The Chain

by Reja-e-Busailah

My Seeing Eye dog senses we are bent

on a long journey, long enough to keep us for a full day

chained to one seat on one plane.

 

She goes out of her mind with zeal,

like a child in the act of opening

the long-awaited present,

dream being realized,

and before I know it,

before we set out,

she has thrown all temperance to the dogs

and emptied to the drains

a bowl of water bubbling to the brim:

She knows

as though trafficking with powers

far above and beyond my ken;

and that’s the full extent of her innocence

and that’s the full limit of her association.

 

Then in despair I tear my hair,

or what is left of it,

less over what has passed

than over what is to come:

 

My vision,

my guide through the world’s pitfalls and snares

the only guardian to whose care

I would commit my whole being,

she who empowers me to make myself at home

in the mightiest of cities

most awe-inspiring,

she who enables me to relish

the Big Apple to the fullest,

frees me of fear when at its beaches,

its parks, its avenues, and squares,

at its stations grand, small, and modest,

in office, store, restaurant, and classroom,

she who fills me with fearlessness

when down deep in its big belly,

among the terrible snakes of B.M.T.s and I.R.T.s lying still or running,

not far from the treacherous serpent

disguised as the Third Rail.

She knows all,

and yet this angel,

this guardian angel,

can see no farther after all

 

than those who designed the feathered arrow

and took time off to rest,

and watched a dream the fall of albatross,

or than those who engender,

just to gaze spellbound,

that device, wondrous and beastly,

which travels far and fast

to bust the kidneys and bladders of continence.

 

Both she and they are cause-conscious,

both consequence-blind

in their calculations and traffickings

except when the shrewd inventors

are in the custody of cup or bottle:

 

Then in all fairness they do hold an edge,

a decisive edge over her,

for they can tell, she can’t I think,

the compelling if serpentine link

between first blush and crucial kiss,

between, pardon the impropriety, guzzle and piss—

the kind of chain least on a Seeing Eye’s mind.

Reja-e Busailah was born in Jerusalem and now lives in Indiana, U.S. He has been totally blind since infancy, from before the end of his first year. He has published poems in a variety of little magazines on different subjects. This poem is from a collection of poems, Poems Out of Sight, which he hopes to publish in the near future. Reja-e also in the process of having a memoir about his childhood published within the next few months.

No Face in the Mirror

by Marcia J. Wick

Stumbling over my guide dog, I make my way to the bathroom getting ready to meet a new day. But I cannot see how I will greet the day, even though I am standing in front of the mirror. The reflection of my face in the mirror is disappearing due to my progressive vision loss.

Whether I start my day feeling like death warmed over, or I wake refreshed and ready to put my best face forward, it is the same reflection I see. Soft and fuzzy at the edges. Clouds and vapor off which the light bounces and flickers. Pixilated glimpses at a part of my nose and expressionless orbits for eyes. No use worrying about plucking my eyebrows or checking for blemishes.

Although my days are dimming, there is a silver lining. Not seeing how I look in the mirror presents an unexpected opportunity for me to use my mind’s eye.  I tell myself, “You look great!” My fading image forces me to let go of judgments I might heap upon myself if I could actually make out my finer features.

My progressive vision loss helps to keep my steady aging process at bay, at least as far as I can see! Staring ahead while brushing my teeth, I do not discern the crow’s feet seeking permanent residency at the outside corners of my mouth and eyes, nor can I perceive the pervasive grey masking my former dark brown hair color. If I squint, I can almost imagine myself as a blond bombshell.

When the face looking back at you from the mirror disappears, you have the chance to imagine yourself in a new way. If you frown at the bathroom mirror first thing in the morning, you might lock in a picture of how you will look to others during the course of your day.

There is an advantage to not judging yourself by how you appear in a mirror day after day. If you have some vision, consider taping a picture of someone else’s face at just the right size and height to block out your own image. Look at you! You look as great as Wonder Woman Linda Carter or Clark Kent as Superman! Your eyes are bright and your hair and brows are trim. Your teeth could not look more brilliant, and your neck is tucked firmly out of sight under your chin.

You look great! You feel great! You smile! When you lose sight of your own face in the mirror, you can imagine Sophia Loren or someone rich, powerful and influential. I promise you will feel happier and more confident about facing the day when you fancy a new face in the mirror.

