Category Archives: blindness

Pass me a Screwdriver… the Tool, not the Drink

05 Saturday Sep 2015

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Every now and again, life throws you some introspection, some minor way of making you look at your childhood and thank God, your parents, teachers, the neighbor down the street, or plain dumb luck that you were shown or taught something at an early age that made your adult life so much easier.  As a very young child, you remember thinking – as all children think – that everyone’s parents taught them how to cook four-course dinners, name all the birds in the sky, or (in my case) use hand tools and identify the size of drill bits by touch.

 

Last night, Ben and I put together a bookshelf.  Leaving aside the really annoying fact that the delivery company left an 8-foot tall box leaning up against our house, making it impossible to move it inside single-handedly from my 6-foot-wide porch, I was thrilled that our music room would soon have an additional book case.  As everyone knows, braille books take up an insane amount of room, and Ben’s huge collection of paperbacks are relatively scattered, with no set place to go.  So last night, we were putting our new shelf together with screws and nails, and (obviously) a screwdriver and hammer.  I had been struggling tightening a screw, so I opened the top of the screwdriver and grabbed the #3 Robertson bit… it worked like a charm!  Ben asked me how I know what we needed, and how I could tell the #2 from the #4, or a Robertson from a Phillips by touch.  I told him that my father taught me the basics as a child, and other friends along the way have had me set up stage sets and other things, and when I first moved out on my own I did most of my minor home repairs myself.

 

As a child, I thought it was perfectly normal to go down into my father’s workshop in the basement (and later the garage) and hand him tools while he was working.  But it was a rude awakening when I was about seven or eight, and I told someone to hand me the hammer so I could fix something or other.  The reaction was just priceless: “Um… no! You can get hurt!”  No amount of begging, pleading, telling them I’d fixed things before would make them relent.  I can’t remember the general outcome, or even what I wanted the hammer for in the first place, but I remember feeling so dejected; my father believed in my abilities, but no matter what, to this neighbour, I was still viewed as the blind kid who dared to want to wield a hammer.

 

Fast forward several years, and I had moved in to my own apartment in Edmonton.  My kitchen cabinets were loose, and I just grabbed a screwdriver and within five minutes they were good as new.  The empowering feeling is almost indescribable even now, more than ten years later.  When Ben and I bought this house, I took delivery of a new bedroom set, and put it all together, with the exception of the bed.  Little things come apart, and I can put them together again… and there are few better feelings of accomplishment in the world than simply being able to get them done.  This was all made possible because I was the daughter of someone who not only believed that I could learn about tools and perform these tasks, but that I should, whether or not I could see what I was doing.

 

I know that this blog has blind subscribers, and I know there are parents of blind children who read this blog; I may be preaching to the choir here.  Those who are blind, don’t let anyone clip your wings.  If your family does not believe in your abilities, I am so sorry… but don’t give anyone the power to tell you that you cannot do something before you try and succeed, fall on your face, or somewhere in the middle.  For parents, relatives, or friends of blind children (or even adults), please resist the temptation to jump in and do for them something that they may really want to do for themselves.  Would you deny a sighted family member an opportunity to make mistakes?  For most, the answer is no.  So if you have the skills, show them.  Give them the opportunity to fly.  I may never use a table saw, and that’s OK… but pass me that screwdriver… this table leg is wobbly.

Run, Fido, Run!

29 Saturday Aug 2015

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OK, I’m going to say something completely obvious: Guide dogs are bred and trained to be guides.  Well, DUH!  But in addition to being guides, they are dogs, with all the needs, desires and interests of other living beings.  In honour of National Dog Day earlier this week, let me introduce you to several dogs – including mine – who have some pretty cool hobbies .

From the get-go, Jenny loved her new fashionable gear

Jenny loves her sports harness so much!

