• Music Lessons

    Eleven years ago, I sat in a cold, hard folding chair, ready to meet my high school chorus director and fellow singers for the first time. Arranged in three concentric semicircles, the chairs faced a creaky metal music stand, a sturdy conducting platform, and a white board, designed to resemble a giant sheet of staff paper. Though I could not distinguish the neat black lines on the board, I knew they were there. My mobility instructor had described them when she oriented me to the room.

    With two resounding thuds, a petite, compact person stepped onto the conducting platform. I could distinguish a dark blouse, and black pants. White cuffs and collar helped me find her hands and face. Her mouth resided somewhere beneath a head of bobbed gray-blond hair, but her voice could not be confined to that petite frame. It was huge, powerful, with a touch of gravel.

    In a friendly, no-nonsense manner, she introduced herself as Mrs. B. She was prepared to teach us how to sing and read music. She was adamant to correct the school myth that her chorus class was an “easy A.”

    “This may be an elective,” she declared, her voice intense and serious. “But you will work hard.”

    Then she asked us about our previous musical experience. We were instructed to raise our hands if we’d had piano or voice lessons or played in a middle school band. At the mention of piano, my hand shot up. I was excited to prove myself, to show her that I was one step ahead of my peers.

    “Well, forget all of that,” she insisted, waving a dismissive hand at our collective experience. “We’re all equals in this room. You may have had previous training, but your present dedication will earn my respect.”

    In the next weeks, Mrs. B. introduced us to the basics of singing – posture, breathing, resonance, placement – all new concepts for me. Though I had years of experience singing in church and school choirs and performing in school musicals, I had never received formal training. Mrs. B. taught us to identify our vocal registers: head voice, mid-voice, and chest voice. She guided us through the dizzying stage of using our head voice for the first time. Because the head voice is a region of the voice where the air you breathe meets no resistance, your first tentative notes will make you lightheaded. It’s a new frontier for the novice singer.

    Alongside vocal training, Mrs. B. led us through the rudiments of musical literacy. With my nose pressed against the pages of my thick chorus textbook, I learned to identify lines, spaces, measure lines, time signatures, and the other elements of musical notation. Mrs. B promised that we would become excellent sight-readers – able to glance at a piece of music and sing it with surprising accuracy.

    I had my doubts about sight-reading. When I was learning piano, I was unable to visually track the musical line. If the music rested on the piano, I couldn’t read it. If I held the music close enough to read, I could only play piano one-handed. Luckily for me, using the voice left both hands free to hold the music – an inch from my face. I squinted at the bright white paper, where dark squat ovals of melody curved along the staff like tendrils of jasmine.

    After months of sight-reading drills in class and furtive annotations at home, I began to parse the visual elements of written music with ease. I no longer had to count lines and spaces with a tentative finger or guess whether I was staring at a half rest or whole rest. I could not only read music – I could understand its theory, its rules of composition.

    The musical instruction that Mrs. B. provided grew more valuable with time. I moved on to other choruses: an a cappella group (where I was required to read the bass line) and a fast-paced university chorale (where several soprano lines and foreign languages complicated the musical landscape). Her rigorous preparations ensured my success in these groups.

    However, the most meaningful lessons I took from Mrs. B. were not related to music, though they occurred in a musician’s environment. They stand as bookends to my high school experience.

    The first occurred within the early months of my freshman year. Our school was holding auditions for the musical Godspell, and, like any eager, hopeful freshman, I wanted to try out. With a few other friends from chorus, I practiced excerpts from the musical. I filled out the small audition form with my contact information and selected what kind of part I’d prefer. I stepped onstage in the cafeteria (this was well before my high school received a fully functioning theatre) and sang my excerpt.

    After all the participants had done a little singing, the judging committee taught us a brief choreography routine. We were placed onstage in lines while a female teacher demonstrated the routine before us. I fumbled terribly, listening hard for my friends’ instructions. I felt ashamed and inadequate. Without individual instruction, I would never master a routine like this.

    We took a short break before small groups of potential stars went onstage to perform the dance routine. During the break, I sat at a round cafeteria table with friends, feeling low. The judges – Mrs. B. and two other faculty – sat nearby, a few tables away, just within earshot. Hearing my name, I tuned in to their conversation.

    “Are you sure Emily can do this?” asked one of the judges – her voice was unfamiliar to me.

    Mrs. B. replied, “I’m sure she can, if we teach her the routine one-on-one. She just needs someone to show it to her.”

    The third judge disagreed, “I don’t know. That seems like a lot of work. And she might not get it.”

    Here, Mrs. B. said a line that I have often replayed in my head: “I have total confidence in her.”

    When I think back on this scenario, I ask myself, How did she know I was worth it? Mrs. B. had only known me for a month or so, only seen me for a few hours each week. What made her believe in me?

    I’ve never quizzed her about it. At the time, the line was too good to be true, but it was also exactly what I needed. I learned the routine. I did my best. I didn’t get a part in Godspell, but I felt empowered.

    Mrs. B’s other lesson came three years later, when I was a senior. On my way to chorus, I had to walk down a crowded hallway in Building 3. With high ceilings and metal lockers along the walls, Building 3 was a loud, echoing space – amplifying all hallway conversations, especially the ones about me.

    As the only blind girl at a school whose visibly disabled students could be counted on the fingers of one hand, I was often the target of unfriendly gossip. Since I had gone to elementary and middle school with the same group of classmates – a group who felt that mocking my poor vision was taboo – I wasn’t prepared for this negative reaction to my blindness. I walked into our chorus room, blinking back tears.

    Mrs. B called her usual friendly greeting as I found my seat. I was the only student in the room, and she came to stand by me. I told her how hard it was to be the subject of constant gossip, to be around people who always underestimated and judged me. I said that I wished I couldn’t hear what others were saying as I walked to class.

    She responded with practical wisdom: You don’t judge yourself by their opinion of you. You are so much more than they can understand. They don’t get to decide who you are. You decide that.

    And she walked away, presumably to prepare for class. Maybe to give me a few moments to collect myself and process her words.

    When I measure my experience of Mrs. B against other conductors, I find that the others always fall short. I think it’s because Mrs. B believed in something more than a power struggle between one person holding a baton and a group of musicians. Mrs. B wanted us to be empowered individuals and hardworking musicians. She stepped off the platform to check on us, and her reassurances were filled with strength and passionate belief.

    Mrs. B was tough and honest. She didn’t sugarcoat the truth – she freely expressed her disappointment as readily as her joy. When she believed in us, we could believe in ourselves.

    With her actions, Mrs. B. defined the teaching role for me.

    A teacher believes in the subject and the students.

  • Word-power

    In the autumn of 2010, I took one of the most fascinating and challenging courses of my entire graduate program, Introduction to Old English. Old English, or Anglo-Saxon, was spoken by the inhabitants of the British Isles from 449-1066AD. A Germanic language, Old English is an ancestor of Modern English (what we speak now). During the first class session, the professor explained that we would learn the rudiments of Old English grammar and history, complete our own translations, and read canonical texts – including schoolbook dialogues between lords and shepherds, beautiful epic poems, medieval sermons, and charms to ward off a swarm of bees.

    To begin steeping us in Anglo-Saxon culture, our professor insisted that we choose Old English names. We would use these in place of our legal names throughout the course, creating helpful place cards for our desks and writing them on all our assignments. To inspire us, the professor wrote a series of words on the board – things like “gar” (spear), “wine” (friend), “beorht” (bright), “æthel” (noble), “treow” (tree/true), and “cyne” (great/mighty). She said we could assemble a name from these 20-30 words or create our own, using our simple Anglo-Saxon/Modern English dictionary.  In true Anglo-Saxon style, we would craft an identity for ourselves by marrying two strong words together.

    After some deliberation over the dictionary, I sought help from an enthusiastic friend. Katie and I found a database of Anglo-Saxon words online, and she suggested the name Modwyn. “It means ‘heart’s joy,’” she said. “Perfect for you!”

    At the next class, our professor went up and down the rows, asking each student to spell and pronounce the Old English name he or she had chosen. With some students, she asked for an explanation – why had they chosen that particular name or what did they think it meant? For others, like the student who dubbed himself “Gar-cyne” (Great Spear), little justification was desired.

    When it was my turn, I pronounced Modwyn proudly. I stressed the first syllable, gave a tall, elegant, long “oh,” and a playful short “i” in wyn. MOHD-wyn.

    “Brave joy.” My instructor noted the name and the spelling and smiled at me. “Beautiful.”