Marcia Wick is enjoying new adventures with her first guide dog, Viviane, a 60-pound yellow lab from Guide Dogs for the Blind. Marcia is legally blind due to Retinitis Pigmentosa. Recently retired, her career included newspaper reporting, public relations, communications and publishing.  With two daughters now grown and a grandson, Marcia is returning to her writing roots in partnership with her sister, Jennifer Walford, as The Write Sisters. She also advocates for public transit, the Visually Impaired and Blind Skiers , and currently serves on the GDB Alumni Association Board of Directors.  Marcia lives in Colorado Springs with her husband and Viviane.

Tribute to Tania

by Terri Winaught

I wish I could have known you, baby girl: born in a decade of challenge, change, pain and promise.

I wish I would have known you when your voice became a harp that enchanted listeners, soared to the sky like a robin and sang the sun to sleep.

If I would have known you when cancer began stealing so much like the cowardly, cruel thief that it is, I would have shaved my head if that would have helped you feel less alone and different.

When I get to meet you, I’ll have so much to tell you.

I’ll tell you how happy I was to meet your father after 50 years of waiting and wanting.

I’ll tell you what a warm, welcoming and gentle woman your mother is.

I’ll tell you that your daughter is such a precious, priceless gift that your soul must have sung lullabies of love when you first saw her.

I know I’ll get to meet you when the fevered pitch of my earthly life is done, and I’m called to my eternal home.

With eyes that will see for the first time, I’ll survey the features that make you special; embrace you, Tania, as if I’ve always known you, and our dancing feet will create works of beauty.

When trumpets blare along gold-paved streets, we’ll know that our tears have turned into rejoicing, and life is now complete!

 

Terri Winaught was born March 13th, 1953 in Philadelphia, PA.  Being born three months prematurely is what caused her blindness, which is total except for some light perception in her left eye. She loves her work at a local mental-health facility.  She enjoys writing, singing, going out with friends, and listening to soul music from the 1960’s, especially that of Garnet Mimms, whose daughter her poem is about.

Freedom

by Charlie Tarantola

I swing the leather saddle onto his back. My cane is in the barn’s office, tucked away hidden. This to me is somewhat freeing. The smell of horses, and hay are around me. Heavy leather boots on my feet. A helmet is on my head for safety, so I don’t lose another chunk of my precious vision, or worse.

I walk him slowly into the ring, and to the mounting block. I get on quickly, ask him to walk on.

When he does, I breathe in heavy, I don’t have to worry about walking into something tripping or even where I am in space, I am free from the burden of my blindness, free from the worry.

I ask him to canter. I am flying, I can hear his smooth three beat gait, over everything else. And then I open my eyes, and see his bright red chestnut neck, I pat it, and mutter good boy Leo.

Charlie Tarantola has been somewhere in between sighted and blind all of his life. Cortical blindness changed that. Growing up, he was taught to be strong, be brave, and be hopeful. He was lucky enough to have relatives who showed him being blind doesn’t mean your life ends

Just As the Ocean Does

by Sharon Tewksbury

The ocean rolled,

The boat swaying with its perpetual rhythm.

We stood on the deck,

The night was unsullied.

I remember

you looking out to sea,

And I was listening to the sounds of the ferry’s motor

And the ocean

Slapping against the sides of the boat

 

Did the moon dance on the water?

I don’t remember,

But I felt you beside me,

And you described,

lights coming from all directions.

And you loved the dolphins,

Playing by the ship.

 

We listened to the gulls,

Circling overhead,

Hoping we had one last crumb of food they could eat.

I still remember the ferry’s horn, deep and loud,

The salty air hitting my nostrils,

We laughing at the spray hitting our faces,

I remember my sighs of gratitude,

because the pleasure of that trip,

Was so simple.

And we didn’t care,

That the Galveston water was dirty.

 

And now it seems like a lifetime ago,

And things have changed,

Babies will soon be born,

Loved ones have been taken away,

But your memory will always live on,

Just as the ocean does.

 

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.

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.