Jenny is a runner.  She has a runner’s body with sleek lines and long legs.  If it were up to her, we would run everywhere.  Since six months of the year our sidewalks and streets are covered in ice, that’s a pretty scary proposition.  But about six months ago, when the snow melted and we had both experienced a severely prolonged  case of cabin fever, I decided to channel some of that running energy, get myself back in to running, and take her out for a short jog around the neighborhood.  I had a harness made for her that we use exclusively for running, and as time went by we increased distance, ramped up the pace, and threw in street crossings and other distractions and complications.  As of this writing, we have done two runs longer than 3 km, each a little bit faster than the one before, and I’m hoping to get up to 5 km before the snow sets in.  I listen to myself and my dog, and we decide together what the pace is, when we’re done, and afterward Jenny gets rewarded with a whole bowl of water and – depending on her mood – a seriously good game of tug or an extended nap sprawled in the middle of the floor.

But I am by no means alone in running with my guide.  Last week, Guiding Eyes dog Klinger became one of the first guide dogs to be trained as a running guide dog.  This article made the rounds of social media, and while I believe it does have some representation errors (no guide dog is “certified”, they are trained; and this guide dog team was also trained as a running guide years before Klinger), I think it’s great that guide dog programs are putting in the work for athletes who wish to bond with their dogs in this way.  As stated in one of the articles, many of us have trained our guides ourselves to run moderate distances, but if someone doesn’t feel safe, or doesn’t have the knowledge, skills or willingness to train their dog to do this safely, if trainers and schools recognize all the wonderful things that have and can come of safely running with a guide dog, the more independent a blind person can be.

But running isn’t the only “guide” sport that a guide dog can enjoy.  My friend Rox has owner-trained several guide dogs, and has run with many of them.  She has done agility courses with some and herding with others as a form of training, sport and recreation for the dogs’ “down-time”, and is currently laying the ground work to be able to go bikejoring and skijoring with her current guide, Soleil.  The ground work for some of these activities builds on the skills that the dog already possesses, but changes some of the feedback that a guide dog team gives and receives.

My friend Brooke has several dogs, and has done tracking, field work, confirmation, and other activities with them.  Due to a recent timing conflict, she found herself bringing her guide dog, Rogue, to a field lesson with Arizona (the “real” student), and decided to try fostering some healthy competition between the dogs.  It went well enough that she decided to work with Rogue on this skill, alongside the tracking and confirmation shows (and I’m sure a million other activities) she already has on her resume.

Some of these activities are enjoyed with the support of traditional guide dog schools; some can only be enjoyed by owner-trainers or under the radar, as a traditional guide dog school may deem them against a guide’s training, or unsafe for the team.  But at the end of the day, if activities can be enjoyed by a dog and its partner alike, can be performed safely with training either by a school or by the handler, and it improves the dog’s confidence and doesn’t affect the dog’s work, then let’s have at it!  I have found for myself – and Rox, Brooke, and many others have expressed to me – that giving our working dogs these physical and mental outlets, the stronger our bond, the more focused and confident the dog’s work, the more training tools we have as handlers, and the happier everyone is.  Now, if anyone can tell me how to keep every single neighborhood dog from barking at Jenny and I while we go running past…

Not devoted to Blind Devotion

22 Saturday Aug 2015

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I will be the first to admit that portrayals of blind people in books, movies, or articles tend to get my teeth on edge.  Contrary to what many might think I don’t expect a perfect portrayal of who we are, because we are all different, just like sighted people.  But perhaps even with the best of intentions, some of the worst stereotypes about blind people are perpetuated in these books, movies, or articles – that we are angelic inspirational beings for simply living our lives, that we require caretakers for everything from cooking to laundry to shopping, and if we do actually succeed at something it’s viewed as a miraculous feat tantamount to clearing tall buildings in a single bound.  These ideas are frustrating to those of us who live with blindness – and others’ perceptions of it – every day of our lives.

That having been said, few books, movie portrayals, or articles have concerned me quite as much as this video, largely because it’s been shared around the world as a “sweet tearjerker that shows what true love and “blind devotion” really is.

