Self-respect and the old lady in purple

“I’m too old to be respectable,” the woman in the overlarge purple dress cackles. 

Creative Commons image by Moyan Brenn

She reminds me of the poem When I’m an Old Woman, I Shall Wear Purple, which my mother framed and put by the bathroom sink in my childhood home. 

“I don’t know if I’ve ever been what they call respectable,” I reply and grin shamelessly. 

“Just so that’s settled,” she brushes wispy hair out of her eyes and crosses the road on wobbly legs.

I look after her and think on “respect.” As the year turns round to the autumn, I am always reminded of elders and the question of respect.

I understand what the old woman means. She is too old to be considered “respectable” in this particular society, a society where “respectable” means successful, solid, emotionally contained, self-reliant and standard in appearance. It isn’t false modesty. She really is too old for that. 

She cannot fulfill the requirements anymore, if she ever could. And I can’t fulfill them now, even though I'm not that old. My appearance is non-standard, no matter what I do.  It isn’t that I couldn’t wear dark glasses to hide my strange-looking eyes. I see even worse with dark glasses, but I still could. Many people do hamper themselves physically for the sake of respectability. 

No, it is more a general constitutional inability. I have tried for a standard image and I can hold onto it for a day if I really have to, but over the long-term... it just will not stick. 

And being emotionally contained. Well, that too. I can fake it, but only for so long. 

I am not successful by most measures. I don’t have a great career and my wealth is only just sufficient for a modest, environmentally friendly lifestyle. As for self-reliance… That is something I have thought about a lot recently because it is often listed as one of the key components of self-respect. 

I suppose it depends on what you mean by self-reliance. Today it is often used to mean a person who needs no one else, who may help others but never needs their help, who is so strong in self that while they may enjoy the company of others, they don’t need it. They love themselves and thus don’t truly need love from outside. 

I have a confession to make as a spiritual person. I don’t believe in that concept of self-reliance. 

Creative Commons image by the Wisconsin Department of Natural Resources

It isn’t that I’m against working hard and building your own life, being an adult and standing on your own two feet (or wheels as the case may be). I am all for the independent spirit. And I agree that you often have to “be  your own best friend,” i.e. get yourself the gifts  you wish others would get you and make time for self-care. 

But I don’t believe that real self-reliance actually exists. It is like how the ranchers who took over a federal bird refuge near my childhood home in Oregon last winter claimed to be rugged, self-reliant pioneers in the wilderness, asking for no handouts and insisting that others should be the same and thus abolish “big government.” And yet their key demand was to be allowed to use federal land for their cattle free of charge. 

And then to top it all off, they asked to be given food while they illegally occupied the buildings at the bird refuge. 

Those who believe they are self-reliant are invariably simply unaware of the beings they rely upon. Many great, pioneering businesses were built through environmental degradation, on the backs of others. Not self-reliance but reliance on stolen resources. Many who claim to be self-reliant had advantages they don’t even notice, privileges they assume everyone has but which actually rely on others. 

I grew up in a remote, rural area. We grew and raised a good deal of our own food. In a dry land, we had our own well and our own water. The winters could be so harsh that we were often cut off from the nearest tiny town of 250 souls by snowdrifts. 

One winter--the winter of the Great Ice Storm--we heard on the radio that our area was considered a humanitarian disaster area and officials were concerned that we must be starving because we had been isolated for a week and the electric power was down for many days. We weren’t starving. We had pantries and root cellars, as did our neighbors. My father and other men put on skis and went around to the neighbors to make sure no one was starving and no one was—not even the ancient man who lived alone with his goats.

Sounds pretty self-reliant, right?

Well, except for the part about checking on one’s neighbors. I have lived in a dozen homes since then and I have never lived in a place where neighbors relied on one another so much as we did there. We never even thought about “self-reliance.” 

Hunter-gatherer societies were built on community and mutual support. And rural communities are interconnected and generally much more supportive of their weaker members than are urban centers. We lived that reality, even though our neighbors were often not our best friends.  

And then, of course, there was our well. 

As I said, this was an arid land, officially semi-desert, even though we had pine and tamarack trees. The snow melt provides most of the water and it rains in the spring and then scarcely rains again for six, even eight months. A well in that country is a holy thing. 

Our well was 60 feet deep. When I was a teenager, I once went down to the bottom of it because I was small enough and my father wanted to put in a new kind of pump. I calmly did the work I was asked to do down there with a headlamp and then I made the mistake of glancing up just for a second before pulling on the rope to signal that my dad could pull me out. 

When they tell you not to look down when you’re up very high, you understand why. My father had told me not to look up and I was sure that was because he didn’t want dirt and sand from the walls to fall into my eyes. But when I looked up, I was gripped by utter terror.

It was night! I had not realized I had been down there so long. The moon was out, riding high and full in the sky. That was all my mind could think.

Then I realized that the moon was the opening of the well far above me. It looked so small 60 feet up that it was no larger than the moon in the night sky. I looked down again and gripped the rope as hard as I could. I was pulled up out of the well quaking with unreasoning fear and I never want to go down such a well again if I can help it. 

But here’s the thing that I’ve never forgotten about that experience: someone dug that well. 

Someone, long ago, before the time of electricity dug that well through rocky, hard mountain soil and lined it with perfectly fitted stones all the way down to the bottom. They had to spend a lot more time down there than I did.

My childhood home stood on the back of that anonymous stranger. 

Sure, my parents bought the land and the well fair and square. But still… I never could forget the neat rows of stones laid so carefully 60 feet beneath the ground in that narrow shaft.

So, I believe in self-reliance in a different way. I believe in being able to rely on yourself. I know what I can do and what I can’t. I am good with water and I can swim in strong currents. I was once sure-footed climbing rocks and trees. Now that I am older I am not so sure and I know my own limits. I know that if I do ever have to go down a long, dark well again, I can. But I will not look up. 

I know what my body, mind and emotions can handle. I can rely on that, including the weak spots. Self… reliance.

And I am not unconscious of the fact that my life is interconnected with others.

