Tag: blindness

How to Write a Blind Character, 2021 Edition

I’m going to the World Science Fiction and Fantasy Convention in December, so I’m trying to read all of the books on the Hugo ballot. So about a month ago, I read Black Sun by Rebecca Roanhorse. I did not like it for a number of reasons, but mostly because the way the blind character was portrayed, and really the way the entire premise of the book treats the blind character, was incredibly offensive to me. To be clear, I have seen other blind people on Twitter praising this book to the heavens, so obviously opinions vary, but I disagree with them. A lot. I’m a pretty forgiving reader but this book made me want to scream and throw things. I did in fact put together a very long Twitter thread, because I felt like no one was talking about these issues with the book and they needed to be discussed. If you want to read that, it’s right over here, but that isn’t what I want to talk about in this post. Today, I want to be a bit more constructive and provide some tips on how to write a blind character.

If you’re new to my site or somehow missed it, I’m blind. I was born with Aniridia Glaucoma, which means I don’t have any irises and my eye pressure isn’t normal. I used to have some vision in my right eye, but I had to have it removed almost eight years ago, so now I have no vision in my right eye. I often describe what I see on my right as a big black hole. I do still have some vision in my left eye. I can see light and dark and colors, but I can’t see details unless I’m very close. Often if I see something, I won’t be positive what I’m looking at until I’ve touched it, unless I already know what I’m looking at. I can read print, but generally it has to be really big, and I have to be really close, and even then I’m going letter by letter. Because I don’t have irises, my eyes can’t adjust, so I have a harder time seeing in particularly bright or particularly dark settings.

All of this is relevant, because the first thing you need to know about writing a blind character is that most people who identify as blind do have some vision. Any amount of vision is useful. For example I can read the time on my alarm clock or see the temperature setting on my oven. But how blind people use their vision will vary from person to person and situation to situation. And while any amount of vision is a useful tool we might use, it probably isn’t the first tool we draw on. It’s also important to explain that any amount of vision is vast to a blind person: there is a huge difference between being totally blind and having light perception, just as there is a huge difference between having light perception and having light perception and being able to see colors. So my first piece of advice is to do your research. There is tons of literature out there on blindness, particularly from blind people’s points of view. Read it. And don’t be afraid to seek out blind people and ask questions. If you’re polite and sincere in your goal to do this right, most of us are willing to talk to you.

Do your research not only on how much blind people can see but also on the tools and skills blind people use to be independent. We travel with white canes and guide dogs to get around, and we have years of training to learn to travel safely. Our canes and guide dogs are not props to be abandoned for the sake of the plot or the action sequence (looking at you, Daredevil). They are essential for our independence. Similarly, we use assistive technology, read Braille or large print, put tactile markers on our appliances, have systems for organizing and labeling our food and matching our clothing, and so on. In the past when I’ve had roommates, I’ve had a hard and fast rule that my roommates could absolutely not move my belongings, because otherwise I could never find them again (I have a whole story about searching for my apple slicer for two weeks because someone moved it without telling me). The same goes for moving furniture, especially in familiar environments when I might not be working with my guide dog. I’m describing all these things because so often, when I see blind characters, I don’t see this level of detail on not only how they use skills to adapt to their surroundings but also how they adapt their surroundings to help them.

A big thing I see a lot when people write blind characters is a blind character who has either some kind of magic or superpower or some really advanced technology that effectively negates their blindness. This is bad, because it isn’t true disability representation. Yes, blind people go out and do both ordinary and awesome things on a daily basis in real life, but we don’t do it in spite of our blindness. We do it with our blindness. We have skills and tools and technology that help, but we are still being blind. Our blindness has shaped who we are and how we relate to the world. If you have a blind character with a superpower or advanced technology that negates their blindness, then they aren’t blind.

I’m not saying you can’t write a blind character with cool technology or magic. You definitely can, and I argue you should. If sighted characters get magic, give it to the blind characters too. But you don’t want that magic to negate their disability. One way to do this is to use the details I was discussing above, the blindness skills and tools all blind people use in our daily lives. Another option is to place your blind character in situations where their magic or technology can’t help. Toph from Avatar the Last Airbender is an excellent example of this. You can also impose limitations on the technology or magic, which arguably you should be doing anyway just for good writing, so it’s clear to the reader just how the character is using it. For example, I’m working on a project with a blind character, and she has these wristbands that help her navigate and read print, but they don’t work if she’s going too fast, and she runs into trouble. Alternatively, you can give your character a power that isn’t helpful at all in terms of seeing things. Maybe they have magic that is specifically used in cooking, for example. They can’t use that to navigate the world.