I’m leaving aside here the main character’s perception of what she can and cannot do as someone losing her vision; the anger and denial process are entirely normal, given a diagnosis like hers.  But the ending of the video infuriated me to no end.  It is viewed as sweet, and beautiful, and yet I find it ugly.  For those of you who cannot see (or just don’t feel like watching the video), this video ends with the husband following his blind wife to work every day without her knowledge.  We’re not talking about driving her to work, waiting in the car and watching her get in to a building before driving away; we are talking about physically following her on her walk to work every morning because (I presume based on the video) he doesn’t think of her as capable enough to do it on her own.  As a blind wife with a sighted husband, to me such behavior borders on stalking, and is not adorable and kind, but such a blatant abuse of trust that my blood is boiling even thinking about it.

Committed relationships (marriage in my case) are beautiful, messy and sweet and heart-breaking and restorative.  Relationships are not perfect, whether or not one partner has a disability.  Even if everyone disagrees on acceptable/unacceptable behaviors in any given relationship, I can think of no one who would disagree that trust is a foundation for any successful relationship.  It is one thing to stumble and fall, or be unintentionally hurtful, but to knowingly use your partner’s blindness or deafness to your own advantage – even while fooling yourself into believing it’s being done for their benefit – can shake a relationship to the core when your disabled partner finds out about it (and trust me, we’re not fools; we WILL find out).  Creating an admittedly fictional video as a feel-good look at what “true devotion” really is makes those of us living with blindness choke on the phony sweetness it’s meant to portray.  I have two questions for those who made, produced, and touted this video as sweet and romantic: How would you feel if your spouse went behind your back and, by their actions, showed the entire world – everyone but you – that they viewed you as incapable?  And what if you found out about it weeks, months, or years after the fact?  It isn’t so adorable and sweet now, is it…

On Not Hearing…

15 Saturday Aug 2015

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As is quite apparent from my blog, I am blind (visually impaired, if you want to be kinda politically correct).  Because of this, my sense of hearing is used for many more tasks than by those who can see.  Because I cannot see, my exposure to the deaf community around me, which I do realize does exist, is definitely limited…. and I got curious about daily life, culture, and hobbies of those who have limited or no use of the one sense that is so integral to my life.  Just as blindness and its social structure, perceived limitations, and ways of adapting is far too much of a topic to tackle in one blog post, I have found deaf and deaf-blind culture, use of language, and social interactions far too broad to discuss completely here.  So please don’t tell me how I don’t know anything… because I know I don’t have a clue… and I’m OK with wanting to know more.

 

It all started about fifteen years ago when I joined an email pen pal web site and began corresponding with a young deaf man (in Edmonton, no less( who communicated with the world around him using American Sign Language (ASL).  We both ended up marveling that two people who would probably never have met in person – and couldn’t have communicated fluidly if we had – ended up carrying on a months-long e-mail correspondence with no problems.  We lost touch after a few months, but I never did forget him.  Over the years, with the advent of social media and more affordable technology, I’ve been able to correspond with many who are deaf, hard-of-hearing, or deaf-blind, and am constantly challenged to re-think my own ideas about what life is like, what hobbies can be enjoyed, and how those who cannot hear well or at all can communicate with the world around them.  It’s a proverbial eye-opening experience, as I constantly feel I have to challenge those stereotypes myself.  And yet I put labels and restrictions on those who cannot hear, just as many around me put them on me because I cannot see.

 

Earlier this year, a documentary was released about the lives of musicians who are deaf or hard of hearing.  I was blown away by it, not because it was particularly well-done (though it is), but by how hard many of these musicians had to fight to break in to the music industry.  Many of them faced skepticism and doubt, but kept on kicking and fighting until they got a spot somewhere doing what they loved, in feats eerily similar to what many blind people have to do in order to gain employment.

 

Coincidentally, over the past six months or so, I have done some reading – biographies by parents of deaf children, one of whom went on a quest to discover the science of sound and language.  I have also read (or am currently reading) autobiographies of women – Rebecca Alexander and Joanne Milne – who have a condition called Usher Syndrome, which leaves them with both hearing and sight loss.  Both Alexander and Milne have chosen to be fitted with cochlear implants so they can hear the world around them; Milne’s experience in particular was recorded and went viral on Youtube.  Reading about this condition in general made me curious about deaf-blindness in particular.

