be to confine others’ potential by their shape: to see a dog as only a dog, to imagine that he cannot ever share our human capacities for reason and empathy.

    It is much more pleasant to let York show me his strengths and struggles—as any human friend would.

  • Designing the Parachorus—Or Why I Sing with a Dog

    In his 2011 TED Talk, British conductor Charles Hazlewood insists that music-making depends not on skill, but on trust. Describing past and present musical projects, Hazlewood emphasizes how trust grows through collaboration. “Where there is trust,” says Hazlewood, “there is music—by extension life.”

    One of Hazlewood’s remarkable projects is the British Paraorchestra, an ensemble of disabled musicians. Paraorchestra, which debuted at TED in November, 2011, is Hazlewood’s attempt to provide a space for professional musicians with disabilities—often overlooked by professional musical organizations.

    Though disabled musicians may be more prominent in 2015, the prevailing question is always, “How will they cope?” How will the blind doctoral piano student handle complicated printed music? How will the paraplegic horn player keep up with the orchestra?

    Guesses made by nondisabled authorities can outweigh the actual circumstances of a disabled person’s life – as an employer, a graduate advisor, or a teacher attempts to foresee every pitfall. This preemptive troubleshooting –regularly  performed without the disabled person’s input, despite their closeness to the situation – is an example of what Benjamin Zander calls “the world of measurement.” Zander, another influential British conductor, describes two worlds: the world of measurement and the universe of possibility. (Find out more here.) In the world of measurement, every “what-if” is a potential snag, a hiccup in the smooth machinery of organizations. Every deviation is an error, and all errors are preventable, as long as we never let our guard down. In the universe of possibility, every “what-if” is a chance to learn, to imagine.

    Paraorchestra is a project in the universe of possibility, a chance to re-imagine the kinds of people we expect musicians to be—and the kinds of instruments we expect them to play. It’s a chance to reinvent how we judge our bodies and our instruments – where one ends and the other begins. By establishing Paraorchestra, Hazlewood helps us question the traditions of musical performance—norms set by nondisabled musicians. If every musician onstage is disabled, “disability” can no longer be imagined as a barrier to music-making. The troublesome “what-ifs” are banished by the most effective brand of activism: people sharing their passion with others.

    Though I’m not an orchestral musician, I want to bring Hazlewood and Zander’s ideas into my musical endeavors. In my 15 years of choral experience, I have always been the only singer onstage with dark glasses, my white cane tucked between the folds of a black chorus dress. No director has ever taken issue with my onstage needs, but I feel a pressure to conform every time the chorus receives a speech about “visual unity.” Even when I have mastered the choreography, body angles, entrances, and exits, I am aware of my sense of difference on the risers.

    But awareness is not shame. Now, when I think about the singers who stand beside me, I ask myself, Where are the other blind musicians? Why aren’t they here with me, forging trust and performing a message of inclusion? For each time I stand on the risers with my dark glasses, I am offering a message of what it means to live a life. I want my presence to show the audience that there is nothing exceptional or extraordinary about a blind singer fully participating in a musical organization. There is no magical “overcoming” here. I carry my disability into rehearsals and onstage. Performing on the risers doesn’t make me nondisabled; it makes me human.

    Two new developments are allowing me to extend my musical activism to new audiences: my guide dog and my new quartet. Though York has been to several chorus rehearsals, he and I shared our first chorus performance earlier this week. The informal setting was an ideal place for York to practice his performance training:  I placed him in a down-stay at my feet and kept one foot on his leash.

    When I tell people that York will not be on the competition stage with my chorus in April, they laugh and say, “Of course not!” Because our contest songs are accompanied by vigorous choreography and because I am placed in the center of the chorus, I have chosen to leave York backstage with a friend. As I acknowledge the logic of this choice, I drift into the universe of possibility. Will all ensemble musicians be forced to leave their service dogs in the wings forever? What would happen to a guide dog in a Parachorus?