So often, I see blind characters who are just stellar at being blind. Don’t do this. No matter how skilled a blind person is, there are still times when they struggle. Heck, I walk into walls in my own apartment if I’m not paying attention. I also want to note that everyone’s feelings on their vision are different, and they may also vary.

Blind people use words like “see,” “Look,” and “watch.” We enjoy movies and TV shows and sports. At least I’m told blind people enjoy sports. I never personally got that one, but that’s because i don’t like sports, not because I’m blind. Also, a lot of blind people prefer the word ‘blind” to other terms like “visually impaired,” “visually challenged,” or “a person who is blind.” But this will vary person to person. A blind woman once vehemently attempted to convince my younger brother that I should call myself “sightless.” Honestly, that baffles me and I don’t like that as a term, but that’s what she preferred.

Do not have your blind character touch other people’s faces to understand what they look like. First of all, no one does that in real life. It’s super weird and awkward. It also doesn’t actually give the blind person any useful information. They’re not going to think of someone they met as the person whose face felt like XYZ, even if they do the weird face feeling thing. They’re going to remember the sound of their voice.

The big takeaway here is blind people are people too. Your blind characters should also be people, as fully realized as any of your other characters. Their blindness is a crucial part of their identity, but it also isn’t the only part of their identity. Blind people have jobs and hobbies and interests. They date and fall in love and marry and break up. They have pets who aren’t guide dogs. They have kids. They have lives. I would love to see more stories of blind characters that don’t focus on their blindness but are instead about them living their lives and going on adventures and having agency with their blindness.s

A quick note on blocking: if you’re writing from the point of view of a blind character, be very careful, and pay close attention to how you write your descriptions. It’s hard, which isn’t to discourage you from trying it, but as writers we usually write descriptions with sight as the primary sense, and obviously you can’t do that with a character who’s blind. You have to use all your other senses and still make it clear to the reader what’s going on. I learned to write from reading, so I too use a lot of visual descriptions, so I’ve struggled with this too, and I’m blind.

Finally, pay attention to the role you are giving your blind character. As with any kind of representation, make sure they are not filling that role because they are blind. This is particularly important if you plan to write a villain who is blind. Blind people can absolutely do terrible things, but that isn’t because they’re blind. That’s because they’re people, and people can do terrible things. But be extremely careful not to imply that your blind villain is a villain because they are blind or that blindness is inherently evil. I shouldn’t need to say this, but apparently I do (see my Black Sun Twitter thread for details). Similarly, pay close attention to the message you are sending about blindness in your book. Individual people’s feelings may vary, but blindness is not something to be feared, it does not make a person helpless or evil, it does not give a person superhearing or any other enhanced senses, or any of the other stereotypes and misconceptions that are rampant in popular media.

I do not want to discourage anyone from writing a blind character. I do not subscribe to the belief that writers should only write within their experiences, because I believe writing outside our experiences is how we learn. But that is only true if you’re willing to put in the work to do it well and not cause harm with your story, which you can do so easily if you aren’t careful, even if you have the best intentions. Please, write blind characters. We need more stories about blind people. But please, please, please do your research. Hire sensitivity readers who are blind to review your project, pay them for their time, and listen to their advice. And please pay attention to what you are ultimately saying about blindness in your work. Remember that both writing and reading are ultimately acts of empathy, and how you portray blind people on the page will impact how people see blind people out in the real world. That’s a lot of power to have, so use it for good.

So How Much Can You See?

This is a question I get a lot. Like a lot a lot. It’s right up there with how do you accomplish anything and tell me all about your dog.

Personally I don’t mind answering this question, though I admit that I don’t really understand either the question or my answer.

Let’s dig into this a bit.

First, I don’t mind answering this question because it helps people understand what I might need in any given situation. If I say that I have trouble seeing in dim surroundings, then yes, I could use a little more help in the D.C. metro. This isn’t to say that I can’t navigate the D.C. metro for myself just fine, but on the off-chance that I’m with a friend or a coworker and I would rather rely on their assistance at that moment, I want them to be able to help me as much as they can—and not too much.