 

Over the past year, I found myself befriending people through social media who are deaf-blind – some whose deafness is acute while others have been adapting to an ever-changing hearing landscape.  When I posed the question to my friends, I received very different responses to my questions.  Many whose hearing loss has been progressive after years as a blind person have expressed both publicly and privately their desire for a cure for these conditions.  In a very eloquent response, my friend Bruce describes losing his hearing as infinitely scarier than losing his sight, and how he would jump at any scientific advances to improve it.  But another friend of mine whose deafness was unexpected and fairly sudden has chosen not to hope for a scientific cure.  She says that deafness is now just a part of who she is, “Deaf, red hair, short, blind, sarcastic,” and how she wouldn’t change it.

 

All of this reading, communicating, and learning leads me to a very uncomfortable place.  I’ve unwittingly put so much emphasis on hearing in my own life as many around me do on sight.  As I know I have just scratched the surface on deafness or deaf-blindness – communication styles, employment, daily life – I need to understand that my own disability is as foreign to others as deafness is to me.  While patronizing language, rudeness, or presumptions are never okay, they are, at their core, born out of ignorance.  Ignorance due to lack of knowledge is understandable; remaining in  a place where perceptions refuse to change is not.

 

So for those of my readers who are deaf or deaf-blind, please accept my stumbling, my inadvertent insensitivity, and my seemingly nosy questions.  It’s only because I care about you and your life that I want to know more.  If I have presumed you are less capable than you are, or placed restrictions on your hobbies or career path or education choices, may I hang my head in shame, because I know all too well what that feels like.  And if I have remained silent, or failed to ask questions you wish I would, may this post be a conversation starter that brings our shared humanity to the forefront.

All the Things they NEVER taught you at Guide Dog School

31 Friday Jul 2015

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I talk a lot about my guide dog on this blog – some might say too much.  But the past week has clearly shown me that no matter how comprehensive a guide dog school’s training is, there are certain things that you just don’t know you need to know… until you need to know them.

1) There will occasionally be times and places you don’t take your dog. On those occasions, it is not appropriate to tell your companions to find the crosswalk, or wait on the bus bench while you pick up your backpack.  Instead, bite your tongue and laugh uproariously at these faux pas, because God knows they’re laughing at you.  I actually found myself doing this when a bus pulled in to a stop, and the instant the doors opened, I just opened my mouth and said “Wait…” and my friend laughed so hard he nearly cried.

2) When you pick up that cane on said rare occasions, it is completely normal to hit posts and benches and garbage cans with it; that’s what it’s for.  But no one prepares you for the head trip that can ensue at moments like these because, oh yeah, you’re dog’s not being naughty; HE’S NOT THERE!

3) How to keep a dog calm after an injury.  On Monday night, Jenny got her tail slammed in a screen door.  Without getting into blood and gore, it wasn’t pretty.  Simply grabbing stuff and acting was an incredibly useful skill… which did ultimately require veterinary intervention…

4) Finding ways to distract your dog when re-bandaging wounds yourself is necessary.  My dog gets stupid with treats, so when it came time to re-bandage her tail, for some reason, a discourse about current immigration practices was all she needed to calmly stand there and let me wrap her tail.  This process took three minutes; previously, just getting the first layer on took 10 unsuccessful minutes of having her lay on the floor…

5) Discerning the difference between vomit and chewed-up “ground candy”.  While I have never experienced this first-hand, when I asked about things they never learned in guide dog school, my friends Lisa and Deanna had a lovely enlightening discussion about randomly discovering doggie throw-up instead of the item they thought they were taking away from their dog’s inappropriate chewing.

6) How to use a “cone of shame”.  I have not yet mastered this skill, but I will… when Jenny’s bandage  is removed and she wants to lick at her tail… Conversely, how to just stand there and laugh as your dog barks maniacally at the vet tech holding the disassembled cone of shame…

7) How to just stop second-guessing and follow your dog.  This has steered me wrong, but it does steer me right if my dog desperately has to use the facilities and can’t find any other way of “telling” me (short of doing her business on a public sidewalk).