    While I rehearse and perform with my quartet, I can conduct my own Parachorus experiments. With advice and encouragement, my quartet members have helped me develop York’s performance etiquette. He lies at my feet throughout every three-hour rehearsal and transfers this behavior to our live performances. We are perfecting his position because he will accompany us on the competition stage in April. When we sing with York, my quartet and I can redesign the performance space and create new expectations.

    No one should be surprised to see a disabled musician waiting to audition or perform. If disabled and nondisabled musicians can make music together onstage, they can make lives together offstage. I want to replace the skepticism of measurement with an invitation to imagine, to collaborate.

  • Article: “Barbershop singing: A true test of vocal prowess, with or without straw hats”

    Today Minnesota Public Radio published my reflections on the rigors of barbershop singing:

    “For musicians and non-musicians alike, “barbershop singing” recalls The Music Man‘s Ice Cream Quartet and the bright hum of a pitch pipe. Audiences won’t guess that participation in barbershop singing can entail three-hour rehearsals, vowel-matching, breath plans, lyric mapping, and international competition.

    Barbershop is a cappella four-part harmony marked by elaborate slides, inverted chords, and attention to overtones. Its lighthearted performance often belies the musicianship needed to “ring the chords” — to sing with such accurate pitch and pronunciation that the chords create more notes than voices.”

    Read the full article here.

  • Craft and Fantasy: A Response to Sherwood Smith

    In the midst of chaotic or new experiences, I am always soothed by the familiar. So as this semester began, I decided to return to the work of one of my favorite fantasy writers, Sherwood Smith. I first encountered Smith’s novels Crown Duel and Court Duel in high school, both books bound together in a trade paperback edition. I borrowed the book from a friend – and bought my own copy before I was halfway through the story.

    When searching Audible for old favorites, I came across the same two novels sold as a single audiobook. Scanning down the list of Smith’s works, I saw a book that was released just last year. Titled A Stranger to Command, this audiobook was described as the prequel to Crown Duel. I added it to my cart without hesitation.

    Knowing I would need a refresher on Smith’s layered cultures and characters, I listened to Crown Duel first. From the initial minutes of the audiobook, I was transported back to my first reading of the novel. I remembered how I used to read then – lying on my bed, moving my glass dome magnifier across the book’s cramped font. The magnifier was heavy, the borrowed paperback thick, smelling faintly of someone else’s house. When I read with a magnifier, my experience of a good book was decidedly tactile; I had to be close to the book, my nose a centimeter above the cold glass dome that made the words legible to me.

    As the audiobook caught me up, I rearranged my schedule, so that I could complete mindless necessary tasks and give my thinking brain to the familiar story. The book’s narrator halted here and there – a fault of the performance, not the prose – but the story charmed me. Though I remembered the general events of the plot. Smith’s writing still surprised and delighted me. During intense moments, I set aside the papers I was filing and wrapped my fingers around the arms of my desk chair, pressing hard into the spongy rubber. The book satisfied my craving for the familiar and justified my earlier admiration.

    Crown Duel tells the story of a country countess who leads a revolution against a tyrannical king. Narrated from Countess Meliara’s point of view, the story is shaped by her surmises and misjudgments – allowing the reader to sigh with relief when Meliara is correct and cringe with despair when her ignorance leads to disaster. Mel’s delivery is honest and earthy; she critiques the world around her, leaving the reader to derive more compassionate conclusions.

    The second novel, Court Duel, describes Meliara’s forays into Court life as she unravels the intense attitudes of the previous book to make sense of her new situation. In this novel, Meliara must examine her relationships with the other dynamic characters. While Crown Duel had the countess determined to go it alone, its sequel allows her to recognize – with considerable reluctance – how much she needs other people and how this need lends itself equally to joy and disappointment.

    Throughout these two books, Mel’s chief irritant is Vidanric Renselaeus, the Marquis of Shevraeth. Despised by our forthright narrator for his reputation as a flirt and a dandy, Vidanric occupies several roles in his interactions with Meliara – from a “court decoration” to a military commander. Court Duel places Vidanric in yet another position, which I won’t describe here (I’m doing my best to avoid spoilers!).