As for being respectable. That too has various meanings. What society today sees as worthy of respect is not necessarily what it has always been. There have been times and places where a person as old as the woman in purple would be respected for the achievement of having survived so many years. 

I have my own version of respectability and that is self-respect. As long as you have your self-respect and you live up to your own standards, then you are respect-able in the only way that really matters. 

The Great Divide of the Twenty-first Century: In search of mutual understanding between rich and poor

I have said my virtual hearth is open to any and all who seek a little comfort and soul nourishment. And I stand by that, because the ancient concept of hospitality is near and dear to me. Without lines of discrimination and without pre-judgment, you are welcome here. 

Creative Commons image by Urbansnaps-Kennymc of Flickr

That doesn’t mean I claim to understand every perspective in the world which is not my own or to truly know all kinds of people. I make mistakes sometimes, make assumptions or simply have a set of priorities that is not the same as someone else’s. While I have been able to come to deep understanding with people of all races, nations and creeds without much trouble and I have embraced transgender, gay and lesbian friends, while I’ve made common cause with people who perceive the world in opposite ways from mine, there are perspectives I struggle to grok. I say “struggle,” because I do try.

The other day I was observing two acquaintances of mine having an on-line argument about Social Security and poverty in the US. Both of the people involved are vastly wealthy by my standards and their argument was mostly about whether or not Hillary Clinton is bad or good news for poor people. Finally, one of them got fed up and said: “Never mind, you and I don't agree on this one, period. I'm going to Amazon to see whether I can buy something. Time to get rid of my decrepit 32" TV and upgrade to a 40" or maybe a 42".” 

Creative Commons image by Richard of Flickr.com

This person’s avatar was a white, fluffy dog and I suspected she was being sarcastic. I put in some laugh emoticons for her apt joke, but suggested that upgrading one’s TV to a larger size is too cliched when making fun of the concerns of rich people. I suggested saying you were going to Amazon to get a load of books or kitchen utensils might be less likely to support prejudice. 

As it turned out Fluffy Dog was not being sarcastic. 

She was perfectly serious. Her TV was eight years old and she wanted a bigger one. She really did feel that was a reasonable change of subject in a discussion of the poverty experienced by older people who have worked all their lives and are still barely able to eat in retirement. 

She was offended because she thought I was implying she doesn’t read or cook enough. For the record, she says she also buys three times as many books as she can read and actually reads two books a week. She noted that she could outfit three kitchens, given her love of shopping for kitchen utensils. But she did not notice that my comment was supportive humor.

Needless to say she got mad and huffy and insisted that she knows what it’s like to be poor because she has traveled to 150 countries and volunteered four times at a soup kitchen, so she’s seen poverty.

Live simply that others may simply live - Creative Commons image by Dina-Roberts Wakulczyk

Oh dear. Where to start?

I believe that mutual understanding between those with incomes over $100,000 and those with incomes less than $30,000 would be a good start toward the survival of our species—I.e. surviving climate change, the refugee crisis, ISIS, endless war and all the rest of today’s troubles. We must be able to understand each other, but at the moment it feels like we are speaking different languages, both made up of English words with vastly differing meanings. 

I failed to understand or to make myself clear to my acquaintance, who isn’t a bad sort at all, although possibly afflicted with an impaired ability to laugh at her own foibles. So, I have been thinking on how to explain the vast gulf of understanding between us. First, we must know that we are missing each other in order to ever come together.

The fact is that I would be considered “very poor” by anyone making over $100,000. I live a lifestyle that is far below the average income or consumption in the United States and Western Europe. It is altogether possible that all of humanity could live at a modest level like this (even all the millions in China and India) without causing great harm to the planet or necessitating a massive die-off (though we would still need to slow down our fertility to avert disaster). That said, I don’t look poor . Most people who live at this level don’t, unless they have been hit with a disaster or a crisis. Poverty is as much about relative vulnerability to crisis as it is about the day-to-day material standard of living. 

Mine isn’t a lifestyle you can sit back and enjoy. That’s true. You’ve got to use a myriad of smart and hard-working hacks to make it work, but I don’t spend my days in drudgery and hunger. 

Creative Commons image by Hernán Piñera

It requires using and reusing whatever you can, considering second-hand clothes a non-issue, cooking mostly from scratch and growing as much of it as you can locally, using public transportation and finding fun vacations near home, using rainwater and solar for lots of things... It can be done and it can be done well. 

The only time my family notices we are "poor" is when we think about some major trips we'd like to take. That requires a lot of planning, but it is possible. We're currently working on a two-year plan to go to Corsica, where we will camp and cycle and have a blast without great expense. 

There are difficulties to be sure. Having a disability when you have little financial resources is hard. And it is much easier to do poverty well when you are part of a mutually supportive community that shares your troubles, rather than being isolated in relatively wealthy suburbia. 

But living in a country with sane, developed-world (and yes, that obviously means single-payer) health care and free, merit-based higher education helps a lot. But despite these advantages, we buy things at prices higher than those in the US, not lower the way you might think prices would be in a “poor country.” We simply live more simply and quite differently with different assumptions and priorities.

I’ve lived this way in the US too. The difference there is the feeling of constantly walking the edge of a precipice. I’ve seen those who did poverty reasonably well fall over the cliff and end in serious desperation. But as long as you’re lucky, you can live well on a modest income in most of the world. That’s the first thing I think rich people don’t understand. Living simply need not mean want and misery.

And what is it that I need to understand about the other side? Well, if I knew I wouldn’t need it anymore, would I? I do not wish to make jokes at another’s expense, but rather to laugh with others at our own antics and use it as fuel for change. I try not to be judgmental because even though my knee-jerk reaction is that "rich" people (by my standards) simply can't spend that much money without actually throwing it as confetti, I know from real conversations that this simply isn't true and that many people who have ten times the income we do feel like they are struggling.

What is the key to understanding? I start with this. All are welcome at my hearth, to be accepted and to find purpose. My aim is to feed souls and that hunger comes in many forms.

