Photos by Aida Zuniga So I was in Nicaragua on Wednesday soundseeing and heard a faint but distinctive grumbling coming from the belly of this volcano.
I checked it out and smoke started to rise behind me and I figured it was time to get out of Dodge and rustle up some barbeque. Good thing I did or it might have been me on the menu.
Steve Gladstone
The ‘alive and well’ Blind Dude
When you were a child, did you ever close your eyes and imagine flying like a bird, or picture what was at the end of a rainbow, or shut your eyes to make a wish while you were blowing out your birthday candles?
As adults, we take a workshop with Tony the empowerment guru who has us close our eyes and visualize where-we-want-to-be-in-five-years, or we complete our yoga class with our eyes closed as the yogi leads us on a guided meditation.
Why with our eyes closed? Can’t we get there with them open? Does sight somehow prevent us from fulfilling our wishes or reaching the higher plane of our inner-universe?
While we’re asleep our eyes are closed and those vivid dreams appear, sending meaningful messages to ourselves. Sight is turned off even with our eyes wide open via a daydream, where we are transported to the outback thousands of miles away from the boardroom.
When we listen to a book on tape or read a novel, sight isn’t a factor. Instead, the spoken and written words spark our imagination, our mind’s eye surveying the colorful images and landscapes in our head. Our imaginings can sometimes be so potent that they leave us disappointed in the movie made from the book. Perhaps what we see is trumped by what we think.
You also get more out of your other senses when you’re sightless. We may hear more of what someone says because we don’t get distracted by something we see going on around them; you tune into the tone, tempo and rhythm of what they’re saying and pick up the meaning between their words. Touch becomes more satisfying as you check out the shape, weight and texture of items (and people too if you get lucky!). Your sense of smell is heightened into a fragrant blossom when you’re not distracted by the beauty of the flower.
Certainly we all want to see, but sight does come with its limitations. It shapes our immediate thinking and can create a barrier to our deeper self. If we don’t see the fancy car they drive, or the short skirt, or the missing teeth, we may indeed become a little less timid or shy or snobbish and a little more relaxed and real with the people we meet.
If pictures were eliminated from online dating websites, what would be the outcome? Pandemonium that leads to better results?
Going on a ‘blind date’ implies risky business. Sight unseen may lead to disappointment. However, let’s face it, when you’re on that first date, you’re looking your best and on your best behavior; sight may actually be misleading if we don’t begin to get beyond that scrubbed and shining first impression. Half of all marriages wind up in divorce, usually for reasons that don’t meet the eye. When you’re blind, you focus on the voice which can be a better lens to the soul. For the record, all my dates are blind ones.
Sight can certainly promote discrimination, triggering those biases we carry in our heads when the people around us look and move differently than we do. When you’re blind, you don’t prejudge the abilities of the guy you just met in the wheelchair.
If most of the world was blind, things might be more peaceful. There’d be less discrimination since color of skin wouldn’t trigger aggressive actions. War would be reduced and possibly eliminated since we wouldn’t be able to see the enemy, or at least take accurate aim.
Perhaps the world would be a little less hostile if we all were a little more blind.
When you do without sight, there are plenty of advantages. Everybody speaking on the phone is virtually blind: how convenient it is for those who have home-based businesses to strike deals while sitting in their Jockey shorts.
You save a lot of money when you’re blind. You tend to buy only what you need. You’re not tempted to grab the stuff around the checkout counter of the grocery store, or the items down the aisles of the drugstore as you head back to the pharmacy, or the attractive sweater you don’t need but have to pass by in order to get the pants which you do need.
So we dutifully and happily shut our eyes and let out a long sigh as we hunker down into our yoga mats, improving our mood, muscles and digestive systems.
(photos courtesy of George Schiavone) I’m traveling for an organization which recently issued a bulletin indicating the specific travel dates to all participants. This prompted the following email thread. The names have been altered to preserve the identity of the questionable.
Sarah is an administrative Executive for the organization. She knows I am blind.
From: Steve Gladstone
Sent: Thu September 26, 2013 1:52 AM
To: Sarah Wood
Subject: Atlanta travel
Hi Sarah,
I’ve been authorized in the past to travel a day earlier than posted. I wanted to verify this with and through you that I will be traveling to Atlanta on Thursday October 24 instead of Friday October 25, 2013. Please confirm.
