Disability and the Star in My Head

I am distressed. Blindness isn’t merely a lack of vision–its a fight or flee carnival, sequential, unpredictable, sometimes rather frightening. And even the small things, paying cash in the market, become tangled as my cash falls to the floor and I fumble publicly down where all the shoes have trod, the impatient shoppers behind me, no one offering to help, and my skin undergoes electrolysis and groping I feel I could weep. I know I’m not supposed to say this. The core of speech is reserved for nuanced politics. One is supposed to say disability is merely a nuisance. That’s the politically correct thing. I’m just like everyone else but with a few added musical notes. But this is of course ridiculous when you’re down on the public floor scrambling after two dropped quarters. I escape with my groceries. Walk in the sunshine. “The day will get better,” I say to no one in particular.

 

But its fight or flee–all day; a fairground of anxieties. Crossing streets. Getting to the other side safely. Getting there with your dignity. The dog helps. Squaring your shoulders helps. But then the next place you go has a revolving door. You can’t get in. When you tell the management they need a “disability friendly” door they tell you with their Rococo eye rolling, they don’t care. “Go away,” they say, though they don’t really say it; but they do. You continue on the street of public life. You shamble among the rags and masks of the ordinary people. Everyone looks at you. You’re a half vagrant out in public blind person. You’re wearing your good suit with the purple tie. You’re walking around with rain in your heart.

 

Strangers ask how much you can see. You make jokes. “You look like Ingrid Bergman; Cary Grant.” Young people don’t know who they are. It doesn’t matter.

The books I downloaded this morning from Amazon aren’t accessible. I wasted my money.

After many languages I’m still an orphan.

I live in an American city without good public transportation. I must rely on taxicabs more than I wish. The drivers are desperate people. They talk about desperate matters with broken words. Most of them listen to “hate radio” and I smile from the back seat under my big sunglasses.

Do you see? What do you see? I’m waiting for happiness to slowly crawl in…