How to have a badass image

For those who were depressed by my last post, this one has a partial solution (even though it wouldn't really work in a rainstorm).

I'm told that my family thought I was a whiner when I was a child. My feet always hurt and I always cried about it. I grew up being told I had low pain tolerance. As it turned out, I don't. I have problems with the bones in my legs and they hurt... a lot when I walk more than a mile or two.

But believing that I had low pain tolerance I was sometimes confused. When I was in the Amazon jungle in Ecuador writing an article for The Christian Science Monitor on the construction of oil pipeline and the environmental fallout, I ran my foot into a metal grate and sliced a three inch gash across my big toe. The thing bled like you wouldn't believe but it didn't hurt that much. A storekeeper ran out and poured dry, instant coffee mix on my wound, which did make it stop bleeding. 

My interpreter was in shock and panicking. He got a taxi and we drove to a local clinic. When I looked out the window, I saw a rundown, dirty, Third World clinic and by then my brain was starting to kick in. This was the rain forest, an area with super bacteria. I had been told by other gringos that I had better not get hurt while I was down in the jungle or I'd be in deep trouble. And this was only the second day of my two-week stay in the humid, bacteria-rich rain forest. I could not afford an infected foot. 

I refused to go to the clinic and instead went back the little sweaty room where I had stashed my pack, including a very good first-aid kit. I cleaned and disinfected the wound with iodine and then bandaged it while my interpreter watched, wide eyed. Finally at the end he said, "You're badass." I blinked at him in surprise.

I am? What was I supposed to do? Cry? It wasn't that bad, just a little blood. Seriously.

I poured iodine on it and changed the bandage three times a day. I didn't get an infection and never felt like the cut was too painful. But the bones in my feet ached from all the walking I did on the rain forest paths. I still thought I was just sort of a wimp about that. 

Later I was told by a doctor that all that hiking I had done with backpacks had caused micro-fractures in the bones of my feet because they were positioned just a tad wrong and thus couldn't absorb the repetitive impacts of walking very well. As I've gotten older the pain has gotten worse and it's compounded by the fact that I'm visually impaired, so I can't drive and I have to walk a lot more than most. It isn't a good combination. 

Creative Commons image by Brent of Flickr.com

So, I was delighted to discover the idea of an electric scooter. I need something that can go as slow as a brisk walk (so it doesn't go faster than I can see and cause me to run off the edges of curbs) and which is small enough to go on the sidewalk. This week my first electric scooter came and I took my kids to preschool for the first time without pain. The scooter is tiny, a two wheeled contraption that hardly enlarges the area I take up on the sidewalk. It requires a bit of balance to ride but fortunately balance is one thing I can do. It doesn't really get me places faster because I have to ride on sidewalks and go really slow but it will mean that I can go many more places than I could before. I may have to push it up the particularly steep hills around here but it is going down the hills that bothers my feet, not going up. 

Euphoric from my first school run with the scooter, I sat down to work and started sorting emails. Then I got a message from the users of a forum I frequent with a question of uncanny relevance: "Are disabled people giving electric scooters a bad image?" The author of the question explained that he likes the look of these little scooters, which are actually widely viewed as a bit nerdy. He wanted to ride one but was afraid that people might think he was disabled if he did because so many people with disabilities are now riding these little gems.

My reaction went from joy that I could tell someone about my awesome scooter, to irritation that this clod thought that someone assuming he might have trouble with his legs was such a terrible thing and finally to dawning realization.

Oh, I get it.

So, here's what I wrote in reply: "I’m sure you meant to ask “Are disabled people giving mobility scooters a badass image?” Because disabled people aren’t bad and can’t give anything a bad image. Using a mobility vehicle that doesn't contribute to climate change and not letting a little health problem keep you out of the fast lane is badass, no? I mean when you see that disabled person riding down the sidewalk, carefully avoiding toddlers and pets, you think 'Dude, that lady is badass and hot too. I hope I’m that cool when I get to be old and not so mobile. Now I even want to get one of those scooters so I can be kinda like her and maybe she’ll even ask me out.'"

I'm in far too good a mood at the moment to let some unthinking comment get me down. Electric scooters look geeky but they get the job done. I don't really know or care if anyone except the preschool set thinks I'm badass anymore (at forty), but I do often look at people and think, "That's badass!" when they are pushing their limits and finding hacks to get around troubles. There is plenty to be cynical about in the world and I often am, but it's nice when a mix of technology and creative problem-solving takes away a burden.

Overwhelmed? There's one choice we always end up making

I walk my kids to preschool in the pouring rain. It’s about a mile and a half and it wouldn’t be so bad except the main road through town and the buildings on either side of it are a couple of hundred years old. This means that massive regional traffic is now being squeezed through a single-lane road that was originally meant for nothing more than the occasional farmer’s handcart. To get around this bottleneck my kids and I would have to walk an extra couple of miles.

A deluge of mud and water sprays across a narrow sidewalk from the wheels of a passing bus. Creative Commons image by Matt Biddulp.

The sidewalks are often no wider than a sheet of printer paper (and sometimes they’re entirely non-existent). Add in overloaded drainage systems and the fact that most of the inhabitants of the hilly country around our town drive large vehicles and live lifestyles in which walking is considered eccentric (and voluntary).

All told, it isn’t very pleasant to get to the preschool or to the medical center on the other side of town. 

An endless stream of cars roars by, pushing and then exceeding the speed limit even though there isn’t much space between them. Each one in turn sends a wave of dirty, oily water spraying across my legs and across the torsos of the children. Each driver would have to look in their rear view mirror to see the spray of water they have personally hit us with. But they can all see the car in front of them squirting the sludge on us.

If they looked... if they thought at all, they would know that their car is going to do it too. They don't think or they don't care. Hard to say which.

