Fixing the Bathroom Door

by Nancy Scott

It started with my maintenance request. Roger showed up to caulk bathroom tile and check the toilet flush mechanism.

As we stood there after he finished those tasks, I laughingly said, “You have to see what this door does. Of course, I caused it myself. The door was screeching like a spooky movie and I couldn’t stand it. So I sprayed the hinges with WD-40. The screeching stopped, but watch what happens now.”

I moved the bathroom door from full open to a little more closed. And the door, by itself, very slowly continued to move all the way shut.

Roger laughed. He said, “It’s like a little ghost is moving it.”

That was the perfect description.

“But I can’t find a good position to make the shower steam escape,” I complained. “And when the door does manage the perfect openness, I forget, get out of the shower and promptly hit my head on it.”

Roger has a blind relative. And he’s used to me, so he laughed some more. I did, too.

“I might be able to fix it,” he chuckled and went to his toolbox. I think he brought a hammer. He reached up and banged three times. He said, “There. I tightened the hinges you loosened. Try it now.”

And it worked. Perfectly. No matter where I angled the door, it stayed put. Wonderful. Glorious!

This was an unexpected, immediate benefit only for me. It made me have just a little more faith in my fellow man. It made us both more in love with the world for a few moments. It was easy and it will be helpful for a long time. Everything hinges on other things.

Sometimes good happens in just that way— a task, a conversation, an opportunity, a tool and some knowledge to use it, and a long-term outcome. Life, and writing, are often like that.

Nancy Scott’s over 650 essays and poems have appeared in magazines, literary journals, anthologies, newspapers, and as audio commentaries. She has a new chapbook, The Almost Abecedarian (on Amazon), and won First Prize in the 2009 International Onkyo Braille Essay Contest. Recent work appears in Breath and Shadow, Braille Forum, Disabilities Studies Quarterly, Philadelphia Stories, and Wordgathering.

Though I’ve Never Seen

by Sharon Tewksbury

I’ve never seen snowflakes or sleet,

I’ve never seen a baby sleep,

I’ve never seen a sky of blue,

Or saw a rose kissed by the dew.

But I’ve heard the robin’s song so gay,

I’ve heard a baby laugh at play,

I’ve touched a rose I’ve smelled the dew,

I’ve touched soft grass, smelled spring rain too.

I’ve never seen the clouds of white,

Nor saw the moon or starry light,

But I’ve sat in autumn’s sacred night,

And heard the geese in chevron flight.

I’ve never seen an eagle soar,

But I’ve stood and heard the ocean’s roar,

I’ve felt its trade winds on my face,

Tasted its salt, and felt its sprays.

I’ve never seen a morning dawn,

Or the colors of a sunset gone,

But I’ve felt the sun, heard dawn birds sing,

Heard evening crickets in early spring,

My friends, I’ve lived just like a queen,

Even though I have never seen.

 

Sharon Tewksbury, was born blind in the early fifties. She had cataracts before birth, was born prematurely and was in an incubator for eight weeks. Oxygen and bright lights made what vision she had leave at an expedient rate. This poem was written to share that although some sighted folks might think the blind have missed out, nothing could be further from the truth.

Seeing Red

by Stella De Genova

Imagine a world of blurred and sometimes abstract images. Imagine looking up and seeing a blue sky and beneath it, gray buildings and foliage and silhouettes of people.  There is subtlety of color but is it green or brown or is it purple or blue?  And when the light dims – well, let’s just say all bets are off.  I’m never sure enough of colors anymore to be able to pick and buy my own clothing in a store.

And then something catches my eye: a red apple, a red cayenne pepper, a red flower, a red convertible. It’s almost like an artistic twist in a Benini film.  What a stroke of luck for me!  No, not the part that I have RP (retinitis pigmentosa) and this is what I see daily but the fact that red has always been a favorite color of mine and now, along with the bright blue sky on a sunny day, this is the color that consistently pops out for me.

It’s weird the way life works. We can all think about what we’ve lost in life but let’s be honest, a person can only dwell on loss for so long.  Could be we’re in a better place when we move past the loss and cherish what we do have.  Trust me, there’s someone out there who has less than you or me.

Personally, I choose to see red today and I have no complaints about that!