    “I thought it meant ‘heart’s joy,’” I said.

    “It does,” she explained. “But mod is your heart, your mood, your innermost self. It also means brave. And wyn, of course, is joy.”

    Perhaps because I adored the class and the language, I began to internalize the concept of brave joy, an inner joy indomitable by outside forces. I thought of my own happiness as a small, private ember that I nourished through music, learning, nature, and frequent laughter. It was an ember that rarely winked out, and, because I was happy most days, I thought, “I’m just a happy person.”

    However, I know that thought is no longer true. I’ve lately remarked to my mother that being an adult really sucks. I have bills and responsibilities, and I’m a citizen of a world with an excess of violence and hardship. Sometimes I feel burdened by the problems that are too big for me to solve. Other times, I feel panic and anxiety because I can’t imagine the future. In these moments, I forget my own strength. I forget the joy that inspired my Old English name. I want to find delight in small things – birdsong, the smell of sautéd garlic, a friendly greeting – but I fear that my joy makes me seem naive or irresponsible.

    Only when I am coming out of one of these difficult times can I remember my own strength and the resilience I’d like to have. In these moments, I realize that each day’s happiness is an act of courage, not an act of naiveté. To commit to living a joyful life, I must fight for the joy I want. I must put away the impressions of others. It is absurd to think that only naive people are happy, but this is a sentiment I face daily. Maybe because I am young or blind or female, others often take my happiness for granted. They look at me and think, “She is just a happy person.”

    There is no such thing as “just a happy person.” Happiness is a daily commitment, and joy requires effort and courage. There is no name for weak joy or tired joy or craven joy. All joy is brave joy.

    I’ve kept the name Modwyn because I want to commit myself to living with brave joy, a feeling that empowers me to handle my work and responsibilities with integrity and passion. I blog under the name Modwyn because this blog is where I display my commitment to courage and happiness. Anger and frustration will continue to motivate some posts, but I hope that joy will inspire many more.

    This is my sincere expression of gratitude to the readers who have been with me so far and my extension of welcome to those just joining. I started this blog for myself; I wanted to encapsulate the funny and frustrating moments of my life. I expected only a handful of family members and loyal friends to take an interest. But now, as others read, share, and respond, I realize that it can be so much more than I ever imagined. I know that the brave joy will spread.

  • Walking on Words

    Today my campus is covered in words. All over our sidewalks, the following messages call out in cheerful pastel chalk:

    “Delta Gamma’s purpose is to stop blindness before it starts.”

    “80% of all blindness in adults is preventable or curable.”

    “Delta Gamma’s service for sight began in 1936 to stop blindness before it starts.”

    “1/4 of all visually impaired are women.”

    “Rates of blindness will double by year 2020.”

    “Every 7 seconds someone in the U.S. goes blind.”

    “A child goes blind every minute.”

    Friends tell me that these and similar messages crowd the sidewalks around the coffee shop and quadrangle. As we walk in search of coffee, they read the messages aloud. We stop, they proclaim a chalked statistic, I ask them to write it down, and we shuffle forward to repeat the process. Sometimes we don’t even have to move; we just turn around, confronted on all sides by these messages. As we get coffee, we cannot avoid walking across the messages. I walk over them when I head to my classes. On the way to my office, I walk through these words.

    Regardless of their truth, these messages advance what the Nigerian writer, Chimamanda Adichie, calls a “single story.” According to Adichie, a “single story” is a one-dimensional version of events. Promoted by narrators with political or social power, single stories can overrule others, becoming the only story that is ever told. This is what Adichie calls “the danger of a single story.”

    (Watch Adichie’s TED Talk here.)

    These seven sidewalk messages narrate a powerful story, a drastic epic of frightening deficit and miraculous healing. In alarming statistics, they tell the tale of blindness, a persistent disease that strikes quickly, leaving its victims bereft. They tell of Delta Gamma, the ministering nurse and courageous hero. They speak of the “80%” – those whose misfortune could have been prevented and may yet be cured. We don’t know how their blindness could be prevented. Perhaps they are to blame.

    The writings don’t tell the story of the 20% – those born with congenital visual impairments, those who have lost their vision in accidents, or those whose vision deteriorated over time. They don’t include those who are not eligible for gene therapy, those whose vision loss is cortical, or those who no longer have eyes. In this single story, blindness is neither the conflict nor the rising action.

    This is a story that ends with blindness. Because blindness in itself is An End.

    The sidewalk reads, “Every 7 seconds someone in the U.S. goes blind.” As a writer stumbling across this story, I ask, “And then what happens?” The answer is that nothing happens. Nothing could happen. You’ve gone blind. There’s nothing left.

    The sidewalk reads, “A child goes blind every minute,” and I ask, “And then what?” Again, the sidewalk doesn’t offer an answer. The answer is implied. The child suffers. The child is broken and miserable. The child doesn’t make friends. Without Delta Gamma’s intervention, the child will not be cured and restored to a happy, sighted life.

    Perhaps my readings of these sidewalk scripts seem drastic, but they are the readings of a frustrated writer. I am tired of this story of blindness. It’s old, worn-out, and sterile. It produces nothing but fear and exhaustion. I am afraid of how quickly it gains power, and I am exhausted by how often I must fight it.

    Let’s try a simulation. Can you remember the happiest day of your life? Can you wrap your mind around the beauty of that happiness? I’m sure you can; we all can. We think of first kisses, wedding days, new jobs, new babies, published poems, and graduations. Now, imagine the world telling you, “No, you weren’t really happy.” Every time you insist that, yes, you were happy then, the other storytellers reply, “No, honey, no you weren’t. You just thought you were.”

    Adichie says that this is the power of the single story – the ability to supplant another’s story with your own, to say, “My version of you is better than your version of yourself.” She tells her audience at the 2009 TED Conference that, “The consequence of the single story is this: It robs people of dignity. It makes our recognition of our equal humanity difficult. It emphasizes how we are different rather than how we are similar.” The single story of the sidewalks turns blind people into medical statistics. It replaces their ability to laugh, fight, love, feel with a magnified, defective eye. In this story, there are no blind characters, because to be a character, one must have a life. This is not a tale of blind lives.

    I want to live in a world that lets people speak for themselves. I want to exist in a place where someone will believe me when I say I’m happy and unbroken. I know that my experience of blindness cannot stand for all experiences of blindness, but I want mine to count. I want to advance as many stories of blindness as I can.

    Finally, I want it to rain. Is that too much to ask?

  • Touching the Wild Shape of Poetry

    Well, this essay was supposed to enter a contest, but it doesn’t meet the specifics. So I’ll share it with you instead!

    *****

    Last semester, I returned home after a long day of teaching and found a large flat box on my bed. I could just make out a logo in the top left corner, the stamp of a local organization that provides free braille materials. I quickly grabbed a pair of red-handled scissors and opened the box. I pulled out four massive braille volumes and one small print book. In large, rounded capital letters, the print book bore the title Seamus Heaney: Poems 1965-1975, and its 230 pages corresponded with the four thick volumes in the box.

    I had requested the Heaney poems in braille because I needed the reading practice. Though I learned braille during high school, I preferred large print materials and text-to-speech software. I regularly employed braille for labeling household appliances, school notebooks, and makeup, but I did not do serious reading in braille. The only braille book in my possession was a piece of choral music, collecting dust on a forgotten shelf.

    Then, in the summer of 2012, I discovered a need to reexamine braille. Working in a program for blind and visually impaired teenagers, my co-teacher and I led our reluctant pupils through extensive touch-typing exercises. As I examined each student’s progress, I noticed that the students who used braille frequently misspelled words when typing on a print keyboard. To address the issues, I initiated a braille spelling bee, asking one student to contract a word and the next to spell it out.

    Though the contests helped students address incidental spelling confusion, I wanted a long-term solution. I questioned students and vision teachers about existing braille materials, hoping to find a system that re-oriented braille users to print spelling. I found none. I decided, then, to brush up my braille skills; I hoped to develop a system to guide braille users through the convoluted field of print spelling. I began a routine and pragmatic review of the braille contractions I had learned years before.