8) How to simply enjoy the ride of the good, the bad, and the ugly. For a type A personality like mine, this was tough, but I had a great trainer and terrific follow-up support, and wonderful friends who DO remind me that my guide dog is a dog, and not a perfect, ugly-looking little automaton.

Guide dog school training is definitely comprehensive; they teach the skills to bond with your particular dog, and do prepare you for eventualities, such as distractions, traffic checks, and crazy weather.  But no matter what the training, much of what is learned is learned in the trenches… and that’s OK.  Simply having a sense of humour and acting on instinct when necessary will get any guide dog team further in a pinch than one traveler with a cane (which, by the way, is a completely 100% valid mode of travel).  I do prefer my dog… though, largely because I look much less stupid giving commands to said cane when I break it out and use it…

If you Want it Done Right, you Do It Yourself… or Ask Someone Else to…

25 Saturday Jul 2015

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Last week I posted on my facebook status a question about which blog topics friends, family and readers wish me to cover. One topic brought up a HUGE level of discussion from blind and sighted friends alike:
When is it appropriate for a sighted person to say no to a request from a blind family member or friend? When is saying no selfish? When should the blind relative/friend take responsibility for themselves and be as independent as possible?

I took to Twitter and asked the question, and the level of responses was astounding. Ultimately, the answers went something like this (and I am inclined to agree):
1) A blind person should do whatever they can to be independent, but (just like sighted people) may find certain skills hard or challenging. Ultimately, making a concerted effort without resounding success is one thing; not even bothering to try in the first place is another.
2) A sighted relative/friend is within their rights to say no to requests if the requests are too frequent, unreasonable, or for a task that the blind person is clearly able to do for him/herself.
3) It IS selfish to say no if the task cannot reasonably be completed by the blind person. For example, if a blind person tries to get a restaurant’s menu online before going out for dinner and finds it inaccessible (embedded picture menus are very common), leaving them twisting in the wind and asking an overworked waiter to read them the menu while you’re sitting right there is unreasonable.

That having been said, it all depends on the friendship or family dynamic. Many sighted people are too quick to step in and do for us what they THINK we cannot do for ourselves; others have super-independent blind friends or relatives who insist on doing everything even if it’s not expected, reasonable, or even requested. My relationship with my friends and family has generally clear boundaries, not because of my blindness or their vision, but because all relationships are give and take and (I hope) communicative. For example: I fold laundry in my house (whenever I get to it); Ben folds the socks. Ben HATES folding clothes, and I don’t mind putting my mad organizational skills to work figuring out how to squeeze that last T-shirt into the dresser drawer. It takes me FOREVER to fold socks, and even then I can’t be sure they match; what takes me an hour with mixed results takes Ben five minutes. We’ve found it a generally fair tradeoff. When it comes to restaurants, if I can’t get the menu online ahead of time, any sighted companion who is dining with me will read me the headings (soups, sandwiches, pastas, wraps) so I can get an overview of the menu without having the whole thing read to me when all I want is pizza.

At the end of the day, it’s up to me, and others, as blind people to do whatever we can reasonably do for ourselves, and politely advocate when things are unnecessarily being done for us; it’s up to friends or relatives to tell us when our requests for assistance are unreasonable (too frequent, cutting in to personal time, without reciprocity). For every person and relationship, the specifics will be different (I love that my husband can cook, but I do some mean cooking myself; others might find cooking scary, challenging, or incomprehensible, and that’s OK). At the end of the day, communication on both sides of the blind/sighted continuum will make boundaries and expectations perfectly clear. So to my blind readers: do what you can, make an effort, ask for help when needed, but be generous with your thanks and mindful of time commitments. To my sighted readers, love us enough to tell us when we ARE being unreasonably “needy”, ask us what you can assist with or if our struggling with a task is necessary so that we can improve it. To everyone, sighted and blind, be quick to listen and slow to speak harshly, and keep an open mind.

My best friends are Human… Seriously!