We come to a tiny cramped parking lot for three vehicles in front of a shop. I go in front, keeping my children behind me as I carefully make my way around their bumpers, just inches from the zipping, roaring traffic. Sure enough one of the parked cars jolts into motion without warning just as I step behind it. The driver was probably trying to get into a tiny break in the traffic on the main road. He slams on his brakes and I jump backward but his bumper still comes in contact with my leg. I make my way toward the front of his car, to get around in the gap he has now left there. (Yes, he turns out to be a man.) We exchange angry words.

“People shouldn’t walk out in this. It’s ridiculous!” He looks frazzled and he is obviously not thinking about the fact that I’m carrying a white cane. If I want to get to work, get to a doctor or get my kids to school, I have to walk. 

We continue down the tiny sidewalk--walking the gauntlet of deafening noise, noxious fumes and greasy spray—with the very real possibility of sudden death only inches away.
I’m juggling a white cane and an umbrella against the pouring rain, but my small daughter takes my hand anyway and when the sidewalk broadens enough that we can walk side by side, she asks, “Mama, why are people so mean?”

A woman holds an umbrella to try to block a gush of muddy water showering her from a passing car. Creative Commons image by Brett Jordan. 

I’m already having enough trouble with my emotions and I clench my teeth, unable to answer without saying something hateful that a child shouldn’t hear. 

But right then the car coming toward us on the road slows remarkably. The driver doesn’t slam on the brakes, but simply slows to a more reasonable speed. There is nothing else around except us in the narrow road and the street is open and empty in front of the car. The frustrated drivers in the cars behind the slow one crowd up on the bumper, but that one vehicle goes past us without spraying dirty water. I can only tell it’s silver. I can’t see anyone behind the windshield or even the make of the car. 

But it gives me the chance I need. “They aren’t all mean,” I tell my daughter, while I reach back to make sure my five-year-old son is still right behind us. “Did you see that car slow down?”

“That was a nice one,” my daughter says.

“That’s right. We get to choose if we’re kind or cruel,” I tell my kids.

Your Choice

When a kid grows up with any sort of significant disadvantage, she'll necessarily have some limits on her choices in life. But this is one thing my kids get to choose, even if they don't have all the privileges bestowed by wealth or white skin. One day they will be adults in this hectic, crazy-making world and they'll get to choose to be thoughtful about their actions and words... or not. They'll get to drive and slow down when they see someone trapped between a gutter of water and a wall... or not. They'll get to carefully avoid racially loaded language, ablelist metaphors and national slurs... or not. These are all part of the choice to be mindful of our impact in the world (or not). 

Here is a truth. I actually don’t think all the people rushing by and drenching us want to be cruel. I know how hectic and pressured their lives are—bait-and-switch professional jobs, kids who have to be all-stars in order to even be considered for the college track high schools, rising prices, bills to pay, health troubles of their own. There is virtually no one who doesn’t have to struggle. 

And to have the presence of mind to slow down in order to avoid drenching someone at a narrow spot in the road? It isn’t easy. 

Another thing. White people don't want to be cruel when we accidentally assume the one person at the meeting with brown skin must be the maid or when we let racist rhetoric slide in our professional, social or religious circles and pass it off as "a difference of opinion." Most white people today, if they stop to think, know better. But thinking... taking action in a group like the driver who made sure several other cars slowed down and didn't splash us... takes mindfulness and focus. And it is damned hard to focus with what's going on around us--in life and in the media. 

Presence of mind is key though. It isn’t enough to want to be a benevolent. We must also cut through the chaos and focus enough to see where we may unwittingly do genuine harm. Being mindful of our impact both on other people and on the environment (and thus on future generations) is no small thing. But it is what differentiates kindness from cruelty and often defines self-respect.

A Mindfulness List

Some of us like to make lists and lists can help us to remember, not just to buy bread, but also to remember the things we are aware of sometimes but need to be mindful of all the time. Mindfulness lists might include changing habits of speech that have become offensive in society, doing less harm in our consumption, moving and relating in ways that don't hurt others and so forth and anything else where you've thought "I didn't mean to hurt anyone by doing that but I did."

Here are a few examples of the things I want to remember to be mindful of myself—despite how overwhelmed or frazzled I might be with my many hats and roles in life. This is my personal list--not the most important things in the world. Many things that are important I am already am mindful of. That's why I don't have avoiding racially stereotyped language or recycling on this list. Those were on my list twenty years ago and now I'm constantly mindful of them. Here's my current list:

• Say hello to and thank people in low-status jobs, such as cleaners and catering staff.
• Whenever possible buy from companies that pay their employees a living wage no matter what country they work in. 
• If I want to ask a person of color to speak on their ethnic group, make sure I've asked them to speak on an area of professional, academic or other expertise unrelated to their ethnic group in the past.
• If I'm around when someone makes a dismissive or belittling comment about a disadvantaged group or uses derogatory language (even if they don’t mean anything by it), I  want to be someone who speaks up. Educate gently at first, then firmly if necessary. 
• Speak to children, foreigners and people with developmental disabilities in a normal voice. Take a smidgen of extra time to make sure you’ve understood them. 
• When attending a racially diverse meeting, make sure someone of a background different from my own has been heard from before speaking up for a second time. 
• Notice when I accidentally judge and jump to conclusions about another. Stop and reconsider. Weigh the known facts and toss out assumptions and statistical probabilities, when it comes to another person.
• Don’t swat honey bees or bumble bees, use a rag to swipe them back outdoors. (I know that one sounds trivial by comparison but in the scheme of things, who knows. It's my current environmental awareness goal and it's hard because of my vision impairment and moderate bee allergies.)

What's on your mindfulness list?

We won’t be perfect. Life can be crazy and we're often trying to do things more long-range than these as well. These are just acts of mindfulness, not anything that will change the world. We also want to do serious work for positive change. 

Maybe that is the most important thing I wish to remember. 

• Expect that everyone you meet is probably pretty frazzled and usually for reasons beyond their control. Cut people some slack.

Keep trying to be the sort of person you respect.