    The braille users around me recommended that I order a familiar book in braille, and I thought that poetry would be a less daunting choice. I ordered Seamus Heaney’s North, a short collection of poems I adored. However, the women who brailled my book could only find a copy of his larger collection, which included North and three other short books. I found myself running my hands over the extra volumes in delight. I took North to work so that I could read it whenever I had free time. Because I teach several introductory composition courses and tutor writing, free time comes at unexpected moments. Seamus Heaney’s braille volume sits in my office, waiting for twenty extra minutes between classes. When this time appears, I treat it as a gift. I leave my office – a space I reserve for grading, student conferences, and other obligatory work tasks – and search for an amiable reading space.

    When I am looking for a good place to read a print book, I must consider the lighting of my environment. Because I am extremely light-sensitive, I prefer to read in dimly lit areas. I am unable to read print in any bright environment. Despite my long-cherished desire to nestle against an old oak with a volume of Romantic poetry, I cannot do it. Behind my favorite dark sunglasses, I still see words as faint scribbles on pale pages.

    Remarkably, the arrival of Heaney’s poems in braille has changed my reading experience. I have been able to carry the book into any environment. Whether I’m sitting by a sunny window or in a patch of sun on a garden bench, I can comfortably read the poems. While on campus, I can carry them deep into the nature trails or settle into the wide bench swing beside the small lake. Since my hands are not disturbed by the presence of light, I can enjoy the warm Florida sun, casting glaring rivulets across the wide, white pages.

    Previously, I had approached braille as a means to an end – a step I had to take before my students’ grammar could improve. I prepared myself for hours of dedicated reading, annotation, and memorization. I welcomed the task in the service of good writing. I did not expect a serious confrontation from the neat rows of small dots, pushing themselves against my hands. Thinking that I had already met everything on the printed page, I could not predict the wild transformation that braille would bring.

    Braille has given me a new kind of accessibility – not just access to a text, but the freedom to experience that text in its most fruitful setting. What once functioned as a utilitarian method for labeling everyday items has entirely altered the way I read, imagine, and compose poetry. Still learning, I read slowly and carefully, and this deliberate contemplation, this meticulous immersion, carries me deep inside each poem. I think all poetry, regardless of language, is meant for braille and outside reading. The tactile act of reading braille poetry, of imbibing its potent words through my fingertips, is a kind of meditation. To read poems in braille outside is to allow my whole body to celebrate the ability to feel.

    My interactions with braille poetry have not changed the shape of my daily reading. I continue to use large print materials in digital and paper form. But braille offers me the freedom to take poetry to the places that feed my creativity and fire my imagination. With braille, I escape the prosaic routine chosen from visual necessity. Breathing deeply, I retrace the words of the original poet, against the sun and wind.

  • Metaphor by Candlelight

    Any linguist worth her salt will explain that the metaphors we use in casual conversation actively shape our perceptions of reality. We ride emotional roller coasters, package our ideas, hope our arguments will hold water, and cast our spells over the ones we love. These metaphors make our language rich and descriptive; they help us transform familiar stories and revive stale scenarios. Most writers rejoice in metaphors, especially as they take the first shaky flights in their newly discovered craft. The pen skitters across the paper, the hands cramp, and the engines of creativity roar to life.

    While I am eager to embrace the wild descriptive potential of language, one metaphor invariably stops me in my tracks – the use of “light” as a signifier of goodness, knowledge, and superiority. We bring matters “to light,” we “enlighten” someone who was “in the dark,” and we call particularly intelligent people “bright.” Even periods of history proclaim these metaphors: The Enlightenment and The Dark Ages. God said, “Let there be light,” Milton considered how his “light” was spent, and Romeo contemplated his beloved Juliet as the sun – the ultimate light. In essence, “light” always represents something positive.

    I’ve been troubled by this metaphor ever since I learned to name it. As an extremely light-sensitive person, I don’t experience a positive connection to light. Sunlight feels warm and invigorating, but it fills my eyes with a dull ache and washes out my vision. In general, light complicates my reality – rendering previously visible things invisible – until I feel like a foreigner in the most familiar places.

    The metaphor carries more than physical associations, because “darkness” metaphors work in tandem with “light” ones. Often, blindness is described as “total darkness,” and people who have lost their vision are said to live “in the dark.” Blind and sighted people regularly employ these phrases, giving the impression that they are acceptable and accurate.

    This “total darkness” is immense and impenetrable; it’s the kind of darkness we feared as children. For the sighted who think of blindness in these terms, the darkness holds unknown terrors and dulls the other senses. Yes, you may think that blind people have supersonic hearing and can smell hurricanes twenty miles away, but their darkness is a powerful force. It renders them incompetent, and it sucks the value out of life. People living “in the dark” are untouched by the kindness of friends and the empathy of strangers. They cannot draw happiness from the simple pleasures that sighted people experience. They can’t see rainbows or sunsets—and how can the joy of birdsong, the smell of nutmeg, or the sensation of silk compare to sunsets?

    As long as we cast blindness as “darkness,” as the absence of “light,” we condemn those living with blindness to be eternally broken, waiting in the wings for Science or God to “lift the veil” so they can “see the light.” We build a prison of words and force blind people to dwell in it. Sometimes, they willingly cross the threshold—they pull the veil over their own faces because they don’t know that blindness can take a different name.

    I prefer a candlelit blindness, a sense of vision loss that infuses the world with a dynamic golden glow. Like my real vision, candlelight is unpredictable but useful. I’m not interested in the bright flame of understanding, the blazing lightbulb of a new idea, or the constant beacon of truth. I know these lights would be too bright to bear. And like all great lights, even the brightest stars will burn out.

    I want to cross out blindness as darkness and rewrite it as it really is: a condition that changes shape and form. The “total darkness” is eternal and constant, so unlike any human experience. If we must connect blindness to light, then we should connect it with candlelight. Let blindness convey something of the intimacy and gentle, flickering luminescence of candles. Let this new blindness bring to mind the smell of wax and burning wick, the sense of portable warmth.

    It is time for us to step out of the darkness, to fold it neatly and lay it aside. Let it collect some dust on a library shelf while other metaphors take its place – metaphors that allow the experience of joy, competence, self-worth, and companionship. No one belongs in the dark.

  • Twinkle Toes

    In my hand, I am holding a bottle of O.P.I. Shanghai Shimmer, a dark rosy nail polish. I step forward to occupy the chair that the pedicurist has indicated. As I stand beside it, shrugging off my navy ruffled cardigan, she rushes forward to offer her help. She takes my large red purse, accepts my folded sweater, and guides my hand to the chair’s arm. When I am seated, she repositions the adjustable left armrest and places my caramel macchiato on an attached table.

    Guided by the sound of water filling the basin before me, I swing my feet over the edge and place them on the low platform at the end of the chair. The pedicurist gently plunges my toes into the hot water, and I recoil. “A little too hot,” I explain, and she adjusts the water’s temperature. Soon, both feet are submerged in the warm rippling water.

    I lean back and enjoy the spa chair’s rigorous massage as the pedicurist readies her tools. With my eyes closed and sunglasses on, I could easily fall asleep here – the sound of the running water and the slow massage of the chair start to overpower the two shots of espresso in my drink. Just when I am getting comfortable, she lifts my right foot out of the water and begins her work.

    First, she applies a cream of medium thickness to my cuticles, rubbing the surface of each toenail. I feel the cool touch of a small metal tool against my skin, and I know she is trimming my cuticles. As she supports my foot with her free hand, the tool glides along the borders of each nail. When she finishes all five toes, the tool is laid aside with a tinny metallic clink.

    Her grip on my foot changes, and I feel the presence of a weightier implement in her other hand. Deftly, she positions it against my toe, and I hear a resounding snap. She clips most of the nails on my right foot, evening their length. I take a sip of my coffee and relax into the massage chair, which squeezes my upper back with reassuring rhythm.

    A significant thud lets me know that she has laid the tool aside. Her grip changes again and so does the feeling at the edge of my toes. A minute jarring sensation and low-pitched scraping sound accompany the file’s quick progression along each toenail. Then the file disappears, and a squishy foam block passes over each nail. The pedicurist silently lays aside the buffer and places my right foot – filed and buffed – back in the warm water. She lifts out the left foot to administer the same treatment.

    Then she places my left foot into the lukewarm water and lifts the right out again. She runs an assessing hand along the bottom of my foot, feeling for calluses. Silently she picks up another tool and begins to rub along the bottom of my foot. Suddenly, I experience a sensory barrage – the tool works and sounds like a lemon zester, sending vibrations up my calf as it removes rough skin.

    After the application of the zester, my toes come into contact with what feels like a giant toothbrush. The pedicurist dips my foot into the water and scrubs at my tender toes with a stiff-bristled brush. Then she rubs an exfoliant over my foot, ankle, and calf. She scrubs my leg, rinses it, and leaves it to soak in the water. She repeats the procedure with my left leg and lifts both out of the water.