    Though Smith has created a vivid and captivating fantasy world, it is her characters that compel me to reread her books. Listening to Crown Duel (Books I/II), I fell in love with Vidanric for his wit, capability, and good sense – to say nothing of his long blond hair and expressive gray eyes. But as a writer, I fell in love with Meliara – more precisely, with how Smith allows her to develop. Without changing Mel’s values or personality, Smith creates a character who learns to think for herself and reflect on her actions, a character who makes the same mistakes because her mistakes are habits. In short, Mel doesn’t fit the obnoxious protagonist of many fantasy stories – the heroine who is too perfect to be real. She is wonderfully flawed, and as she learns to manage her bad habits, she doesn’t cease to be human.

    The audio version of CD is roughly 18 hours, but the story finished around 14:30:00. I listened on to find that Smith had included several inserts found in the most recent reprinting of the book: a series of thoughtful and engaging vignettes from Vidanric’s point of view. Here, I recognize an elegance of craft; these inserts add shades of meaning to the overall project of CD but they wouldn’t work within the novel itself. Because they bring in knowledge that might tamper with the healthy suspense of the plot, they function best outside the novel, which is a miraculous craft secret! Smith has managed to create supplemental materials that fit around the story without changing the story itself. It’s as if we’re in a CD archive, and we have special permission to examine a box of hidden records. This archival quality may be  what makes her world seem so real. I am taking notes.

    After the intense first-person narration in CD, I did not know what to expect from A Stranger to Command, which tells the story of young Vidanric’s military training outside his own country. Because Vidanric rarely shows strong emotions in CD, I wondered what kind of narrator he would make. To my delight, Smith employed a third-person narrative voice, taking us inside the heads of several prominent characters in the book. This time, the story was read by a male narrator, who employed a British accent to mark Vidanric as a foreigner in the military academy of Marloven Hess. The British accent, beautifully performed, renders Vidanric’s thoughts and dialogue with graceful intensity. Somehow the accent suits the wide range of emotions that the young Vidanric experiences: attraction, defiance, disgust, resignation, joy.

    This audiobook is around 14 hours, roughly the same length as CD without the added material. Because I couldn’t judge how much story remained by the feel of pages in my hand, I frequently checked the time elapsed. Six hours into the story, I misread the remaining time; I was relieved to realize that I actually had 8 hours left! At 13:00:00, I felt incredibly sad, even close to tears. I recognized the coming end, and I wasn’t ready to leave this world – especially with its characters in such dire places. Then I remembered that a good writer never leaves you to languish in a story: she gets you in and helps you out. She makes sure that when you turn that last page, you crave more, but your heart isn’t broken. So I read on, and when I finished the book, I felt satisfied.

    I have a formidable trouble finding light reading. Most of the books waiting on my desk are nonfiction – about linguistics, teaching, psychology, animal behavior – or poetry. When I choose a novel, it’s usually an old favorite or a classic I haven’t read. I like the fantasy of Terry Pratchett, Gail Carson Levine, Tamora Pierce, J.K. Rowling. (Tolkien I place in his own category.) I love these authors because their work is entertaining and satisfying, but it doesn’t make me ask craft questions.

    A Stranger to Command is the first page-turner I’ve read in a long time, one of the best contemporary novels I’ve ever read. Each character is so compelling, so rounded and developed, each side-story woven into the main plot with grace and subtlety. Especially with this book, Smith makes me ask how and why questions about craft – timing, description, emotion, balance.

    I finished the book with a sense of conflict not about its contents but about my next step. I didn’t know whether to open the slumbering documents that house my own fantasy-writing projects, reread the book itself, or dive into nonfiction as a kind of literary purge. I have decided to listen to the book again, this time with my mind on craft and content together.

Emily K. Michael

Emily K. Michael is a blind poet, musician, and writing instructor. She serves as the poetry editor for Wordgathering at Syracuse University. She is also a poetry mentor in AWP’s Writer to Writer program. Her work focuses on music, embodiment, teaching, and ecology. Emily is passionate about birds, medieval history, singing, and guide dogs.

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