Thanks,
Steve Gladstone
From: Sarah Wood
Sent: Thu September 26, 2013 7:50 AM
To: Steve Gladstone
Subject: Re: Atlanta travel
Hi, Steve. Your first engagement is 7:00 pm on Friday and you are traveling in the same time zone on a relatively short flight. For this and future reference, do you mind providing detail as to necessity for coming in a day early? Thanks.
Sarah
Sent from my iPhone
From: Steve Gladstone
Sent: Thu September 26, 2013 5:28 PM
To: Sarah Wood
Subject: RE: Atlanta travel
Sure. When I'm traveling to a new environment, there is a process I go through to orient myself. For example, when a person can't see, finding a shuttle or taxi from an unfamiliar airport to an unfamiliar hotel, takes time. Gotta talk to a lot of strangers, who are always most helpful, even though there is always a fair amount of backtracking to do.
Once at the hotel, I go through the following routine:
1. Find a hotel person who can escort me to my room and show me:
2. Once I have memorized all the above, I then ask my hotel employee helper to show me the way from my room door to the elevator so I can count the number of steps it is from those 2 points. Unfortunately I must do this a few times with my helper to set it in my guide dog’s mind. What is cool though is that my dog Billy, once he learns this route, gets me from my room to the elevator fairly quickly on subsequent trips. He’s pretty impressive!
3. Now I must learn the elevator. Oops, I forgot, I first have to learn where to find the up and down elevator buttons. If there is a plant or framed picture near the buttons, that helps. Invariably they are on a wall and may be between the first and second or the second and third elevator, and when there are 2 banks of 3 elevators facing each other, it gets real tricky. I need to mark whether or not I turn left or right depending on which elevator I exit to get back to my room. (I think it was also Detroit where the elevator buttons weren’t even on the wall but on a pillar in the middle of the room in front of a bank of elevators. I'm certain the person who designed this lobby didn't have any blind relatives or friends, though maybe possessed an abnormal sense of humor.)
Now to the elevators. When there are 6 elevators operating, you gotta listen real closely to catch the one that is opening. Some of them are pretty quiet. Billy does a good job getting me inside once I give him the command to “find the door.” Each panel in each elevator in each different hotel takes time to learn. It sometimes annoys folks because I ask the hotel employee helper to push the "hold door" button while I learn the panel. But I do learn it fairly quickly. BTW, some panels have Braille on them but the panels tend to be waist high and I’m a tall guy so I prefer not dropping to a knee to read the Braille and I just count buttons. It’s a little quicker that way.
4. Once I'm on the ground floor… Oops, I forgot to mention that the last hotel in New York where I had to take 2 elevators to get to the ground floor took extra time... we count steps again to get outside and now we have to find an area where I can relieve my dog. In Chicago it was very tricky as there was no grass anywhere. We had to use an alleyway. Again we have to walk this route several times so my dog and I could do it alone. Of course, we need to identify a strategic trash-can along the way for Billy’s scooper bags.
5. The rest of the orientation like finding the hotel restaurant, snack store, etc. requires the step counting thing. You might be saying, “Wow! There are several routes that all have different step configurations to memorize,” and while this is true, after walking them all a few times it gets easier. It's the initial patterning and learning that take the time up front and that is why I appreciate coming in a day early. Oh yeah, when I get back to my room, it takes a little time to plug my stuff into the electrical outlets. I have to use my fingers to find the slots where the prongs go and... well, this is a very slow process as you can imagine.
Could I do this all on same day to attend an evening meeting? Sure. It is taxing to do it same day and I appreciate the low stress option of coming in a day early to orient myself.
No one has ever questioned the necessity for me to come in the day before. They always just said o-k when I requested it. Thanks for taking the interest. And if you need any further clarification, don't hesitate to ask me.
Steve
From: Sarah Wood
Sent: Fri September 27, 2013 6:12 PM
To: Steve Gladstone
Subject: RE: Atlanta travel
I hope I didn’t offend you with the question and really I was not looking for such a thorough explanation, just something to put in a file so that next year we remember to budget for this since it’s the first time I’ve learned of the extra night request for you. Now that I have the information and it will be in the file, my hope is to not pester you with further questions about it.
And yes, the buttons in Detroit were quite frustrating, even for one with decent eyesight – I turned circles before I figured out those darn pedestals had the up and down buttons on them.
Have a good weekend.
Sarah
Sent from my iPhone