    Placing both of my feet on the platform before her, she dries each  thoroughly with a soft towel. She even dries in between my toes, which comes as a surprise. While sipping my coffee, I suddenly feel the towel methodically slipping between each of my toes. After inserting glamorous foam separators between my toes, she begins to apply the Shanghai Shimmer. She holds my foot in one hand and paints with the other. The pungent smell and the chilly feel of the nail polish combine with a barely perceptible pressure as the silky little applicator flits across each toenail.

    As the nail polish dries, the pedicurist covers my legs in lotion that smells like fresh-cut oranges and mangoes. She massages the lotion into each leg, working out tight spots along the bottom of my foot and up my calf. Holding one foot tightly in her hand, she pummels my calf with her fist. Then she pummels the foot. I’m so relaxed by the entire massage that I forget about my coffee. I don’t even notice that the spa chair has turned off.

    After the massage, she wraps my legs in warm towels and lets them “steam” – she runs the towel along my leg to absorb excess lotion. As she cleans up her work area, I hear all the tools rattling together. She retrieves my silver flip-flops and meticulously slides them over the toe separators onto my feet.

    I lean back against the inactive spa chair, sipping my coffee and waiting for my dark pink toenails to dry. When I stand up, my feet are so soft that they slide around in my sandals. But it’s not a big deal – I’m in no hurry to walk away.

  • Uncommon Reader

    On Friday morning, I sit across from Elena, a soft-spoken student with a thick Cuban accent. She is a cellist and a dear friend who struggles with writing in English. She explains that she needs help with an essay assignment for one of her music theory courses. Her voice is gentle and husky, full of warmth.

    She slides her paper across the table, and I pick it up. The white sheets contrast strongly with the muted color of the desk. I begin to scan her work.

    “Okay, some of these sentences are very long,” I explain calmly. “Let’s try to break them into shorter ones. That will make the essay easier on the reader.”

    She picks up her mechanical pencil—identifiable by the sound of the lead rattling around in the plastic casing—and writes my suggestions on her paper. I guide her through the revision process, offering changes and listening to the changes she wants to make. When we finish the two pages, she turns to me and asks, “So that was easy for you to read?”

    I want to reassure her, to let her know that her English is comprehensible. “Yes, I understood what you were writing about.”

    “But the font, the size, you could read it? It was easy?”

    “Oh…well, it wasn’t difficult, but it was a little small. I normally ask my students to print in size 18.”

    “When I came in, you were reading,” she continues. “You are always reading!”

    I laugh. I had been reading Georgina Kleege’s Blind Rage: Letters to Helen Keller. I’ve been reading this book for a while—it’s the book I carry with me for incidental reading, reading while running errands or during odd moments at work. “I love to read,” I confess. It’s not much of a confession. Anyone who has spoken to me for more than 15 minutes knows I adore reading.

    “I am glad you can read so well,” Elena finishes sincerely. “You love it, and I’m glad you can do it!”

    She leaves and I pick up my book, flipping to the page where a large paper clip marks my place. I begin reading and thinking about reading, the book an inch from my nose.

    I read from left to right. I read avidly. I read slowly. I read with one eye. My right eye tracks lines, recognizes characters, and takes me deep into a book’s pages. My left goes along for the ride, responsible only for keeping me in three dimensions.

    As with most activities, I prefer to read by dim lighting. I’ve recently discovered yellow lightbulbs, which give my room a soft, Old World glow. When I was younger, Mom would come into my dim room, see me reading, and flip on a light, “Is that better?” she’d ask cheerfully, and I’d reply, “No!” in a surly tone.

    When I was a child, all my reading materials passed beneath the weight of a glass dome magnifier. The magnifier, about the size of my fist, would gather light and enlarge the text. I remember its weight well—so many times, I fell asleep on my back, a book in one hand and the magnifier resting against my face.

    Later, on advice from a low vision specialist, I exchanged the heavy magnifier for 10x bifocal bubbles in my glasses. These allowed me to read more comfortably; I could hold the book in one hand and a pen for annotating in the other. The bifocals are my current favorite because they help me read without distorting the appearance of text. Other, more intense magnifiers will change the color and contrast of text, but they transform the cozy warmth of the yellowed page into a digital encounter. These technologies are incredibly helpful when I must accomplish a large volume of reading or when the print is too small for bifocal access. But they do change the character of the reading encounter for me.

    However, I am realizing that the shape of reading is infinite. Beneath the heading, “How I Read,” is a collection of processes involving several senses. I read books in print, listen to audiobooks, read texts in braille, engage with materials through text-to-speech software, and, more often than not, combine these methods to access a text. Reading for me is a dynamic encounter with printed, embossed, or typed material. Reading involves more than visually tracking letters. It’s the willingness to engage and be transformed by literary work.

    Elena is glad that I can read, and I am excited by the thought of transformation. I can encounter poetry, prose, neuroscience, nature writing, books on linguistics, books on music, books on love. At any given moment, I have a pile of books on my desk that I haven’t read and a long line of audiobooks I’ve downloaded but haven’t heard. I have more than 200 titles on an online wishlist, waiting to be read. I have several volumes of braille poetry, waiting to be experienced. One volume sits on a shelf in my office, ready for a warm, sunny morning and an hour of free time. A retractable purple pen rests on the desk beside me, poised for annotation. I know it won’t bleed through delicate pages or smear as I underline. So, you see, I am ready.

    I will let Virginia Woolf, one of my favorite authors, end this passage, with words from her essay, “How Should One Read A Book?”:

    “Yet who reads to bring about an end, however desirable? Are there not some pursuits that we practise because they are good in themselves, and some pleasures that are final? And is not this among them? I have sometimes dreamt, at least, that when the Day of Judgment dawns and the great conquerors and lawyers and statesmen come to receive their rewards — their crowns, their laurels, their names carved indelibly upon imperishable marble — the Almighty will turn to Peter and will say, not without a certain envy when he sees us coming with our books under our arms, ‘Look, these need no reward. We have nothing to give them here. They have loved reading.’” *

    * from The Second Common Reader, Woolf’s volume of literary essays.

  • Quelle Surprise: A Celebration of the Unexpected

    For a while now, I’ve been promising On the Blink readers that I’d celebrate my 40th subscriber with a special entry, a post revealing previously unknown, securely guarded facts about blindness that will shock and amaze. Well, it turns out that On the Blink is celebrating its 41st subscription, so I’m going to unveil one of the most treasured and controversial secrets of blind culture.

    Blind people love surprises.

    Let’s be honest—blindies just can’t get enough surprises! Whether it’s an unexpected hand on my shoulder, an enthusiastic, unannounced hug, or a sudden flip of the lightswitch that throws the room into terrifying brightness, I live for these moments when my limited vision obscures the key details of life—when comprehension is thrust upon me without warning. Some people remedy their uninteresting lives with motorcycles, leather jackets, or custom tattoos. Not me.

    When you have limited vision, surprises are a recurring theme, a cozy companion that visits with intense regularity. If I’m feeling bored with life, I simply have to wait for a moment of distraction, a morning when I didn’t get my coffee, or a crowded environment, and something unforeseen will happen.

    Once, during a diversity training, my blind friend Dan and I were discussing the routine surprises we experience. He said, “When I buy soup, I just pick a can off the shelf—whatever feels good—and take it home. Good thing I like surprises.”

    In exchange I regaled him with the time I bit into a piece of lemon meringue pie, only to discover that the chef had thoughtfully garnished my slice with a twist of lemon. Many of the surprises in my life are food-related.

    Other surprising encounters often involve a person’s desire to share an experience with me. For example, someone will place something into my hand and order, “Feel this!” Regardless of my inclination to feel the proffered object, I’ll find my fingers curling around a Peruvian horned melon or a skein of yarn. On rare occasions, someone will decide that I need to experience a pregnant woman’s belly, and my hand will be mashed against the curve with infinite goodwill.

    During a recent trip to the craft store, Katie decided to see how many times she could surprise me. As we stood on the yarn aisle, she called my name and gently tickled me under the chin with a feathered flower on a stick. Later, she took a skein of soft yarn and rubbed my arm. Each time, she moved with unprecedented quietness, cleverly choosing objects for their silence and softness, things that failed to rustle or jingle. Among the yard decorations, she made me feel flower-arranging foam and pebbles of different sizes. She tickled me again, this time with a fake fern.