So how much can I see? I’ve answered this question so many times that I pretty much just real it off. I can see light and shadows and color in my left eye. I can’t recognize faces, but I can read print if it’s 72 point font and my nose is pressed to the page or computer monitor (it’s not a good way to read, of course, but it gives someone who can see a solid way to understand what I can see). I don’t have any vision in my right eye, though I used to. Since I used to have vision in my right eye, I can describe what it’s like to be totally blind as well. For me, it isn’t so much black as nothing. Sometimes I still see flashes of color or spots of light, because phantom eye is a real thing and my brain is constantly trying to fill in. I like to describe what I see in my right eye as a hole in my vision. It means that when I’m watching TV or going to the movies, I like to sit on the far right, so the hole doesn’t get in the way. When I’m drawing, I use my left hand now, because otherwise the hole and my nose get in the way. I always finish my description about my vision by reiterating that I identify as blind because I read Braille and travel with a guide dog.

You might think this is a lot of detail to go into. Sometimes I don’t go into this much detail. I often don’t describe what it’s like to be totally blind unless someone asks me. But I will say that I can see light, colors, and shadows, that I could read print if it’s 72 point font and my nose is pressed against the screen, that I have more trouble in either bright or very dim areas, and that I travel with a Seeing Eye dog and read Braille.

I go into this much detail for a few reasons. Blindness is a difficult concept for someone who can see to even comprehend. It’s more than walking around with your eyes closed or even walking around blindfolded. You can open your eyes or take off the blindfold. If you’re blind, really blind, you have to adapt your whole life. It’s definitely doable, but to someone who can see, it’s unfathomable—doubly so because how blind people accomplish daily tasks is often a mystery to the sighted world. This means that there’s a lot of fear surrounding blindness.

Sidenote: This is why stunts where people put on blindfolds to simulate blindness are both insulting and damaging. For more on that, see this post I wrote a few years ago on the #HowEyeSeeIt campaign.

Another sidenote: part of the reason I’m doing this series of blog posts is to demystify how blind people do things.

The other reason I give so much detail is that people often automatically assume that I’m totally blind, and this can lead to them trying to give me a lot of help I don’t need. This isn’t a terrible problem. I make sure to communicate what I do and don’t need in any given situation. But sometimes I can head that conversation off at the pass with a description of what I can and can’t see. Sometimes it’s a way to start the conversation about what kind of help I need or the fact that I don’t need help at all.

It’s obvious when you think about it, but blindness isn’t an on-off switch. Some people are totally blind, but I know people who are visually impaired with drivers’ licenses. There are people who only have light perception, and people who only have trouble seeing at night. Some people can see color. Some people have vision that is slowly deteriorating. I’ve been in groups of blind people where I have the least amount of vision, but I’ve also been part of groups where I have the most. I have enough vision that among my blind friends, I can be the one guiding people around. But compared to a sighted person, I have barely any vision at all.

When someone asks how much I can see, I don’t mind answering. It’s a good conversation starter, and I think I’ve gotten my answer down to something that someone who can see can at least grasp. But I wonder how much my answer makes sense to someone who can see.

To me, the idea of 20/20 vision is incomprehensible. Recently, a friend who is totally blind said that she didn’t really enjoy long descriptions of the setting in books because she can’t picture them. I admit that my first reaction was to judge her for her lack of imagination, but then I realized I also imagine what I’m reading based on my vision. I have a vague idea of what people can see, based on descriptions in books, but when I envision what I’m reading or what I’m writing, I always see things the way I see things in real life. I don’t magically have perfect vision in my dreams or in my mind’s eye. When I’m writing, I often have to ask friends whether it’s possible that a character would see something at a certain distance or in a certain context. Sometimes there are details that I’ve been told in critiques that a character would totally be able to see, like that time the premise of my whole novel fell apart because I didn’t understand that one character would recognize another character by sight.

When I was in fifth grade, I got prescription glasses for the first time. I put them on, and suddenly I could see that the green out the window was a tree, and that the tree wasn’t just green, but light green and darker green where the leaves cast shadows. Until I put on those glasses, I didn’t have those details in my mind. I understand vision a little bit, because I have a little bit, and while I can conceptually understand what it’s like to have more, I also know that I just fundamentally don’t get it.