Simple Living in Suburbia

I roll out of bed at dawn, put a jacket on over my pajamas and stumble outside. I take a quick look to make sure the ducks and the rabbit are okay. I open the greenhouses so the plants won't get fried. Then I pick fresh spinach for my husband's sandwich and herbs for the day's cooking. Then I go back in to see if my kids are up and dressed yet.

No, I'm not a farmer and I don't live in the country. Other than the tangled empty lot next to us, we pretty much live in suburbia. My husband and all of the neighbors head off to work between seven and eight in the morning and drive into the city to professional jobs. After I get the kids off to school, I sit at a computer and do a professional job or teach classes. 

But now that we have poultry I think I can finally claim to be a real urban homesteader. That's a new movement that tries to take the better parts of the old 1970s back-to-the-land movement and make it compatible with professional, middle-class lifestyles. 

It's a tall order. But our gardens do have a lot more fun gizmos that the dirt-poor back-to-the-landers of yesteryear. Half of my garden is now watered automatically by gravity flow from stored rainwater. 

The thing is that for most of us the desire to grow our own food comes from more than just the avoidance of pesticides and vague feelings that a smidgen of self-sufficiency is good security. It comes from a deep-seated need for a simpler and less frazzled way of life. 

When I went to pick up my kids today, I almost got run over by a guy pulling out of his parking space in to horrible traffic. Later I talked to a woman who runs a modest company and barely has time to eat a regular meal once a day. Most of the kids I see in my ESL practice are already chronically tired and stressed--by the age of nine. 

What does this have to do with raising ducks and growing lettuce?

Everything actually. 

Studies show that fifteen minutes in a natural environment has measurable health effects on everything from blood pressure to immune function. My brief morning scramble to do what most needs doing on our urban homestead first thing in the morning vastly improves my day. I feel better. I don't get depressed as I used to. I wake up worrying about six things and by the time I'm done with the outside bit, I'm ready to stop worrying and just deal. 

Yes, you can theoretically get the same thing out of just having your breakfast out on the back deck, if you have one. But the fact is that you won't when the weather turns bad. I go out early every day--rain, sun or snow, because I have to. My body naturally falls into rhythm with the sun, because there are things that matter that are governed by that rhythm. Simple living doesn't work too well unless its enforced. Apparently, we have a natural human tendency toward hectic stress.

I'm glad to see that it can be done, even in suburbia. It has taken ten years to build our little oasis of simple living, but now it blooms with life. The latest addition is a kitten--a replacement for our hardworking cat (akka, mouse hunter) who has gone to the great sunbeam couch in the sky. There is something about a kitten that epitomizes simple living. Kittens have no appreciation or respect for professional careers, but they really don't demand that much. A tickle here and there, a pant-leg to climb, a bit of food multiple times a day. And for your trouble, they'll keep you in a simpler rhythm. 

Tips for working with a blind colleague

Creative Commons image by Irish Typepad of Flickr.com

The other day someone asked me about working with a blind colleague in a professional setting. It brought me back to the days when I used to work in offices. Sometimes I hid the fact that I was nearly blind. In other situations, I cautiously let people know about it. Neither approach made the work environment very pleasant. Never did I work with people who asked how they could work with me--a legally blind person--more effectively or how we might increase our flow and productivity and ensure more good camaraderie and less stress in the office. I very much appreciate this question now. And being a lot wiser (and older) than  was in my office days, I actually have some answers. 

Here are a bunch of ways you can make working with a blind colleague a blast and get the most out of your talented team. 

Creative Commons image by Sonia Belviso

1. Tell the blind colleague who you are the first time you meet.
2. Tell the blind colleague who you are when you return from getting coffee. Say, “It’s (your name).” No explanations or embarrassment necessary.
3. Tell the blind colleague who you are when you return from getting something off the printer.
4. Tell the blind colleague who you are when you want to ask a question.
5. Tell the blind colleague who you are when need to borrow something.
6. If you borrow something, return it to the blind colleague's hands, not to the desk or shelf. There can be exceptions to this rule, if you have discussed the item specifically and there is a very precise (within four inches) designation of where the item belongs.
7. Tell the blind colleague who you are when you say good morning.
8. Have everyone say their name at the beginning of meetings. Every meeting! Even if your colleague “should” already know who the people are. Even if the blind colleague has learned to recognize every voice in the room, some people may not speak at all unless they are asked to say their name. In informal and repeated situations just going around and quickly saying names is enough and it usually takes no more than a few seconds if done without embarrassment and unnecessary argument.
9. Tell the blind colleague who you are when you ask if he/she wants to go to lunch with you and other colleagues.
10. Do ask your blind colleague to come to lunch or for other social engagements with colleagues.
11. Stop telling your blind colleague who you are if he/she tells you you can stop. Usually this means the person has learned to recognize your voice.
12. If possible, let your blind colleague have his/her own tools and utensils and don’t touch them without asking. Do not “put away” something that your blind colleague owns or uses. If you have to share certain things agree on an exact location where they will be kept.
13. A place for everything and everything in its place.
14. When someone who is less familiar comes in your office, let your blind colleague know, even if it is an informal visit and the blind colleague has met this person many times before. Say, “That’s (person entering’s name) coming in.”
15. In meetings, be aware that conversation flows primarily through eye contact and visual cues. Your blind colleague may either appear to be overbearing and interrupt others or may not engage in the meeting enough. This is largely because of the inability to see other people’s eyes. It is helpful if meetings are structured and someone is in charge of designating who will speak. In less formal meetings, it is good if the leader or facilitator is aware of the issue and watching for when the blind colleague is trying to work into the conversation.
16. When showing visual materials at a meeting, describe them briefly. Say something like, “This is a graph showing our results from the last quarter. It shows that…” or “This is the new logo for X. It’s an abstract shape in blue.”
17. Include important information from meetings in an accessible format—digital or Braille (if your colleague uses Braille. Not all do.)
18. If attending a conference or larger meeting together, you may want to let your blind colleague know who is speaking, read name tags or describe images presented.
19. If your colleague asks for help with physical navigation, you can help, but generally he/she won’t and physically getting around is not the issue. Helping in social situations is much more important.
20. Avoid touching your blind colleague without permission. Don’t gently touch your blind colleague’s shoulder to announce your presence. Use a soft voice and say “It’s (your name).”
21. With a blind colleague who is new to the office, “show” your colleague the locations of objects in one of two ways. Either 1. let the blind colleague sit at the desk and tell him/her where to reach to find certain objects. You can most easily do this by imagining that there is a large clock in the middle of the desk and imagining where the hour hand would be pointing toward each thing. Say, “the phone is at four o’clock. The keyboard is at 9 o’clock. The screen is at twelve o’clock,” and so forth. Or 2. allow your colleague to put his or her hands on the backs of your hands as you indicate items on a shelf. Allow enough time for the colleague to touch the objects and then return to placing his/her hands lightly over yours. People who have been blind for a time will usually be familiar with these techniques and you won’t have to explain. Avoid grabbing the blind colleague’s hand and forcing him/her to touch objects.
22. Many blind people are not totally blind. Legally blind people will often use a computer screen much as sighted people do, but they may have to look much closer to perceive what is on the screen. If you are teaching a blind or visually impaired colleague how to do something on a piece of equipment it is imperative that your colleague be seated in the position to do the task and that your colleague does the task with your instructions. There is no “showing” a visually impaired colleague something on a screen, even if you describe each step you are doing. It may seem to take longer to describe the actions necessary but it will never take longer than “showing” someone who cannot see your actions.
23. Be aware that visual impairments vary widely. Some legally blind people can see very well close up but little to nothing beyond six inches. Some blind people can see quite well in a very narrow field of vision, so that you may be surprised that your colleague can see some things at a distance but still not see you come into the room to his/her right. Try not to be judgmental of what you can’t understand and ask if your colleague wants to describe his/her vision to you and other colleagues at a meeting. It can help to know technically what your colleague’s vision is like.