    Of course, I live by the principle of reciprocity: I’m determined to surprise others as often as they surprise me. I’ve found that I can do this best by becoming suddenly capable—surprising others with my untold abilities.

    When Christina and I were shopping for sweaters, we had the pleasure of completely baffling a saleswoman. Christina told me she wanted a turtleneck, so I felt along the rack of sweaters, pulling out the ones I thought she’d like. The saleswoman approached us and asked, in broken English, if we needed assistance. I explained that we were looking for turtlenecks, and I pulled one off the rack. “Like this,” I said.

    “How did you know?” she exclaimed, her hand flying to her heart. ‘How did you know that was a turtleneck? You can’t see it!”

    I didn’t have the heart to explain low vision to her—I didn’t want to overwhelm her. So I explained that I was feeling the neck of the sweater to determine what kind it was.

    “Amazing,” she breathed. “You can tell what they are by feeling them!”

    Other times, I surprise people by appearing in unexpected locations—especially when I know where I am. Strangers regularly approach to warn me about obstacles I am in the process of avoiding, while acquaintances blurt, “You’re near the edge!”if I’m standing on a curb or step. I feel gratified when observers say, failing to mask their shock, “You really know where you’re going, huh.”

    Perhaps the most amusing surprises are the cases of “mistaken identity” that occur daily. The bushes that turn out to be people, the people that transform into garbage receptacles, the signs that materialize out of thin air as the light shifts, all lead to one of two mental refrains: “Oh, that’s what that is!” or “How or when did that get there?” In a constantly shifting visual reality, I learn to become comfortable making mistakes. Seeing an unoccupied chair as a student doesn’t make me feel as foolish as others would think. Instead, it gives me plenty of reasons to laugh at myself: once I’ve discovered what an object  truly is, I can’t help but laugh at the absurd transformation, at the times I’ve brushed against a shrub and said, “Oh excuse me ma’am.” Such surprises feed my poet’s imagination.

    For me, the dearest surprises are small moments of unexpected consideration. Earlier this week, on my morning walk through campus, I found my aural environment invaded by the drone of several pieces of lawn equipment. As I passed the library and headed toward my building, I slowed my pace. The air was blurry with a fine mist, and the lawnmowers were loud. However, when I started up the sloping sidewalk between the library and my building, the nearest lawnmower went silent. I could hear the machine idling nearby, and I realized that the maintenance worker had diminished the noise for me. As soon as I had passed safely through that bright, confusing space, and was nearer to the elevator, he resumed his work with the roaring machine.

    I carry that gesture with me.

  • Guiding with Grace

    On an overcast afternoon, the car pulls to a stop in front of the bright diagonal lines and the short sidewalk. I open my door, unfold my cane, and trail the car—keeping my hand against it until I reach the right passenger door. There, I hear the familiar clicks of another cane unfolding as Henry, waiting next to his open door, prepares to move forward. I stand before him, and he places his left hand on my right shoulder.

    I walk across the diagonal lines and onto the sidewalk, feeling the curb bumps beneath my feet and Henry’s warm hand lightly gripping my shoulder. With each step, I swing my cane to cover the space before the opposite foot. I hear Henry’s cane moving in tandem with mine; our combined arcs clear the ground as we progress smoothly.

    We traverse a short sidewalk, avoiding students and signs, and pass the library. As we walk by the library entrance, the automatic doors slide open with a cool metallic hiss. I angle left, choosing a wider path free from bike racks and bistro tables. Henry follows behind me, a seamless extension of my space.

    Henry and I amble through Starbucks, where the crowd of coffee-drinkers and narrow path force us to turn sideways. We walk up the sloping sidewalk to the elevator and negotiate the range of doors and quick turns that lead to my office. There, a cacophony of clicking signals two cane-users putting away the implements of their independence.

    Later, we reverse the journey and encounter the daunting onslaught of students rushing to their late afternoon classes. I lead Henry down the sloping sidewalk, onto the elevator, along the crowded path that opens into a sea of columns, and through the chaos of Starbucks. We pass the library’s large brick columns and angle left, coming around the corner of the library. As we round the corner and students step out of our way, I realize I am enacting a popular phrase.

    I’m a blind woman guiding a blind man. It’s the blind leading the blind.

    Coming around that corner by the library, I am surprised by a wave of pride. I can’t say I’m a “sighted guide” because that isn’t true, but this is the first time I’ve ever guided someone. So I’m a blind guide—is such a thing possible? I reflect on the smoothness of our mobility and reason that it is. Well, what do you know?! We’re overturning clichés!

    And quite successfully, I think to myself. We reach the waiting car and find our seats.

    However, my pride does not arise solely from our success. Rather, I’m proud—and delighted—to be guiding Henry. Because this is my campus, the area in which I’m the most confident traveler, I realize that I’m the conduit between Henry and the physical environment. I get to be the one to show him where things are. I get to lead him around! I feel privileged, important—not because I’m showing off but because of who I’m showing off.

    Thanks to my mom, I know that people observe me as I travel. After a day of running errands, Mom often tells me about the people who watch us moving together. Because Mom is my most frequent guide, her assistance feels natural and intuitive. She says that, when we’re walking, people often stare at us, openly curious, trying to understand how we move together. “It’s usually when we’re cracking up,” she says happily. “I smile at them. We look like we’re having a blast.”

    I wonder what people think when they see Henry and me, moving purposefully and effortlessly across campus. What is the sighted impression of two blind individuals traveling as one cohesive unit—each cane widening the other’s scope?

    When I think of myself as Henry’s guide, as an ambassador in this unfamiliar environment, I marvel at my own good fortune. I have spent my life being guided, but now I am guiding—introducing a remarkable person to the space before me. If onlookers perceive a fraction of my feelings, then our travels will be an enjoyable vision. They will see my delight and confidence, my sense of personal worth, my eagerness to show Henry to the world and the world to Henry.

  • Mind Over Matter

    Yesterday, on the trail of poets with disabilities, I came across the following book review. For poet Craig Romkema’s collection, Embracing the Sky: Poems Beyond Disability, Amazon.com had this to say:

    “In this collection of poems, Craig Romkema describes the daily journey of an individual whose body is encumbered with the symptoms of autism and cerebral palsy, but whose mind and spirit are relatively unaffected. Forcing the barriers aside momentarily, he shares his life experience, offering insights into a life beyond disability. Writing of his hopes, fears, and aspirations, as well as his everyday reality, his poetry will speak in particular to others on the autism spectrum, their families, and those who work with them.”

    I am thoroughly irritated by this review and have no desire to add the book to my Wish List. I don’t mind Romkema’s desire to connect with others on the autism spectrum or to share his experiences with cerebral palsy. In fact, the last sentence of the review is perfectly acceptable to me.

    It’s this first part, about his “mind and spirit” being “relatively unaffected.” How can this be?

    Of course, this reviewer (Amazon doesn’t specify whether the review was provided by the publisher or created by the site itself) employs the classic mind/body dualism that accompanies most discussions of disability. It’s the age-old aphorism, “The mind is willing, but the body is weak.” In the case of disabled people, especially public figures or disabled artists, the body is decrepit, but the mind!—the mind is indomitable. These sentiments usually lead to discussions of the “indomitable human spirit.”

    I make no criticism of the indomitable human spirit here. I believe very strongly in the power of the human heart and the intensity of the human spirit.

    But where would the spirit be without the body? How would we know about the triumph of the human mind, the virtues of the human soul, and the power of the human heart without the body? It is the body that translates these virtuous, invisible messages for us. It is the body that renders our beautiful thoughts into beautiful actions.

    Of course, in order to credit our bodies, we must love them—and that is a challenge many of us fight daily. We must accept ourselves, our flabby, out-of-shape selves; our glasses-wearing selves; our freckled, awkward selves; the selves that need help going to the bathroom; the selves that rely on walkers, new hips, orthopedic shoes. And this we cannot do in the present culture of youth and beauty, the society that tells us we must be ashamed to exist in “broken bodies.”

    Originally, I think, disabled people must have advocated the brilliance of their minds as a way to the public ear. Perhaps there was no other way to make themselves heard or felt; perhaps they had to convince the world that the spirits fluttering around inside their broken bodies were just as human, just as kind, just as loving and capable of human innovation.  So they, or their publicists, said things like, “I may live inside this crippled body, but my mind is strong and healthy” or “Despite my physical deficit—my deafness, blindness, or inability to walk, I can still carry on an intellectual conversation.” Somewhere in the corridors of disability history, people had to denigrate their bodies in order to elevate their minds. You can’t lift something up without putting something else down.