When I have this conversation with a sighted person, it almost always feels scripted. They ask, “So how much can you see?” I respond. And they say, “Oh wow.” Or maybe they have one or two follow-up questions (at least these conversations have gotten away from the “How many fingers am I holding up?” response). But I wonder if sighted people have trouble understanding what I can see just as much as I have trouble understanding what they can see. Can they conceptually understand what I’m saying about how much I can see, but fundamentally just don’t get it? Someone who’s sighted definitely knows the pieces of what I’m talking about—light, shadows, colors, font size, contrast—but does that really mean anything to them? What are we talking about, really?

I don’t know the answers to these questions. Honestly it’s making my head spin a little bit. But I hope that by talking about it, we can undo some of the stigma and fear surrounding blindness, and maybe we can all become more empathetic in the process. That’s why I answer this question. That’s why I answer almost any question, really.

This got a lot deeper than I originally intended, but now I’m curious. Do you think it’s possible to really, truly understand what it’s like to have a certain amount of vision, whether that’s totally blind, totally sighted, or somewhere in between? To my blind friends, how do you go about describing how much you can see to others? Are you comfortable sharing that information with others? Do you find it’s helpful? To my sighted friends, is it helpful when I describe what I can see or is it just confusing? Let’s turn this into a real conversation.

I Am Diverse

My coworkers at the Disability Rights Center asked me to share the essay I wrote for my diversity statement for my law school, and since then I’ve been thinking a lot about diversity. It’s a term that’s being thrown around a lot these days and with good reason. But while I hear a lot of “we need to be more diverse”—whether it’s in education or employment or the arts—I don’t hear a lot of why.

 

What I liked about the chance to write a diversity statement was that it captured the point of diversity, the essence of its value to society. It didn’t just ask if I belong to a marginalized group. It asked how belonging to a marginalized group affected my experiences and perspectives. That, to me, is what diversity is all about. It isn’t just a number or a label. I am a person who is blind, yes, but that doesn’t in itself make me diverse. Because I am blind, I have experienced my whole life differently even than someone with sight who did the exact same things I did. It is these different experiences and challenges that I have had to overcome that give me a unique perspective to add to any conversation. That, to me, is why diversity is important: it aims to add all voices to a conversation, thus enriching that conversation with the fullness of the human experience.

 

To that end, I wrote my own diversity statement about my experiences in my high school marching band: my feelings of exclusion, my struggle for reasonable accommodations, and finally success not only for myself, but also for the band and the community at large.

 

So without further ado, here it is:

 

Playing my clarinet in the school band was the first time I felt fully included in an activity with my sighted peers. But when I entered high school, the band started formation marching in the halftime shows at the football games, and our band director simply could not see a way for me to participate. I was forced to stand and play on the sidelines, conspicuously out-of-place as the rest of the band marched behind me. I no longer felt like I fit in. In fact, I felt like I stuck out like a sore thumb, standing by myself and playing my part isolated from my section. By the end of my sophomore year, I had had enough. I did some research about other blind people in marching bands, formulated a plan, and presented it to the music department. They said I could try it if I found someone to help me.

 

So I approached my best friend, Amy, and asked if she would guide me for the halftime shows. She agreed, and after a lot of tripping over each other’s feet and several collisions with the sousaphone section, we learned to move across that football field as if we were one person. Amy stood behind me and kept her hands on my shoulders. She was like my shadow, guiding me to each exact position on the field as I played, but we moved together: Backwards march. On beat five, start playing “Eleanor Rigby”. Float sixteen. Hold twelve and dance. I was part of the band again.

 

The local news came to the championship to film the marching band with the “blind girl,” and when they said, “Where’s the blind girl?” we knew we’d done it. Amy and I changed the marching band together. And the marching band, Amy, and I changed the community and its perceptions.

 

During the summer, I joined a team of blind and sighted teenagers, and we hiked in the Andes in Peru and whitewater rafted the Colorado River in the Grand Canyon with Erik Weihenmayer, the first blind person to climb Everest. Erik told us that when we work together, we all learn from each other, and at every step on those trips, we did. The blind members of our team were able to tackle and surmount an extraordinary physical challenge. At the same time, the sighted teens saw us climb those mountains and succeed. As we realized we could participate in sighted society, they realized they wanted us to participate—we were in fact great people just as capable and normal as they were, even if we had to approach challenges in different ways. Capable and successful people with disabilities break down barriers, change perceptions, and enhance communities.

