(2 pm. – promoted by ek hornbeck)
As we do on most days, Bobby the dog and I walk through Cronesteyn Park. Today it was rather late, around 5ish. But it doesn’t get dark now til after 6pm.
I thought we’d only do half the park and turn around, but it’s hard to stop once you’re there. So we crossed the Rijn-Schiekanaal via the Lammebrug and ended up exiting on the west-north-west side of the park. We walked over the train tracks and onto the the Kanaalbrug.
There was a blind lady on the bridge, using her long pole and other senses to make her way. She was going slowly and seemed a bit tense, a little tentative. So I walked up beside her, saying HELLO, HOW ARE YOU?
Then I realized: she’s not deaf, you idiot! I resumed in at a normal volume: How is everything? Okay? Hey, would you like a hand?
She didn’t hesitate and slipped her arm through mine. She seemed to relax and told me it was okay.
cross posted at writing in the rAw and daily kos
We made our way over the bridge, crossed the street, and thought I should ask her if I could walk home with her. And that’s when the trouble started.
In the few minutes it took her to try to tell me where she lived, she suddenly lost all orientation. She became agitated and said it might be better if she tried to find her way on her own as she turned toward the bike path. I thought: she can’t be going the right way… on the bike path along a “major” road and away from the 1930s row houses to our right.
The lady was cold and upset; she told me the name of her street, but I just didn’t know it.
In the midst of this, I tried to tell (a few times): wij zijn in de richting van het station (we are now in the direction of the station) and she kept saying she didn’t need to go to the station. I knew that, but I let it go.
But I didn’t let go of her and asked her again… is there a winkle/shop or church? There are all these houses to our right…
Then she said, oh, I do need to go in the direction of the station, only a few steps and then I make my turn and there’s a church…
Then I knew it: by the butcher and the baker, the cheese and pet shops, I asked just to make sure.
Yes, she said. Yes!
So Bobby and I walked her home. I learned that she walks to her work and home again, mostly on her own and she said she has been blind since birth. She sees nothing. But she knows the street sounds and the smells of trees on each of the blocks on her way home. She knows bumps and stone walls. For all of that, on this cold day and on the icy streets and sidewalks, she was happy to have the arm of a stranger.
She opened the little gate to her front garden, and I said maybe we’ll see each other again. She said maybe, thanked me and Bobby too.
As we walked away, I thought: I can never know what it is like. To be blind, to be her. I can never understand it, even if I blindfold myself for days. And she will never know what it like to be me, with my -8.5 vision, contact lenses, and the coke bottle glasses i wear only before bed.
But I do know how it feels to be afraid, to feel alone, to be happy, to be lost, to be young, to get older. I do know how it feels to be happy getting home, finally getting home.
She said she had a bad day at work. I can relate to that.
I guess we all want to be understood and sometimes we want understanding where none is possible. Yet, you talk to stranger on a bridge and give her your arm and she gives you a moment of clarity: you don’t need to know what it’s like to be blind. but you should know when to offer your arm.
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