18 Saturday Jul 2015

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I take the bus to and from work every day, and have done for the majority of my working life.  Even when I wasn’t working, the bus has always been my primary means of transportation to job interviews, to get books at the library, to meet friends for coffee, to go shopping, you get the idea.  For the most part, I’ve had good experiences on the bus, but sometimes… not so much.  The bus is full of interesting people – both fascinating and otherwise – and I get many reactions from many different people.  I’ve been told in a sickly sweet yet loud voice how sorry someone is because I can’t see, apologies from someone stepping on my guide dog’s paws because she likes to stick them out in the aisle, and the evver-present questions about how I live my life and could possibly be happy as someone who can’t see.

One comment I got yesterday really got my hackles up.  Perhaps because it was just an exhausting day, but I got pretty prickly when a man got on the bus, he saw my guide dog, and said something to the effect of, “Such a cute dog; he’s your best friend!”  Someone might say that, well, a dog IS a man’s best friend, but it wasn’t said like that; it was said like my dog is MY best friend.  I tried to correct him by saying something like “Well, she is a wonderful dog, but my best friends are people,” and he came back with “no, no, no, she is your best friend because she is your eyes!”

At that point, I gave up.  There’s no point in trying to change someone’s perception of what my life is like, or what my dog does for me.  Sure, Jenny is a super-smart dog (as evidenced today by her super awesome problem-solving skills contrasted with a HUGE sniffing/distracted tendency), who gives the best snuggles a girl could ask for; she’s kept me safe from oncoming cars, kept me going in a straight line or angled me to a corner when I thought I knew better, guided me through the crazy streets and sidewalks of New York City alone and with my husband, and taught me more than I ever wanted to know about my own perceptions as a blind traveler.  I owe her a tremendous debt, but she is a dog, not a person, and my best friends are people.  Wonderful, whitty, sarcastic, moody, flawed people.  Jenny cannot drink a cup of coffee with me at 4:00 AM when I’ve had a bad day and can’t sleep.  She can’t wax eloquent on the economy, literature, politics, religion or technology when I feel like having a profound conversation.  She can’t call or text me and allow me to serve her when she’s struggling due to some severe medical concerns.  She can’t verbally smack me upside the head when I do or say something totally outlandish (that’s when running me in to poles comes in to play).

I love my dog – I truly do – but when it comes right down to it, we are different species.  We rely on each other in many ways more special than I can say.  But when it comes right down to it, she does have her limitations.  She will never be a human being, and those flawed beautiful creatures are my best friends.

Beauty is NOT just in the eye of the Beholder

10 Friday Jul 2015

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Sometimes people treat blindness like it’s this endless world of darkness.  Of course, in a sense of visual acuity, this might be the case for some, but certainly not all of us who live with vision impairment.  And in the figurative sense, nothing could be further from the truth.  When someone makes such comments about how drab and boring my life is, the conversation goes something like this.

Random person (RP): “Oh, I’m so sorry you can’t see.”

Me: “It’s not so bad.”

RP: “But you can’t see sunsets or pictures or…”

Me: “True, but I–”

RP: “That must be so tragic.”

And it continues in this vain.  Vision is so integral to sighted life – and, as my friend Leona so eloquently put it, such a greedy sense – that the idea of living without it is viewed as more terrifying than premature death.  I would even go so far as to state that we who live without seeing such beautiful things as sunsets, loved ones, photographs and mountaintops – or seeing them imperfectly – are thought of as “broken” people.

 

But just because I can’t see much at all – or others I’ve met in person or through social media can’t see things clearly – doesn’t mean that beautiful things can’t be appreciated visually.  Last week, I found this gorgeous article by Nicole C. Kear, author of the terrific memoir “Now I see You.”  In the article, she briefly describes what it was like to discover there would be a point at which she wouldn’t be able to see anymore, and a recent experience where she accidentally left her Iphone at home and realized she could still visually catch beautiful things around her.  I found it poignant and moving, and have enjoyed seeing her journey of losing her sight – from “carpe diem” to acceptance, sometimes one in spite of the other.  The world can also be captured through photography, and one doesn’t necessarily need great vision to create works of photographic art.  Not long ago, Dudley Hanks was interviewed about his work as a freelance photographer; in another interview, he showed how technology aids him in capturing, touching up, and developing his photos.