 

And so it was with the marching band. I was not only able to march, but I showed the band, the school, and the community I could, and by extension, anyone can, given the opportunity. With our will and courage and music in our ears, Amy and I “stepped off,” together, “me and my shadow”.

 

Arrivederci Italia

February was a rough month for me. I’d placed in the Dell Awards, which I was really happy about, but I couldn’t go to ICFA because it would be too hard on Mopsy, which meant I couldn’t go home for a bit. I’d just finished revising a novel, which was also wonderful, but now what was I going to do? I was being rejected from one graduate school after another. A lot of my classes were being canceled because of festivals and work placements for the students, so I had way too much free time on my hands to dwell. And June just seemed so far away. I’d reached a point where I’d realized that I had gotten something out of this time in Italy, so now that I’d done that, could I go home? Well, no, I couldn’t. I’d started this, I was halfway through this, and I was going to finish it. So I sat down and said, “Okay, Jameyanne, if you’ve learned so much, then what did you learn?” And I wrote this post. It turned out pretty flippant, actually, and at the time it really helped me get some perspective on the first half of my time in Italy and face the second with more confidence.

 

I was also pretty sure, at the time, that I could just use this post wholesale when I was getting ready to finally leave in June. And I can, but I’m adding to it. Because now it’s June, and I’m getting on a plane tomorrow, and I am overwhelmed with all the feelings I did not expect I would have and all the things I have learned in these last months.

 

Last October, I arrived in Italy, filled with hope and shiny new dreams. I’d graduated summa cum laude from Kenyon College with high honors in English. An agent was looking at my thesis novel. And I was going to Italy—a dream come true. I was going to revise my thesis novel and research another novel that I wanted to set in Assisi in the 1950s. I was going to make a ton of Italian friends, become fluent in Italian, maybe even fall in love (deep down, underneath all the horrible things I do to my characters, I’m a hopeless romantic, and there’s no getting around it). And, did I mention I was going to Italy?

 

Now, nine months later, I’m going home. I didn’t fall in love. I didn’t even make that many friends my own age, really, though I was pretty much adopted by some of the most wonderful people I have ever met. I traveled all over Italy, visiting Rome, Florence, Pisa, Venice, Ancona, Bari, Matera, Gubbio, Narni, Spoleto, Spello, Canara, Montefalco, Bevagna, and Lake Trasimeno. I saw the big tourist spots, but also all the beautiful little towns around Assisi. And Assisi, too, of course. I taught English in two high schools, and I tried to organize a volunteer project with the school for the blind in Assisi that ultimately fell through.

 

Revising my honors thesis? Didn’t happen. Researching another novel set in Assisi in the 1950s? Maybe subconsciously, but I didn’t put real effort into it. And if anything, for a while I actually fell out of love—out of love with a country, out of love with a dream, out of love with some of my own goals and ideas. Looking back at myself boarding that plane in Boston, I’m not sure who I was then. I’m not sure who I am now, either, but I know I’m different. And I know what changed.

 

So here it is, what I’ve learned in Italy, the big things and the small, the flippant and the serious.

 

  1. Things like dryers, ziplock baggies, traffic laws that people follow, window screens, showers that stay hot for more than five minutes, grocery bags you don’t have to pay for, real wifi (not the kind on a stick), fresh milk that keeps more than four days, and salty snacks are glorious and should not be taken for granted. Ever. Ever!

 

2.  It really is possible to have too much of a good thing. I might never eat pasta again.

 

3.  Being an adult is hard.

 

4. Grammar is not as important as you might think. What matters is understanding, and if that means you’re speaking only in infinitives or playing charades while your jetlagged brain frantically tries to catch up, that’s okay.

 

5. I do not like boiled food. Potatoes, apples, greens, chicken, what have you. If it’s boiled and that’s it, I don’t like it. (Actually, I already knew this, but I thought it bore repeating.)

 

6. While there were definitely times when I really enjoyed teaching, there were also times when I honestly found it kind of boring, which sounds terrible, but I have to be honest here. And on the whole, I don’t think it’s what I want to do for the rest of my life.

