Week Ten: A Little Recap

Today’s will be a brief post, since it’s Christmas and I’m sure you have better things to do than read my ramblings. I’d like to begin by wishing everyone a happy holiday season, full of family and friends and good cheer. I would also like to say a heartfelt thank-you to everyone who has dropped by to read this blog over the past two months. When I hatched the idea to document my experiences at the Colorado Center for the Blind, I did not dream that so many people would follow my journey. Thank you for taking the time to read and share your feedback.

At the time I began my training at the Center on October 17th, I was pretty lousy at being a blind person. I had received some instruction on how to use a cane when I was much younger – between the ages of 8 and 12 or so, on and off – but other than that, I had had very limited exposure to the skills that blind people rely on to assert and maintain their independence.

Over the past two months, I have begun to remedy these deficiencies and to lay the groundwork for a more independent life going forward. I still have a long way to go, both in my program and in the work I will continue to do after graduation, but I am very pleased with the progress I’ve made so far in all of my classes.

While I had some cane skills going in, I have greatly improved my traveling abilities. Thanks to the use of sleep shades, I have become much better at navigating using only my hearing, sense of direction, and critical reasoning skills. I have lots left to learn – I’m not yet at the point where I feel super-confident about being dropped at a random and unknown location in the Denver area and navigating back to the Center, which will be one of my graduation requirements – but I can certainly sense the growth in my skills, and corresponding increase in my confidence.

I’ve also made great strides in using new technologies to offset my vision loss. While I do still generally have the ability to read text on my phone or computer, using the “invert colors” feature to reverse the contrast and display white text on a black background, this ability is diminishing quickly, and I am already unable to use my phone at all visually in bright light. It has been a real joy, then, to learn how to use a combination of Siri voice commands and the built-in VoiceOver software on my iPhone to reclaim the use of my phone even in bright sunlight. I am also getting more familiar with Windows-based screen reader software, and I can begin to imagine how I will be able to keep working as a freelance writer and researcher even without any sight at all.

But the area that has been most transformative for me so far in terms of my coursework has been my home management class. I came to the Center with extremely limited exposure to cooking or cleaning. In two months, I have learned how to use various kitchen appliances and devices; I have had the experience of muddling my way through recipes with ten steps or more; I have learned how to clean every part of a bathroom or kitchen, safely and thoroughly – in short, I’ve begun to gain the skills I either neglected or relied on other people to help me with for years. And I’ve gained an awful lot of confidence in my abilities along the way, meaning that I now look forward to challenging myself and learning more, where I used to dread any such endeavor in the home management sphere.

Oh, and lest I forget – I’ve learned the Braille alphabet and a number of contractions, and I’m making steady progress towards being able to read and write the language, albeit at a slow pace.

All in all, I’m quite pleased with what I’ve learned so far. I’d be lying if I said I didn’t long to get back to my regular life – I miss my friends and musical collaborators, I miss the familiarity of New York City and the independence it affords, etc. – but I am convinced that the skills I am learning now will let me return to that life as a much more capable person in a lot of ways. I’m looking forward to having friends over for dinner, to feeling empowered to travel the world on my own, to continuing a productive work life even when I can no longer read a computer screen.

In short, I’m feeling grateful and excited. What better way to approach a new year?

OK, back to drinking and eating too much. Happy holidays, y’all!