The Gardening Bug: Simple Ways to Enjoy Gardening

by Kathy Austin

We’ve had an early spring here in Chicago. I’ve been out in the garden a lot cleaning up last year’s plant remains and broken tree branches, transplanting lilies and hostas and planning what I’ll be purchasing to infuse my beds with flowers this summer.

I love to garden – it is my respite, my relaxation and my sanity. Gardening brings me peace.  Even though I can no longer see the plants, I still have a vision in my mind of what it all looks like.  I can tell if a plant is thriving by feeling if its leaves are firm and healthy.  I hear the robins maneuvering through the underbrush to get to the earthworms in a pile of soil I removed when planting new shrubs.  I enjoy the fragrance of daffodils when exploring the ground for little sprouts of plants waiting to burst through and open themselves to the new season.  My anticipation of how the garden will be this year is all I’ve been thinking about.

Tending a garden is harder now with no real useful vision. Sometimes I think I have too much and I get overwhelmed with all that needs to be done.  But knowing that gardens are always a work in progress, always changing, I continue on just because it makes me feel good.

I know not everyone has the land, ability or desire to manage a property full of garden beds, but here are a couple of ideas that may bring the joy of gardening into your life.

Little spaces, little gardens

With one container and some potting mix, you can create an herb garden. Mix a parsley plant, basil, oregano and thyme all in one pot, water thoroughly and put it in a spot that gets at least six hours of sun.  You’ll have all you need for a pesto or spaghetti sauce.  Bonnie Plants has some great combination ideas.  A basket of planted herbs makes a great gift too!

Create a butterfly bath

Even though I can’t see the butterflies, friends and family notice them when they are in my garden and will describe their antics. This enriches my gardening experience because I know I am providing them a refreshing bath and a cool drink and creating something beautiful for others to watch

A butterfly bath is an easy DIY project that’s inexpensive using terracotta pots and saucers, small rocks and pebbles and a parsley plant. Go one step further and surround your butterfly bath with containers of butterfly attracting annuals such as petunias, cosmos, sweet alyssum or verbena — all readily available at home centers and nurseries this time of year.

Give the gift of a garden

Share the beauty of early spring annuals like pansies with friends and neighbors. Recently, I purchased a couple of small terracotta pots and saucers and a package of yellow and purple pansies.  I potted them up, tied a ribbon around the pot and gave them as a hostess gift. Another one went to my great niece to take home with her after a visit to my house.  This inexpensive and small token of appreciation brought a smile to all who received the pot.

Learning is fun

Another way I enjoy gardening is through social media. I love the Extension Master Gardener and the national Garden Bureau’s Facebook pages.  Especially now, as gardening season gets under way, both organizations share lots of good ideas, great information and interesting facts.  There are literally hundreds of other gardening pages on Facebook to choose from, too!

The BARD website from the National Library Service for the Blind and Physically Handicapped has a handful of gardening books, some reference and others that tell stories. Search the BARD website under “gardening” in the subject section.  My favorite reference books include:

The Nonstop Garden by Jennifer Benner and Stephanie Cohen

The New Low Maintenance Garden by Valarie Easton,

The Well Designed Mixed Garden by Tracy DiSabato

Horticulture Magazine

No dirty hands, no aching back

I’m also in the process of reading A Patchwork Garden by Sidney Edison. It is a lovely story of how her country garden in Newtown, Connecticut has evolved over three decades.  She intertwines her knowledge, successes and failures with the fellow gardeners who inspired and taught her along the way.  I live vicariously through this book – it would be my dream to have this kind of a garden, but I will try to be content with my 60 x 120 suburban plot and keep on trying to make it something all will enjoy – butterflies, bees, birds and people, too!

Happy spring!

Links

https://bonnieplants.com/library/give-mom-an-herb-garden/

https://bonnieplants.com/library/create-butterfly-bath/

https://www.facebook.com/extensionmastergardener

https://www.facebook.com/nationalgardenbureau/

https://nlsbard.loc.gov/login//NLS

Kathy Austin is the Community Engagement Specialist and Volunteer Coordinator at Second Sense blind service organization in Chicago, IL. This post was lent to us from the Second Opinion blog at the Second Sense website.