When there is no face to put to a name

Navigating a social event while blind is tricky for reasons you probably never imagined.

As we approach the venue for a parents-with-children workshop, blossoms drip from the trees and land softly on my hands--so close I can make out their delicate pink color. My kids and I pause to breathe in the dizzying scent. The sun glitters through the branches, refracting sparks in my distorted vision. Birds twitter on every side. It’s an achingly beautiful May morning.

Creative Commons image by Mary of Flickr.com

“Oh, hi Arie!” A voice cuts across the bliss and I turn, constructing a delighted and eager smile. 

I have to correct for height in a split second. The woman is short and standing one curb down. I focus as hard as I can on the upper half of the pale, fuzzy oval that should be her face, judging by the sound of her voice. Somewhere in there are her eyes and like a foreigner in a land with strange but strict greeting customs, I have to struggle to simulate the correct visual communications etiquette. 

I’m pretending to make eye contact. But this woman doesn’t realize it. Unlike me, she isn’t thinking about eye contact. She’s simply getting the impression that I’m friendly… or not, depending on how successful my pantomime of eye contact is. 

I beam at her, projecting warmth—even though I don’t have the slightest clue who the woman is. I only know she is one of the people from the foster-and-adoptive-families support group and they are all wonderful people who I enjoy. She might be one of several who consider me to be a friend, who I’ve had intimate and intense conversations about parenting and society with and whose name I would instantly recognize, if it were offered. Or she might be one of several dozen parents in the group who know my name and expect me to know theirs, even though we aren’t all close. 

Creative Commons image by Carolinqua of Flickr.com

Recognizing people and connecting names to them is one of the most difficult things for visually impaired and blind people to do. When dealing with a large group of people who only see one another every few weeks or months it's downright impossible. Everyone knows everyone else and assumes you should, but you don’t hear the voices often enough to get a solid read on them.

In this case, it has been at least a year since I have seen the other support-group participants and their children. I can hear the footsteps and the breathing of a child beside this woman and I detect the fuzzy shape. I direct a smile and fake eye contact to where I guess the child’s eyes should be.

I do care. I know that eye contact is very important to people who can see well. It is hardwired into their brains and a child might be frightened of someone who didn't do it. Aside from that it's like good manners. If I came to a foreign country, I would make a valiant attempt to learn their words for "please" and "thank you." So, I try to fake eye contact for the benefit of sighted people. It isn't fake caring. It's just something I'm doing for them, rather than doing it automatically.

Still, I yearn for clues as to who this woman and child are. I get the feeling from the woman's tone that she probably isn’t one of those I’m closest with. I decide to take the plunge. My stomach twists with anxiety, but it must be done.

“It’s so good to see all of you again, but you know I have trouble recognizing people.” I raise my white cane and give it a gentle nod. Sometimes this doesn’t work. People often don’t take the hint and I don’t want to be rude. Sometimes they are even offended when they realize I’m asking for their name.

Creative Commons image by Shannon Kringen

Many of my acquaintances have scoffed in reply, “You have better hearing than other people. If you cared, you’d remember people’s names after three times.” Once a woman at our local community center told me directly that I wasn't welcome there because I didn't greet people I had already met on previous occasions with enough recognition. She said this while I was holding my white cane. 

That’s the reason for my sweaty palms and queasy stomach. Will this be another one of those blistering responses that make me feel like a dismal, anti-social failure? Or will she just ignore me, like most do, and let me continue to wander in anonymous confusion? I hold my breath.

“Of course, I’m sorry. I’m Zora,” she says. “We were in mommy-and-me swimming class with you about four years ago.” 

“Oh, yes, I remember, but haven’t you dyed your hair?” I say, automatically trying to make her feel comfortable and recognized. 

I am mostly guessing again, just like with the eye contact. I don’t remember her hair. When and if people were introduced at mommy-and-me swimming class it was in a huge echoing swimming hall. I rarely got the other women's names even once and if I did I had no image to go along with the name. But I do remember others calling out to Zora, so she was there and I can claim to remember it. 

The part about her hair popped out before I could think better of it. I'm grasping at straws and I can just make out the color of her hair. It's the type of dark blond that often results from dye. It’s a good bet and it works. She is pleased and believes that I truly remember her. 