 

7. I have fabulous family and friends. I definitely would have lost my mind a dozen times over this year if I didn’t know they were all standing behind me—six hours and several thousand miles behind me, to be precise, but ready to listen to me and be a virtual shoulder I could cry on and cheer me on. (Did I mention the internet should never be taken for granted?) My parents came to visit me at Christmas for a family vacation, and then they came back again in March, when it became clear how hard a time I was having. If they hadn’t come back, I would have given up and gone home, and if I’d done that, I would have missed so much. I couldn’t have done this without them.

 

8. I have an incredible Seeing Eye dog. I don’t know how many times Mopsy has literally saved my life (I lost count the first week), what with the traffic laws being only suggestions and the drivers who I swear are out for blood. But more than that, she stood by me this whole year, when I was excited and when I was miserable, when I was dancing around my apartment singing Disney songs at the top of my voice or when I was curled up in bed feeling like I would never be able to get up again. When I felt like it was all too much, like I just wasn’t brave enough to get up and keep going, like I just wanted to turn around and go home, Mopsy was the one who forced her head under my arm and wagged her tail: “Come on. We can do it. We’ve come this far.” She deserves a blog post all her own, and so much more.

 

9. I love writing. I always will love writing. But writing all the time can be very lonely. Maybe if I was in the same time zone as all my writing friends, it would be better. I don’t know. But I’m not sure being a full-time writer is what I want to do with my life either. Of course I’ll keep writing and keep trying to get published, but I’ve been doing that my whole life while I was in school, so why can’t I keep doing that while I’m doing something else too?

 

10. There is no shame in crying over Disney movies when you’re twenty-four. (I already knew this too, but again, I felt it deserved to be repeated.)

 

11. Things don’t always work out as you plan, but they do work out, and they might be just as good.

 

12. I want to go to law school and become a disabilities rights lawyer. I might have come to this decision without Italy. I wasn’t sure even before I graduated that I wanted to get a Ph.D in comparative literature. I loved Italian literature, but I could read it without a doctorate, couldn’t I? So I might have realized that I had something else I could give, that so many people had fought for me and my rights all my life, and I could give back by fighting for someone else. But without Italy, without having to really fight for myself and my rights, without feeling discriminated and judged, I don’t think I would have had the same compassion and empathy that I have now, not only for people with disabilities, but for other groups as well.

 

There’s more, so much more, but it’s harder to put into words. There were times when I didn’t feel like I was really independent, but in fact, I have been more independent this year than ever before. True, I couldn’t cook myself—you had to start the stove by turning on the gas and then using a lighter, and in case I haven’t mentioned it, I have no aim—and I couldn’t even get to the store by myself without risking getting squished because the cars in Assisi think the sidewalk is at best a parking lot and at worst an extra lane. But I was taking care of myself and my dog. I had my own apartment and my own finances to handle. I was traveling to and from work every day by myself—stay tuned for the “Whacky Adventures of Mopsy and Jameyanne Trying to Get to School Without Getting Killed.” And I wouldn’t trade the ability to go to the store and cook myself for all the wonderful meals I had with Stefania and Bruno—my landlady and landlord—and the friendship we formed over those meals.

 

Stefania and Bruno basically adopted me, and I cannot put into words what kind, caring, loving, wonderful people they are. They took me for who I was, from the minute I walked in the door. They didn’t help me because I was blind, but because I was a young girl far from home. They welcomed me with open arms and hearts, and the love and friendship they showed me, from the start, has changed my ideas about what is most important to me. Thanks to them, I value my friends and family—and I count them family now—more highly than ever. When I come back to Italy, I know that I always have a home.

 