Learning to Be a Soldier

by Francesca Marinaro

Every teacher knows the sensation of first-day butterflies, and years of experience notwithstanding, you never fully overcome that performance anxiety. The night before each semester begins, I lie awake battling the questions beating against my brain: “What if everyone drops the course? What if no one shows up? What if they laugh when I mispronounce their names?” yet larger than any other looms the question of how everyone will react when I stride into the room with a guide dog.

This semester, I faced the additional challenge of maneuvering campus with a broken foot and a walker, as if my blindness doesn’t make me conspicuous enough. Since I enlisted a colleague to help me with tasks like carrying my briefcase and opening doors, I wondered how my difficulty, however temporary, would impact the impression I’d convey to my students, many of whom had likely never encountered a blind person. Would they think me somehow inept—my injury related to the perils of navigating the world without sight? (I don’t think blind people injure themselves any more than sighted people do, but I’ve lost track of how many times someone has grabbed my wrist as I descended a flight of stairs under the assumption that I’d fall).

As students filed in, I stood carefully, swiping my clammy palms on my sweater.

“Wow, what happened to your leg?” one curious student asked. When I explained that I’d broken my foot, she observed sympathetically, “It must be so hard for you to get around.”

“It’s not easy,” I admitted. “but I’m managing.”

A thoughtful pause ensued, after which my student announced, “That’s because you’re a soldier.”

In the weeks following my injury, I’d spent hours berating myself for my clumsiness and uselessly asking why this had happened to me. Everything happens for a reason, so the saying goes, but for the life of me, I couldn’t see the greater good at work here. Ironically, I learned the reason courtesy of my admiring student—both the teachable moment my injury offered and, more broadly, that we discover the reason for why events in our lives unfold as they do only when we look beyond ourselves and consider how we can turn our struggles into stories that benefit others. I realized that just by standing at the front of the classroom, I’d given my students a lesson far greater than any my lectures would cover.

My students didn’t see what I feared they’d see: an exhausted, disabled woman. They saw a strong, confident woman who stared an obstacle in the eye and said, “Step aside, please.” They saw someone with the courage to show the world that people with disabilities can and do make productive contributions to society. They saw someone willing to set aside her anxiety to transform her trial into a teachable moment. I realized then that sometimes the greatest gift we can give to our students is our willingness to learn from the lessons they can teach us about ourselves.

 

Francesca Marinaro is an English professor and freelance writer/editor currently living in Florida with her guide dog. She was diagnosed with Leber’s as an infant and lost her usable vision as a teenager. She loves chocolate, Jane Austen, wine, Colin Firth movies, and defending the Oxford comma to anyone who’ll listen. Her work has been published on numerous blogs; visit her website at http://www.ffmarinaro.com to learn more about her work!

Unwanted News

by Charlie Tarantola

You know the news that’s coming when you get a visual field test done and most of the test is done before you see anything. You know you’re in trouble. You just about cry when you finally see the flashes. You know you can see some, but seeing the flashes reminds you, all is not lost -well at least for now.

When they are done with their torture, or testing as they call it, you go back into a room and wait for the doctor to tell you the bad news you are sure you are going to get. While waiting, you hear a nurse ask the doctor about being allowed to give another patient medicine to lower the eye pressure.  You think, someone else across the building is also slowly, but surely going blind. Well at least you’re not alone.

He taps the door. “I wish I had good news,” he mutters, “but I don’t.” He says what your vision is doesn’t matter anymore, because you were already legally blind. He says “I will fill out any forms you need and see you next year.”

You use your cane and walk out of the room. Standing on the street corner, you think to yourself, “Now I can apply to Seeing Eye because now I am ”really blind”.” Even on the worst day of my life, I still have to and will think positive. I listen, cross the street and hope I don’t miss the train.

Charlie Tarantola has been somewhere in between sighted and blind all of his life. Cortical blindness changed that. Growing up, he was taught to be strong, be brave, and be hopeful. He was lucky enough to have relatives who showed him being blind doesn’t mean your life ends

Museum Tour

by Stella De Genova

I went out of my comfort zone last week and went to the Chicago Museum of Contemporary Art.  Fellow blogger and published author, Beth Finke also attended and asked if I would like to write a guest piece about our museum day for her Safe & Sound blog.  I did!  And you can read all about it at Blind at the Museum of Contemporary Art.