eyes detected so little in the dark that walking itself had become a dangerous mode of transportation. Better to shorten the journey by sprinting across the highway, and home. You know youâve still got some running left in you, my mind would taunt, although the rest of me would doubt it.
Test run the feeling for yourself some time. In an empty parking lot or an empty ball diamond, close your eyes and sprint a good distance. Youâll experience just how unhappy the act makes your body feel. Even when your mind knows itâs safe, the rest of you will drag and resist like a mighty skep-tic. That inner argument produces a strange, herky-jerky motion, too. Running blind is never pretty, let me tell you, nor smart.
This time, however, my mind didnât prod me to bolt. Jane did. We got off the bus, and she glanced at the pause in traffic and said, âQuick, quick.â She was off, so I ran after her with particular abandon. The four lanes were clear for now, but Jane failed to mention the median that interrupted the otherwise level street. I suppose, in all fairness, she didnât know sheâd failed to mention anything. Neither of us was too clear about what needed mentioning to me and when. Because my blindness could worsen daily, its effects always seemed somewhat new and unpredictable.
As I ran, I discovered the cement median for myself, with my foot. I tripped, skidded on my hands, rolled, then landed on my back in a lane of oncoming traffic. Jane raced back to fetch me and to stop the approaching cars.
When I came to, she helped me up, dusted me off, and put
my hat back on top of my head, as a mother might do for a toddler after a failed first crack at walking. The rest of the way home I limped and kept my hand fixed to Janeâs elbow for guidance. My frustration followed us. Iâd just tripped over another of my incompatibilities with lifeâs basic skills. As we walked, and the pain announced itself in my palms and head, Jane asked, carefully, circuitously, if I thought maybeâjust maybeâit was time to look into a white cane. For two years Iâd avoided the thought, despite twenty-four months of bumping and bruising myself. The tumble, although not the worst Iâd taken, amplified my sense of endangerment. I felt stumped for an argument against the inevitable. Pride wasnât enough to refuse a cane. A promise to walk slowly or to even stay home wasnât enough, either. Not anymore. Iâd exhausted my own ridiculous solutions. Although I had only been knocked down and out for a few seconds, sometimes thatâs all it takes. A new world order can emerge when nobodyâs looking, and fast.
Taking up a white cane is perhaps the most dispiriting thing a newly blinded person goes through. Our mobility aid is a form of confession and defeat. Its battered white segments and red stripe declare the very identity weâve always feared, avoided, or hoped to disown. A cane is a permanent commitment to blindness, more final than a diagnosis, even. In my case, I committed to it because, while languishing on Lougheed Highway, I understood, at a molecular level, that I had to adapt to the pressures of an unseen world. If I didnât, I would soon be feeling a lot of other pressures, such as a Honda against my face. I could survive, as long as I could
adapt. A white cane substitutes for slow evolution. A cane, albeit primitive and clumsy, also relieves us of one dangerous paradox: the blind are most vulnerable when we are not seen. The entire human species has been through this problem, not that long ago.
About 543 million years back, our gooey, shapeless forebears sprouted the first complex eyes. Seeing had to start somewhere, sometime. According to the biologist Andrew Parker, in his book In the Blink of an Eye, the first complex eye to appear on the planet may have evolved in less than a five-hundred-thousand-year period. In terms of evolutionary time, thatâs no
Test run the feeling for yourself some time. In an empty parking lot or an empty ball diamond, close your eyes and sprint a good distance. Youâll experience just how unhappy the act makes your body feel. Even when your mind knows itâs safe, the rest of you will drag and resist like a mighty skep-tic. That inner argument produces a strange, herky-jerky motion, too. Running blind is never pretty, let me tell you, nor smart.
This time, however, my mind didnât prod me to bolt. Jane did. We got off the bus, and she glanced at the pause in traffic and said, âQuick, quick.â She was off, so I ran after her with particular abandon. The four lanes were clear for now, but Jane failed to mention the median that interrupted the otherwise level street. I suppose, in all fairness, she didnât know sheâd failed to mention anything. Neither of us was too clear about what needed mentioning to me and when. Because my blindness could worsen daily, its effects always seemed somewhat new and unpredictable.
As I ran, I discovered the cement median for myself, with my foot. I tripped, skidded on my hands, rolled, then landed on my back in a lane of oncoming traffic. Jane raced back to fetch me and to stop the approaching cars.
When I came to, she helped me up, dusted me off, and put
my hat back on top of my head, as a mother might do for a toddler after a failed first crack at walking. The rest of the way home I limped and kept my hand fixed to Janeâs elbow for guidance. My frustration followed us. Iâd just tripped over another of my incompatibilities with lifeâs basic skills. As we walked, and the pain announced itself in my palms and head, Jane asked, carefully, circuitously, if I thought maybeâjust maybeâit was time to look into a white cane. For two years Iâd avoided the thought, despite twenty-four months of bumping and bruising myself. The tumble, although not the worst Iâd taken, amplified my sense of endangerment. I felt stumped for an argument against the inevitable. Pride wasnât enough to refuse a cane. A promise to walk slowly or to even stay home wasnât enough, either. Not anymore. Iâd exhausted my own ridiculous solutions. Although I had only been knocked down and out for a few seconds, sometimes thatâs all it takes. A new world order can emerge when nobodyâs looking, and fast.
Taking up a white cane is perhaps the most dispiriting thing a newly blinded person goes through. Our mobility aid is a form of confession and defeat. Its battered white segments and red stripe declare the very identity weâve always feared, avoided, or hoped to disown. A cane is a permanent commitment to blindness, more final than a diagnosis, even. In my case, I committed to it because, while languishing on Lougheed Highway, I understood, at a molecular level, that I had to adapt to the pressures of an unseen world. If I didnât, I would soon be feeling a lot of other pressures, such as a Honda against my face. I could survive, as long as I could
adapt. A white cane substitutes for slow evolution. A cane, albeit primitive and clumsy, also relieves us of one dangerous paradox: the blind are most vulnerable when we are not seen. The entire human species has been through this problem, not that long ago.
About 543 million years back, our gooey, shapeless forebears sprouted the first complex eyes. Seeing had to start somewhere, sometime. According to the biologist Andrew Parker, in his book In the Blink of an Eye, the first complex eye to appear on the planet may have evolved in less than a five-hundred-thousand-year period. In terms of evolutionary time, thatâs no
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