“Yes, I love to dye my hair all the time. Matilda was smaller then, of course, but your kids too.” 

Okay, Zora and Matilda. I’ve got that now… until they take their jackets off and are dressed in different colors at least.

The problem is that I probably do remember Zora much better than this in another way. I probably had a wonderful conversation or two with her and felt a genuine connection to her. There have been many such conversations when I wished I knew who the delightful person I was speaking with was. But if so, I didn’t know her name was Zora when I had those conversations.

While she was nice enough to tell me now, almost no one does it consistently. I have no face to connect those conversations with either, so it is likely that I’ll never be able to truly reconnect. Each time I meet a person without a name it might as well be our first meeting. 

Still I’m grateful beyond words to this woman who took the hint well, was not offended that I couldn’t recognize her and provided her name this once. I want to plead with her and beg her to tell me her name on future occasions too. I want to assure her that I care and I want to be friendly. I am not aloof as many people often say of me. Far from it! I desperately want to know it is Zora the next time I have a great conversation with her around the break-time coffee table at a workshop. But if she doesn’t tell me again--even later today--it’s unlikely I will know it's her.

We enter the building and split up to circulate around the room. I’m boggled again. I didn’t manage to watch Zora and Matilda take their jackets off because I was dealing with my kids, so I can no longer recognize them. Still I repeat to myself silently, “Zora, dyed blond, brown jacket. Matilda, a bit taller than my daughter, blue jacket,” over and over, hoping to remember these little factoids in the barrage of similar small facts that I try to use to connect names to people.

Creative Commons image by Taston of Flickr.com

Here’s the thing. The human brain is hardwired to memorize human faces. Even though a face is more complex than the color of a jacket, it is much easier for most people to remember what Zora’s face looks like than that she has a brown jacket. Most people’s brains do it automatically and even when people do struggle to memorize names, they are memorizing the name, NOT the face. The face is quickly encoded in the brain as the fixed point to attach the name to. 

I have no such fixed point. I have only the two facts to memorize like vocabulary words in a foreign language, “Zora = brown jacket.” Two facts that will probably never be useful again because Zora will wear a different jacket next time and several other women here will have brown jackets too, but I’ll try because it’s all I’ve got. I can’t see any detail beyond the smudge of color.

I am relieved to find that I do recognize the voices of the three organizers who are at every one of these workshops. It has taken several workshops for me to know their voices instantly, but I’ve got them down now. Voices can be used like faces to identify people, but the imprint of it on the memory isn’t as quick, even with all my practice. It takes several exposures, and most importantly, it only helps if I actually know the name attached to the person when they speak. If I know who is speaking and hear them maybe four times, I will probably recognize their voice.

But four times of knowing their name! That isn’t likely to happen, unless the person is a workshop presenter who people call by name repeatedly. 

This is probably the single largest problem I encounter from blindness—not tripping on things, not losing my keys, not even the inability to drive. No, the worst is not being able to recognize people and all the consequences that go along with that. Many people will ask me solicitously over and over again if they can take my hand to help me walk down a slightly bumpy trail in a park, even though I show no signs of difficulty, but they almost never offer their name each time they approach me. Most don’t even take the hint and let me know their name without a fuss when I make the terrifying effort to ask.

Zora is above the curve. 

There has been only one person I’ve met in the past ten years who consistently told me her name every time I met her until I actually had to ask her to stop because I knew her voice so well I could have picked her out of a crowd on the street. This woman came to a meeting for foster and adoptive parents that I attended years ago and immediately after meeting me and seeing my cane, she went to the coffee table and then returned to the conversation. 

“It’s Blanka again,” she told me as she rejoined the circle where I was discussing something with others. A few of the others stopped speaking and seemed to be confused by her comment. My jaw dropped from the sheer newness of it, but I quickly caught myself and gave her a smile.

Creative Commons image by Shannon Kringe

Later she came over to where I was playing with my toddler to ask me where we lived because she had heard her home was close to mine. Again, she started the conversation by announcing, “Hi Arie, it’s Blanka.”

I thanked her briefly that time. 

Then at another meeting three months later, I saw her again… or heard her. I came to the door and was unloading my children from the stroller when I heard a voice raised from the far side of the crowded room, “Hi Arie, it’s Blanka!” 

I had to fight back tears. 

I told her later how much it meant to me and she seemed surprised. “Well, of course you can’t recognize people’s faces,” she said and moved on to another topic. 

I have now known Blanka for over five years and she no longer has to announce herself because I told her that I can recognize her voice now. We aren’t close friends because life hasn’t taken us that way and she's a busy foster parent, but I’m always overjoyed to meet her at support groups. I remember the things she has said, her interests and her parenting struggles. I truly know who she is and recognize her.. Many other people have attended the same groups with us for the same amount of time, and I cannot connect their names to their voices, stories, interests and identities. At this point, they would be utterly confused and offended if I admitted that I still don’t know their names after even five years of acquaintance in the group. 

Don’t get me wrong. I know them--the people. In some cases I can even recognize their voices. But I recognize them with labels like “the woman with three little boys all close to the same age” or “the woman with reddish frizzy hair” or “the man with the loud voice and bald head.” I have relationships with these identities because I don’t have their names and I have mostly stopped trying to hint and get them to tell me. The reactions are often too offended. 

I am curious about how others view this topic. Do most sighted people realize that visually impaired people can’t recognize faces and that voices are not that easy to recognize? Is there a way that I could ask more effectively for people to let me know their name? Don't be afraid to comment or to discuss your own difficulties. My page is always free of ridicule and judgement.

And even more urgently I wonder if other visually impaired people have any tips or ideas for how to improve my skill in recognizing people? Do most blind people learn to recognize voices after being introduced to a person only once or twice? How do other visually impaired people keep track of who is who in a crowd? Please feel free to comment below.

Being too different: Do some people just ask for it?

“You had to know it would be this way,” my friend says on the sunny veranda over glasses of refreshing elder flower lemonade. “You chose this.” 