And finally, I saw that I can make a difference, even if it is one person at a time. When I first arrived in Italy, people were always giving me strange, if not downright hostile, looks. I was told that it was practically taboo for someone with a disability to be living, working, and traveling independently. Most Italians have never seen a service dog. What I was doing, living and working by myself in a foreign country thousands of miles from home, was unheard of. When I proposed volunteering at the school for the blind in Assisi to teach the kids some basic independent living skills–tying their own shoes, pouring a drink without spilling, putting toothpaste on a toothbrush without making a mess, that sort of thing–I was told, “They can’t do that.” I was told I couldn’t enter stores. Bus drivers forgot I had asked them to tell me when we were at my stop or forgot to mention I was on the completely wrong bus (if the buses are color coded, why are three orange buses going three different places?). Once, a woman started yelling at me on the bus because she was afraid of dogs and what business did I have bringing such a fierce dog on a public bus? People applauded when I poured myself a glass of water, operated a vending machine, or cut up my own food. I was not allowed to climb the tower of Pisa with Mopsy, and they refused to refund my ticket. I had to fight for every inch I gained. But I gained a whole lot of inches. After a while, people started saying hello to me as I walked down the street. A waiter at my favorite café started asking me how I did things myself. The next time someone threw a fit about Mopsy being on the bus, the bus driver started yelling right back at them before I could. How did I do this? I pushed. Yes, I am legally allowed to enter your store. Yes, my dog is getting on this bus. People started recognizing me. People started respecting me.

 

I will tell one quick story to really illustrate this. A few weeks after I first arrived in Italy, I went to the supermarket with Stefania and Bruno to buy cereal and milk, and the cashier didn’t want to let me in with Mopsy. Stefania and Bruno offered to go buy my cereal and milk while I waited for them, but I insisted that I was going with them and that I was legally allowed to. The cashier gave in, possibly just to shut me up, but hey, whatever works. But nine months later, just two weeks ago, when we went to the hermitage where Saint Francis communed with the animals, a nun didn’t want to let me into the church with Mopsy, and before I could even object, Stefania said, “First, she’s a guide dog and she’s allowed everywhere. Second, think where we are. Would Saint Francis really not let such a beautiful, good dog come into his church?” (Only an Italian would talk back to a nun like that.) Stefania’s growth, from taking my inability to enter a store at face value, to facing down a nun on my behalf, really drove home to me not just how much I have changed, but how much I have changed others around me this year.

 

And so here I am. Tomorrow, I’m flying back to America. I’m really glad to be going home, but leaving all the wonderful people I have met, even leaving this country that sometimes seems like an alternate universe where things just aren’t quite right, is so much harder than I ever imagined it would be. I know that when I get home, everyone is going to ask me, “So, how was Italy?” And I’m not sure what to say. I’ve had better years, but I’ve also certainly had worse (the year of the exploding eye chief among them). At times, it was really hard. But that doesn’t mean it was a bad experience. In fact, looking back on it even now, it has been a pretty incredible year, in every sense of that word, and I’m sure that I’m going to look back on this year and everything that I learned as a difficult but also a wonderful time, and really, as the beginning of something new.

 

So, arrivederci Italia. Until we meet again. And grazie.

Too Dark to Read

Groucho Marx once said that “Outside of a dog, a book is a man’s best friend.  Inside of a dog it’s too dark to read.” And that’s what I want this blog to be about: how the creation and absorption of literature impacts my life.  In other words, I’m blogging about reading, writing, and occasionally the warm fuzzies of having a dog.

 

I am blind, but that’s not what I’m writing about.  It’s just a fact.  I’m me.  I’m blind.  Moving on.

 

I’m not blogging about it in general, but the fact that I’m blind does lend itself well to the title of this post, because the fact is, for me, it’s never too dark to read.  When I was little, when my brothers and I had early bedtimes and our parents turned out the lights, my older brother always complained that I could still read in the dark.  In fact, sometimes I would read so late that I would fall asleep with the book still lying open across my chest, and I would wake up some time after my parents had put it on my night table to find my fingers still moving across the sheets, reading a story even in my dreams.

 

Now, I’m going into my senior year at Kenyon College, where I’m studying English, creative writing, and Italian.  I read every book I can get my hands on, and I write young adult fantasy and literary fiction.  I love language.  It never fails to fascinate me how one word plus another word plus another word and on and on for hundreds of thousands of words can create a story that can make me laugh until my ribs ache or cry until my ears pop.  I hope to write a story like that one day too, and since my career after college is going to have something to do with literature, I feel like I should get some practice talking about it in a public way.

 

But this isn’t about literature in the scholarly sense of the word, not really.  This is about stories, and what stories can do for all of us.  For me, my favorite books are like old friends who are always there, whatever is going on in my life, and there’s nothing like the joy of discovery that comes with a new book.  And writing a story is just the same, a journey of discovery and emotion.  Stories of all kinds have gotten me through the hardest times in my life, so I guess what I’m really blogging about is how, even if you’re inside a dog, it is never too dark to read.