 

But what about those of us who’ve never had vision to begin with and have no memory or reference to colour?  Or those who simply don’t process the world visually?  We are by no means left out when it comes to enjoying the beautiful things of life.  Some have a terrific ear for music, others can identify the call of many birds around the world, still others are fantastic chefs and can find the perfect herb or spice to enhance a dish’s flavour or aroma.  I enjoy working with my hands, particularly with beads; the contrast of size and shape (and, yes, colour) is breathtaking to me.  If you’ve never gone into a bead shop, closed your eyes, and just let your fingers run through the hung strands of beads, take the opportunity and enjoy one of life’s simple pleasures.  Do as I did last weekend and take a step outside on a warm summer night (provided it’s safe to do so), close your eyes and enjoy the quiet of an evening (or the sounds of children laughing), the smell of neighborhood barbecues and backyard fire pits, and the feel of the grass between your toes  without all that greedy vision to distract you.

 

Are there times I wish I could fully see my loved ones’ faces, photographs, and nature, or get in my car and just take a scenic drive through the mountains just because it’s my heart’s desire?  Sure, of course there are.  But I think in some ways my lack of vision has allowed me to appreciate some of those little things that I can smell and touch and hear without the greediest of the five senses hijacking my enjoyment.  And just because someone’s vision isn’t perfect, it doesn’t mean it can’t be used to capture some truly beautiful things visually.  The world can be a wonderful place, filled with sights, sounds, smells, textures and flavours; treating sight like it’s the only way to appreciate beauty is itself a way of denying oneself an enhanced appreciation of beautiful things themselves.

I expected Perfection…

30 Saturday May 2015

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Nearly two years ago, my guide dog Jenny was introduced to me by a BC and Alberta Guide Dogs trainer.  I should have had a clue that she might be a character when the first thing she did when entering my home was to eat the cat puke we failed to notice under the coffee table.  After four weeks of training, by turns exciting and frustrating, we were ready to take on the big bad world as a guide dog team.

 

But something happened along the way.  Maybe it’s me, a bit of a perfectionist by nature, but almost immediately after the trainer left, my wonderful quirky dog turned into a little hellion!  The first three months in particular, I expected Jenny to consistently act the way she had in training.  At a particularly low point, three months post-training, we had a LOT of changes at home, at work, and with schedules.  I am almost ashamed to say that neither Jenny nor I handled it well, resulting in a particularly problematic goalball tournament in Oregon.  I was SO close to sending her back; she was pulling, running me into people, scavenging, not listening… it was AWFUL!  What made things SO much worse was that almost all my friends had seasoned guide dogs, and I was told by many of them that their dog never got dog-distracted, scavengy, stressed, making big mistakes like these.  I outlined a bit about the turning point during that weekend in Oregon on a guest post on my friend Meagan’s blog; I still have a long way to go, but it helped to know that while the behaviors weren’t OK, they weren’t that unusual.

 

It was almost instantaneous!  Right after that conversation, I stopped fighting Jenny.  I stopped thinking emotionally about her behavior and started thinking logically.  That particular low point, my husband and I were both under immense stress; we had water leaking into our house, dehumidifiers running 24/7 with a white noise that could’ve been used as a torture technique, I had changed both my place of employment and my working ours… no wonder Jenny was on edge!  Once I “got it” and stopped trying to fight her in harness, we stopped having so many problems.  Sure, we had bad days and still will, but once I stopped trying to be Alpha, she stopped acting like a dog so much, and started acting like a guide dog.