    Or so I thought.

    But now, as I reread this book review and get angry all over again, I want to change my mind on this issue. Rather, I want to give voice to a change that I’ve been feeling for some time.

    Your mind cannot “remain unaffected” by disability. Disability, as with any other characteristic, touches every part of you—and that means your mind and body. Your spirit, mind, and body work together to form one entity, one individual. There is no way to separate yourself from your experiences, to draw a big red line that puts the physical weakness on one side and the mental strength on the other. To draw such a line is to make war on yourself, to say that parts of you are not worthy of recognition. Yes, your body may be broken, disabled, inept, wobbly, inconsistent in its strengths, but it is your body. And broken bodies, like “whole” bodies, have a valuable lesson to impart.

    During my chorus rehearsals, our director often asks us to perform strange, kinesthetic exercises in order to free the voice and help us sing better. When I first started singing in choruses, about 10 years ago, I thought I was above such rudimentary gymnastics. “I don’t need to do that,” I regularly told myself, as I halfheartedly attempted the technique. My resistance came from a combination of denial and pride. I didn’t want to admit that it was difficult for me to understand the exercises, which were usually taught in a visual way, so I pretended that I was already good enough—that they weren’t any use to a talented singer like me.

    Eventually I was forced to acknowledge that the exercises worked. I came across a persistent director who walked over and physically guided me through the movements—or I started to understand and perform the exercises on my own—or a fellow singer reached over and moved my hands correctly—and I heard a difference. As I leaned forward, standing on the balls of my feet, my heels off the ground, and my arms stretched out in front of me, I heard my voice change. It became stronger, more centered, and more agile. I started to create and hear a sound that I dreamed about: a thick, rich, capable voice. Yes, my mind decided to adopt these exercises, but it was my body that performed them. I have to credit both parts here.

    Maybe it’s my bad vision that makes my ears so good. Maybe because I can’t see too well, I hear really well, so I can detect small changes in my own voice. Maybe this is so—but it’s not really what this blog is about.

    It’s about a holistic understanding and appreciation of the self. It’s about loving who and what you are and realizing that you can’t banish any part of yourself. You don’t have to overcompensate for your race, your gender, your sexual orientation, your size, your shape, your abilities or disabilities. You don’t have to tell the world, “I know you can’t appreciate that part of me, but this part of me is worth it.” Everything about you is worth it.

    Someday I hope to have books of poetry for sale on Amazon. I hope to have books of prose and scholarly work up there as well. And I hope to have a book reviewer who won’t use the “tragedy” of my blindness to enhance the brilliance of my mind.

    I am a writer. Not a blind writer or a female writer or a writer with brown hair or a young writer. I am all of these things at once. And if that seems overwhelming, if that sounds like too much, maybe you should examine yourself. Decide who you will be.

  • The Editor and the Edifice

    “I’m not very good at this,” he says, smoothing out his page of single-spaced writing. “You want me to read it aloud?”

    I nod. “And read your punctuation as well, please.”

    “Okay…” he clears his throat and begins shakily.

    Several times a week, this exchange repeats—with different students and occasional variations in the dialogue. Two constants remain: students’ diffident reading voices and emphatic criticism of their own writing.

    “I’m really not a very good writer.”

    “I am so bad at this—it’s embarrassing.”

    “I’m so dumb. I already see a mistake.”

    “I hope you can get through it; I just want the grammar to be good!”

    Sometimes students will obediently read through their document as asked, stumbling awkwardly through their punctuation. Other times, they’ll forget to read commas and periods until I prompt, “You need a comma there,” and they reply, “Oh…I had one; I forgot to read it.” Still other times, they will stop every few sentences to ask, “Is it OK? Is that a good sentence?” And almost every time, they will verbally annotate their own work—pausing after every few words to make a change or tell me why they chose a particular adjective.

    “See, I chose that word because I wanted to say…”

    You can insert any word and any intended meaning into this sentence.

    “I chose the word passionate because I wanted her to know that I am excited about this opportunity.”

    “I chose completion of my education because I wanted to sound smart.”

    “I chose at your earliest convenience because I’m trying to seem professional.”

    Whether the words are appropriate (sometimes they are and sometimes they aren’t), I invariably hear a disparity between what students write and what they mean to say. When I can hear this distance between meaning and execution of language, between what’s in their minds and what’s on the paper, I ask them to stop. I face them and say, “Look at me—don’t look at your paper. Tell me what you are trying to say.”

    I stress that it’s difficult to find new words when you are staring at your old words. Sometimes, I tell them, we get caught in rhetorical feedback loops, where the only words we can imagine for this writing situation are the words we’ve already used. To eliminate the gap between what they’re saying and what they want to say, I have to enhance it. I have to underline it.

    Even self-proclaimed “bad writers” come to love the words they’ve already written. When I ask students to break contact with their beloved words, they begin to understand the parts of their project that need renovation. Together, the editor and the writer begin to build something new, a work fostered by a relationship of trust and a commitment to tend the language.

    The editor brings strength and perspective to the writing, replacing old, worn-out words with new ones. The editor walks the fine line between writing the work herself and leaving the writer’s original voice intact. A good editor doesn’t work in violence, snatching the pen and leaving dark red trails blazing across the paper. These rash gestures make the writer feel small and foolish.

    I imagine editing as empowerment, the promise of future beauty. When I find myself in the editor’s role, I want my behavior to tell the writer, “Come with me. Let’s build something beautiful, evocative, and powerful.”

    I must convey all this in thirty-minute sessions and semester-long courses. I must pack it into the design of assignments and the feedback I give. I must bring it to bear on the diffident writer, the overconfident grammar-scorner, and the creative analyst. I dream of inspiring the writer with my passion for language and well-deployed words, with my obsession for sentences that read smoothly and comfortably. I want the writer to feel the heartbeat in her own words, the life throbbing in her creation—to appreciate the power she invokes with words made bright and hard by centuries of use.

  • Chatting with Charlie

    My friend Charlie (whose name has been changed for the purpose of this blog) is a master of uncommon courtesies. When we spend time together, I find myself startled by his thoughtful attentions. Often he asks questions—or offers theories—that show how deeply he is considering my experience of the world, my perspective.

    Today, as we walk around his car and across the parking lot of a local Jacksonville restaurant, he remarks, “I bet this surface is difficult with your cane; it’s so uneven!’

    With surprise, I reply, “Yes, my cane gets caught in these little cracks and behind these bumps, especially on cold days.”

    “That would make an interesting blog,” he says, opening the restaurant’s door with his left hand. I step behind him and catch the door with my left arm. “All the surfaces that cause you trouble.”

    We order our food, and the cashier places our drink cups on the counter. Taking them, Charlie says, “I’ve got your cup.” Offering me his arm, he guides me to the soda fountain. “Ice?” he asks, and I nod. “How much?”

    “Just a little.”

    I hear him position my cup underneath the ice dispenser. After a few seconds of noise, Charlie asks, “Do you want to hold the cup and make sure it’s the right amount?”

    I take the cup from him and weigh it in my hand. The amount of ice is ideal, so Charlie fills my cup with water—(Just try to get the drink you want when you can’t read the little signs above each button)—and we find a booth. As usual, I sit with my back to the window to avoid staring into the glare.

    Charlie places my cup in front of me, explaining, “Your cup is in front of your seat. Your straw is on the table to the right of the cup; it still has the paper on. Your napkins are to the left of the cup.”

    I thank him enthusiastically. “When someone leaves the paper over the tip of the straw without telling me, I end up with a mouthful of soggy straw wrapper.” He laughs, and I remember, but do not mention, my habit of running a finger around the rim of a cup to find the straw. When the cup has a lid, I run a finger along the straw to check whether it still has its wrapper.

    Our pagers vibrate, and Charlie gets the food, placing my plate in front of me. He offers me ketchup, which I refuse. Over his hamburger and my portabello sandwich, we begin to discuss the downside of self-deprecating humor—when you laugh at yourself just to get others to laugh with you.

    “I often make fun of myself,” I tell him. “To make people more comfortable. When I can sense that someone feels awkward around me, I think laughter helps.”

    He agrees, sipping his drink. “But it can go too far—it can become all you’re known for.”

    “Yes, when you believe that the only way others will accept you is through making fun of yourself. It feels juvenile after a while.”

    “Hey,” he says decisively.  “That’s another blog topic.”

    “You’re a goldmine!”

    I finish the last bite of my portabello and drink some water.

    “You have something in your teeth,” Charlie announces calmly. “Swish around.”

    I obey, sipping more water. “Is it gone?”

    “Yes.” He hesitates, then continues, “Sorry if that’s weird…but I’d like to know if I had something in my teeth.”

    “Unfortunately I can’t return the courtesy.”

    On the topic of unsolicited advice, I tell Charlie about all the unwelcome “assistance” I receive, especially from random strangers. “Sometimes it’s difficult to be a blind woman, because women are taught to market their physical, visual appeal. I get a lot of ‘help’ from people who think that I have no understanding of color or style because I’m visually-impaired.”

    He asks for examples.

    Well there’s the time I asked a sales assistant to tell me the color of some earrings, and she said they were “grapefruit.” (They later turned out to be a dark purple.) Then, without any prompting from me, she declared reprovingly, “I wouldn’t wear them with that top you’ve got on.” Oddly enough, the earrings weren’t for me; they were a gift.

    Or the time I asked a cashier for a reusable fabric shopping bag and she started to ask which color I preferred. At the word “color,” she cut herself off, presumably realizing that blind people don’t have color preferences. Holding up a bag without describing it, she changed “color,” mid-word, to, “Is this one OK?” Irked by her awkwardness, I wanted to shrug off my eggplant-colored wool swing coat—slowly, button by button; to show her my caramel-colored turtleneck and dark jeans; to hoist a leg up on the counter and display my shoe, a latte-colored closed-toe wedge with a delicate silver buckle; to reach up and tweak one of my earrings, a creation of brown and amber beads that Katie made. I did none of this. Mindful of the long line behind me, I said, “Yes that’s fine.”

    Charlie laughs at these vignettes. “Do you understand color?”

    “Not in a practical sense,” I confess. “I understand colors in theory. I can’t identify them visually. But I’m drawn to the same colors over and over—reds, dark purple, forest green. Anything but pastels.”

    I tell Charlie about the various times people have asked me how I do my hair, because I often wear it in a low bun. Sometimes I say that my lady’s maid does it. Other times, I innocently ask, “Can you see the back of your own head?”

    “But you gotta understand,” Charlie intones reverently. “They do that stuff with mirrors. No, they can’t see the back of their own heads; they use mirrors to see that stuff.”

    “Why go to all that trouble? Just do it by feel! It’s so much easier.”

    “For you.” He piles used napkins on our dirty plates.

    I pull on my black cardigan and slide out of the booth. “Want to get coffee?”

    “Sure.” He offers me his arm, and we walk to the car.

    “I hope my cheerleader isn’t working today.”

    “The one who thinks you’re Superwoman? If she is, I’ll just be really horrible to you,” he promises. “I’ll call you incompetent and shout, ‘Can’t you do ANYTHING?’ Then she’ll come running around the counter—”

    “—On fire with righteous anger. She’ll chase you out of the store.”

    “I’ll never be allowed back again.”

    “And I’ll have to find a new coffee companion.”

  • Blind Teacher

    On final exam day, I sit at the front of a quiet classroom, listening attentively for the sound of my students writing. Pens are a lot quieter than they used to be; I can barely hear them marking their papers. The test, four pages of literary terms and grammar exercises, is free response, so I should be able to hear something—maybe a student loudly tossing his pen onto the desk in frustration, another sighing heavily, or a third compulsively clicking her retractable pen as she ponders the difference between active and passive voice.

    As I sit at the low table at the front of the room, I think about the many silences that have occurred across the semester. They usually represented a discussion in the making, a classroom of students waiting for me to answer my own questions or afraid to venture their own opinions. On the first day, the silence was unique—pregnant with nervous energy. I remember sitting behind the large teacher’s desk, checking the time on my phone, not wanting to start class too early. I could barely see over that desk; I felt small and inadequate behind it. Soon I started dragging one of the student tables toward the dry erase board and positioning the large teacher chair behind it.

    Sitting at this shorter table, I can see my students as a collective group. I can distinguish body shapes but not individual features. I can observe posture. I watch them taking their exam and realize that their backs are straight. None of them hunch over the desk, their noses inches from the paper, as I would have done—as I still do when I write at a desk. Up until now, I’ve equated that hunched posture with concentration. The more intensely I concentrated, the lower I bent over the desk. I only leaned away, only sat up straight, when I had finished reading or writing. I sat, back straight, when I discussed course material or answered questions—these behaviors were a breeze for me.

    Watching my students, I can’t help but wonder how I looked as a student, bent over my paper in ardent concentration. What did my teachers think seeing me doubled over the desk? What changed when I sat up? Did they think, “Oh that’s just how she has to do it?” Could they see what that posture meant for me?

    Twenty minutes pass in relative silence, with the occasional sound of a student scratching out his answer and rewriting it. Finally, the quiet breaks as a student flips her exam over, stands, gathers her things, and zips her bag. My ears place her on the right side of the room, and I hear her traveling toward me. She calmly offers me her test paper, and I track the flash of white, extending my hand to take it. She wishes me a relaxing winter break and leaves the room.

    These sounds repeat as other students finish the exam and bring me their papers. At my desk, some pause awkwardly, unsure which of us will speak first. A student says, “Here,” and hands me her paper. I thank her and smile. She waits half a second and then blurts out, “I’ve had an amazing semester—you’re a great teacher!”

    I am stunned. I stammer a grateful reply and she hurries away. Other students repeat similar remarks as they drop off their exams.

    “I really enjoyed your class.”

    “I hope we can keep in touch.”

    “I learned a lot from you.”

    “I appreciate all you’ve done to make me a better writer.”
    I am shocked, not because I feel diffident about my abilities, but because I don’t remember making declarations like these as a freshman. I remember turning in exams and getting out of there, desperate for a coffee and some holiday shopping. I don’t remember thinking to compliment my instructors until I reached my upper level courses.

    I think about all the things that worried me—not seeing their hands in the air, writing over my own writing on the board, being unable to find what I’d written, not seeing them texting or using their computers during class, being unable to read their body language and facial expressions—an endless list of incompetencies. I was sure that these things would make me a bad teacher, one that students would mock. A teacher they would ignore. A teacher they wouldn’t take seriously. I was afraid that all my individual struggles would amount to a pathetic reputation—that I wouldn’t be able to demonstrate my skills because I regularly made gaffes in small, everyday ways.

    Then students stopped at my desk. One student gave me a loaf of pumpkin bread and a handwritten letter of appreciation. Another lingered, even after turning in his exam. He said that I was different from the instructors at his previous school, that I cared. The handwritten letter, which I read later in my office, reiterated this gem; the student said that she was touched by my enthusiasm. She was amazed that I wanted to share my love of the material with students. She said that’s what mattered.

    So many of my first-semester concerns can be laid to rest now. My students don’t mind printing their work in size 18. They have learned to tell me when I’m writing close to the board’s edge. My inability to detect their raised hands doesn’t make me a bad instructor. In my classroom, students were willing to suspend the conventions that have been a part of their education since kindergarten—Don’t interrupt! Raise your hand! Be quiet!—and respect my unconventional space.

  • Motion Carried

    A woman stands before the ensemble. She has any height, weight, or frame you desire. Her hair is a color you hate or a color you love. Maybe she wears makeup; maybe she doesn’t. Perhaps because she knows we’ll be moving a lot, she has her hair pulled away from her face. Because she anticipates a workout, she doesn’t bother with makeup. If she wears dark colors, I perceive her as an energetic silhouette. If she wears light colors, I try to create a picture from the parts I can discern.

    She moves her body silently, and I have a vague visual impression of her limbs in motion. She addresses the group:

    “Okay everyone, mirror my movements—do what I do. Put your hand here,”—she moves one arm—”and do this with your other arm. There, some of you have it!”

    Sighs of relief and grumbles of frustration surround me as the ensemble tries to accomplish what she has modeled. I have two options here: I can stand motionless until I understand what to do, or I can attempt to move as she does, knowing that my gesture will be a shady estimate. I can also wait and see if our instructor gives a general scolding remark:

    “Come on, ladies, move your bodies more. Put your body into it. Watch me.”

    Again, the risers will creak. I will hear and feel movement around me. Some will adopt her movement successfully, which will elicit a compliment:

    “There you go—now you are really getting it!”

    What is it? What is the gesture she wants us to make? How do I hold my body?