 

But I never seem to learn.  Even now, I come home and give my husband a “report” on our day.  Sure, we’ve had awesome days and days that go down the toilet, but almost all days lay somewhere in between.  I distinctly remember a terrific guiding day Jenny had about six months ago.  I had to go to a sporting goods store in a mall we seldom frequent to pick up something, and Jenny and I had only been there once before.  Jenny flawlessly guided me to the store, and when I found out we were on the wrong floor, she guided me to the far side of the store to the escalator we needed.  It was a glorious thing!  She did terrific guide work the rest of the night… but when we got out of the building to go catch a bus, she had what I like to call “30 seconds of STUPID!”  For those thirty seconds, her nose was going double-time, looking for food, interesting people, and smelling the “pee-mail” at the base of the light post; but when we got to the corner, the figurative light bulb flashed above her head, and she sat at the curb and guided perfectly for the rest of the night.  I can laugh about it now, but at the time, I remember thinking “What goes through your head, silly dog?”  In our early days, I would bring up the thirty seconds of stupid, then the awesome guide work, but I realize that’s all backwards.  Even people can have great days, then in a moment of frustration let out something careless or hurtful.  What makes me think my dog and I are any different?

 

I can choose to regret those early power-struggle days, and in some ways I do.  But I learned so much from making those mistakes that I don’t know I can call it regret.  perhaps I can call it an education: it’s only as good as what you do moving forward, building on those lessons learned and learning new ones along the way.

Can I just drink my Coffee? – on Education and Ambassadorship

22 Friday May 2015

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Over the years I have heard now and again that I need to be the best blind person I can be, if for no other reason than I may be the first (if not only) blind person your average Joe or Jane might encounter.  Some might say that it is my job to educate others about blindness, humanity, and living life by answering questions or providing demonstrations of my skills or assistive technology on the fly, no matter what kind of day I’ve had or what my plans are.  While I do agree that politeness and courtesy go a long way, I personally think I should have the right to enjoy a cup of coffee without being approached and asked a thousand questions about how blind people cope with life, for two very important reasons:

1) I am NOT all blind people. My marital status, education, employment, life circumstances, hopes, dreams, and fears are entirely my own. Just because I have an overwhelming fear of ladders doesn’t mean the next blind chick shares that fear; just because my blind friend that I am hoping to meet for coffee attends university doesn’t mean that further schooling is my goal.

2) You wouldn’t routinely approach an able-bodied stranger at a Tim Hortons and start asking questions, would you?  If so, then we’ll talk…

 

Last year, I contributed to my friend Meagan’s blog post on this very topic, waxing partially eloquent about how that ambassadorship role is just too unrealistic and heavy.  Expecting me to be an ambassador for the blind is like expecting one woman to represent them all, or one police officer, doctor, or parent.  We all know where that gets us: nowhere!

 

Sure, I’ve asked REALLY stupid questions of friends who use wheelchairs, are deaf, or live with chronic debilitating medical conditions.  These are people I have met either online or in person, and we’ve struck up a conversation, generally about normal everyday things (politics, sports, work), and not random strangers who cross my path.  I DO find the random approaches at bus stops or in coffee shops quite disconcerting, because it seems that all person X is interested in is the fact that my eyes don’t work.  After whatever conversation we have, right or wrong, that person will take away what blind people are “really” like.

 

Perhaps the perception of me as a blind woman being an ambassador comes because I, with my cute black lab guide dog, am much more visible than a woman of similar age fitting my general physical discription.  A “normal” Millennial having a rough day in a shopping mall doesn’t generally get six offers of assistance in as many paces, but I do, simply because the perception is that because I am blind, I require assistance.  I can politely decline said offers of assistance and still be viewed as stubborn and ungrateful; I can be forceful about declining such offers and still be considered stubborn and ungrateful; or I can accept the assistance (whether I need it or not) and feed into a perception that blind people are helpless and always need sighted help.  What is the common denominator? Someone else’s perception.  People will view me however they choose to.  No matter what I do, someone somewhere will form an opinion of me, right or wrong.  A comparable sighted millennial will be perceived by the public for having tangled messy hair or ill-fitting jeans, but no one bats an eye at those perceptions either.  Why should we as blind people be immune from perception? It’s just human nature; we aren’t so special to avoid it. All I can do is live my life the best way I know how, accept or decline a myriad of offers of assistance as needed and smile and nod about people who only view me as non-working eyeballs with a cute dog.