    If I am lucky, some quick learner behind me will reach around and move me. Someone will lean to the side and hiss a clarifying instruction. Though they help, these hasty explanations aren’t reliable. I never know if someone will notice that I’m not keeping up. If someone does notice, her instructions will be rushed, crammed into the few seconds between new movements.

    When the teacher says, “Move your arm in a circle,” I think, Which arm? A circle in front of me or behind me? Do you want my entire arm to swivel at my shoulder joint? Do you want my elbow to bend so that I trace the circle with my forearm?

    Since the rest of the group can watch her, she does not have to address these questions. She can get excited when they do it right—and frustrated when they do it wrong. After all, she has told them to watch her. If they don’t understand how to move, then they aren’t paying attention.

    This woman has filled many roles across my life. She has been a dance instructor, a aerobics whiz, a chorus conductor, a photographer. She has been anyone who told me how to hold myself using her own body and few words—never once touching me.

    She has failed me and, naturally, I have failed her. I’ve never known what she wanted, and, when I’ve asked for explanations, I’ve met her confused and flustered elaborations.

    “Here, just hold your arm like this.”

    “Which one?”

    “Your right arm. I’ll show you.” This declaration brings her close to me, modeling the movement with exaggeration.

    “I can’t see you—can you move my arm?”

    “Oh…sure.” And she begins to move me, her hands clawing and grabbing, thrusting my limb into the action. “Like that, see?” The grace with which she moves herself is lost when she touches me—her tactile guidance feels unnatural.

    I want to leave the studio of the Convenient Composite Choreographer and find a more pleasant place.

    It’s 7PM on a Tuesday night. My loyal readers know where I am: chorus rehearsal. I’m standing in my place on the risers, dead center on the second row; a small piece of contrasting tape marks my spot. The risers creak as women find their places. I can feel the air around me growing thick with bodies. My fellow singers exchange quips and greetings, and I recognize familiar laughs and voices.

    Anne stands before us and leads our aerobic warmup. She turns on some soothing music, and begins to give instruction.

    “Okay everyone, let’s start at the head. Massage your scalp with your two hands.”

    I place my hands on the crown of my head.

    “Work your way down, using your thumbs to massage the large muscles on the back of your head, connecting your head to your neck.”

    With a growing sense of calm, I follow her instructions. She guides us through jaw, neck, and shoulder massage, then tells us to roll our shoulders. She tells us to bend our knees and bring our elbows up. She says, “Plant your feet shoulder-width apart and keep your weight over your feet as your reach to the left—and to the right.” As my weight starts to shift to my arms, she reminds the group, “Keep your weight over your feet.” I correct the movement and discover a profound level of balance. I lean into the stretch.

    Anne tells us to draw circles and figure eights with our hips. She tells us to reach up above our heads. When she wants us to bring our arms down, she says, “Act like you’re pushing down through wet sand.” My arms come down slowly, and I feel self-imposed resistance as I imagine the feeling of working through wet sand. Anne’s words reformat these simple exercises, helping me understand the level of control I must exert in each one.

    Thirty minutes pass and I don’t need to ask for clarification. This is the first time I’ve learned movements in a group setting, without feeling remedial. Able to understand each new movement, I feel that I am keeping up—learning as fast as the others around me.

    Later, Anne helps me through the remaining few movements in one of our choreography routines. “Act like you’re grabbing your skirt with both hands,” she says. Immediately, I picture a wide ball gown; I take either side of my imaginary skirt (complete with crinoline), preparing for a curtsy. “No, in front of you,” Anne clarifies, adjusting my hands without hesitation. “Like you’re lifting a skirt—your hands come in front of your knees.”

    “Oh, like a can-can skirt?” In my mind, I wave a sad goodbye to my floor-length burgundy ball dress. I create a flirtatious, black and red knee-length can-can frock with silk and ruffles.

    Again, Anne adjusts my movement. When neither of us can think of an explanation, she skips words and moves me directly. Without awkwardness or reticence, she takes my hands, turns my hips, or places a guiding hand on my shoulder. Like other instructors, she uses her body to model movements for me, but, unlike other instructors, she lets me feel her movements, putting my hands over hers so I can understand each gesture.

    Though choreography is visual, movement is emotional. Until recently, most people have taught me movement in translation—trying (and failing) to use vision to help me understand what to do with my body. Willing to move me and move with me, teachers like Anne demonstrate movement as a collaboration between the mover and the moving world, between your body and what you want your body to do.

  • Illumination

    Fifteen minutes before class, I prepare to leave my office. I place a stack of 25 graded student essays into my large bag, wrap my soft red scarf around my neck, hang my small brown purse from my right shoulder, and slide my sunglasses over my regular glasses. I pick up my keys and unfold my cane. When each of my two bags is balanced on my shoulders, I tuck the final item, a thick volume of braille poetry, into the crook of my left arm. I switch off the small gray and silver lamp, lock the door, and head down the hall.

    Today, I must leave the room while my students complete their instructor evaluations, double-sided scantron forms that ask them to rate my effectiveness in communication, demonstration of course concepts, and use of course time and materials. I will have fifteen minutes to enjoy—a quarter-hour to spend off the academic stage. I have decided to spend my time gift with Seamus Heaney and Louis Braille.

    After designating a student to administer and collect the evaluations, I gather my things and leave the classroom. I round a corner of the short, nondescript hallway and find a secluded bench near a window. I sit and arrange my bag beside me. I spread the large, white 11 x 11 volume on my lap.

    This is one of four volumes that comprise the braille transcription of Heaney’s Poems: 1965-1975. The ladies who brailled this edition for me intuitively divided the book into its four smaller collections: Death of a Naturalist, Door into the Dark, Wintering Out, and North. I am reading North.

    I open the volume and flip past the first few pages; I recognize the table of contents by the neat lines of single dots between each poem’s title and page number. I turn to the first poem in this volume and let my fingertip travel slowly over the poem’s title.

    I can’t read it.

    The line contains contractions I learned years ago and cannot remember. I resist the temptation to “scrub” at the dots with my forgetful finger. Instead, I retrace them, cell by cell, consoling myself when I successfully identify single letters.

    My fingers travel over the rest of the poem as I balance the wide volume on my lap. I use my left hand to mark the line while my right travels across it. I recognize morphemes here and there—bits of words, like “ea,” “ch,” “ar,” or “ing.” My fingertips find many dot 5s and 6s, indicating heavily contracted words. I make amateur mistakes; I read an “m” as a “u” and think, How is that possible? I do not feel like I am reading a poem—I feel like a first-grader stumbling over a children’s book.

    Four lines down, I find an unexpected treasure, a word without contractions. Sunlit. I find sunlit. I read sunlit. I can’t believe it—I retrace the word over and over, making sure I didn’t misread it. Yes, I feel the “s,” a pattern of 3 dots: dots 2 and 3 are stacked vertically while the letter reaches diagonally up to finish with dot 4. The “u,” another 3 dot pattern, begins with dot 1, skips dot 2, and ends with dots 3 and 6, side-by-side. The angular “n” starts with dots 1 and 4 side-by-side, drops below dot 4 to cover dot 5, and then drops diagonally to hit dot 3. The “l” is a straightforward pattern of 3 dots in a vertical line; it contains the left half of the braille cell. The “i” is demure and little, like its vowel in sunlit—it’s a wee 2-dot diagonal pattern between dots 2 and 4. Finally, the “t” juts across the cell like a lightening bolt, starting with dot 3, moving vertically to dots 2 and 5 on the same row, and finishing with dot 4 alone on top.

    Sunlit becomes a tactile beacon on the white page before me; it seems to encourage the other cells to attention, demand that the words reveal themselves. As I read, I find wall, east, water, summer, reddening, and hands. I begin to assemble Heaney’s poem from the bottom up. Wading deep into his poetics, I discover each sound independent of other sounds. Every “st” or “ch” comes under my fingertip and floats beside me, bobbing up and down in my conscious mind. I experience his poem as a material thing, crafted from tangible particles of noise and breath. I am traveling inside the poem, my fingertip tracing its concentric rings.

    At the end of fifteen minutes, I have read two pages—a handful of words and a deluge of sounds. I must close the book and return to other sensory obligations. I pull awareness from the small space where the ball of my finger meets the bright braille page and swing the large 11-inch cover across the front of the book. I carry the volume in the crook of my arm, my hand curling around the uncut pages, and contemplate the transcriptive power of the cells.

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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