Our two boys leap and roll on the trampoline. “Mama, watch me! Watch me!” They’re both five. 

Creative Commons image by Mizrak of Flickr.com

I am silent. I don’t want to argue with her. She means well and she is one of the few people in this small town who will do playdates with me and my kids. I can’t afford to say what I’m thinking. 

She means that when we adopted two Romani (Gypsy) kids and settled down in a small town in an Eastern European country, we must have known what we were getting into—that we must have chosen to do so because we were kind of picking a fight with society or... something.

The Roma are extremely unpopular here and the wildcat is out of the bag. A few mothers at my kids’ preschool are making a stink, saying my son should be committed for psychological treatment because he pushed another boy. 

But the thing is that it was an absolutely normal preschool altercation. No one can point out a pattern of problematic behavior--not the teachers, not the other parents and not my family. No, of course, he shouldn’t push and all little boys get in trouble for it sometimes. But my son can’t afford to make a normal childhood mistake. 

“You can’t expect people to change. It was your choice,” my friend says into the silence. 

“I didn’t set out to do it,” I finally answer. But the kids come running for pie and juice and I never get to explain. 

How can I explain anyway? What kind of choice? 

There were six years of infertility treatments. Four rounds of IVF. At least a dozen IUIs. A traumatic miscarriage. There was the reality of adoption in Europe today. The mothers who sobbed beside me in support group because they were thirty-five and had almost no chance of getting to the top of the waiting list for a baby before the age of forty, when the state system cuts women off from infant adoption. 

Uncomfortable fact 1: There is a shortage of healthy white babies needing adoption.

Uncomfortable fact 2: Systemic racism and discrimination makes families in marginalized groups more likely to crumble. 

Uncomfortable fact 3: There are a lot more Romani babies needing adoption than white babies. Widespread racism has it’s consequences. 

Creative Commons image by Monica Semergiu

Yes, I stood in the social work office and checked the box that says, “We’ll accept all ethnicities,” despite dire warnings by our case work That is the choice my friend means. 

I chose this.

My friend doesn’t even know about the African American friend who recently unfriended me when she found out my kids are trans-racially adopted. In America, it is often considered immoral—a stealing of a child’s culture because of an adult's selfish desire for a family. They call it “cultural genocide.” 

Yes, I ticked the box. I chose. 

But what was the alternative? 

I think back to the little boy in the sterile orphanage with toys displayed on high shelves on the walls. When they handed him to me the white nurse said with bit of a smirk, “Everyone here has a favorite kid, but he was no one’s favorite. Good luck.”

I noticed immediately that he had a strange low-pitched cry. He was lethargic. They had diagnosed him with “mild neurological delays.” He was ten months old.

It turned out he had been on a high dose of prescription sedatives since he was two months old. Nobody’s favorite and they didn’t want to hear him cry from the desperate loneliness of a baby never held. They didn’t give us any sedatives to wean him off the drugs, so he went off of them cold turkey. We didn’t know until the pediatrician explained it a few weeks later. 

But we knew that baby suddenly learned how to scream. He would scream the sharpest, loudest scream I’ve ever heard a child make every time I got more than ten feet away from him. He now had someone to hold and comfort him and he wasn’t about to let me get out of his sight. I had to stay with him every moment for a year and a half. I couldn’t carry him much. He was too big, even at ten months. It was like having a ball and chain. 

Yes, I chose that. I didn’t have to. I could have resigned myself to my own depression and left him there. It was a choice. 

Now at five years old, the teachers say the only difficulty they have with him is that when they speak sharply to him for some small infraction, he sometimes starts screaming in terror as if his whole world falling apart.

Otherwise he’s on track in all respects. He has good friends who he only fights with moderately--like all the other little boys. He has no neurological delays or other problems. Just about a textbook case for healthy child development. 

But I can’t tell the other mothers that history. I once made the mistake of telling one of the mothers about my daughter’s intense temperament. Now she uses that little tidbit to slander my children, telling other mothers that my kids are psychologically unhinged and genetically degenerate “Gypos.” If they knew about how hard my son’s start was, what more would they say?

My husband mildly chastises me for being open about our differences, for not trying harder to hide the children’s Romani background. I never actually told anyone, but the whole town knows. I didn’t go to great lengths to hide it and I do multicultural education classes as a volunteer at the preschool. My friend says that’s a dead giveaway. 

Supposedly I also chose to be open about difference. For thirty years, I hid the fact that I'm legally blind and didn’t carry a white cane. But the dangers of traffic and the misunderstandings grew unbearable, so now I carry the cane and don’t hide it. But technically it’s still a choice. 

Me and my borthers in the 1980s

My friend adds in a whisper before she leaves, “It doesn’t exactly help that you don’t wear makeup or dye your hair.”

Yet another choice. They reject me for the very things I am proud of--my children, the cultural background I embrace, our bilingualism. my environmentally friendly lifestyle, the disability I don't hide...

I chose to be an immigrant, I choose to raise my kids without a lot of junk food, I choose not to have a TV… I’ve chosen a lot of difference. And I like my choices. 

You could make a case that any resulting difficulties are really my fault. That is essentially what my friend is saying--you chose, so you shouldn't complain when people judge you.

But I know something that is strangely hard for most people to admit. For those of us with some unavoidable difference--a disability, a different language, race or culture or some odd life situation--the choice is an illusion. You can try to hide it but when you are different, you are different. You can obtain a rickety and temporary measure of social acceptance by covering up your differences. But you will never be treated entirely well socially and if you slip, you will pay a heavy price. 

I tried to fit in and be the same for thirty years. I tried desperately to learn how to make eye contact and smile as if I could recognize the blurry shapes of people. I tried to dress the way I thought I was supposed to and always failed miserably at the fashions. I detested fashion trends anyway.

I was really very bad at hiding my differences. And I was deeply depressed, almost suicidal at times. 

It was not until I was holding my infant daughter and looking down into her face that it finally clicked. I knew she could never hide her olive skin and non-European-looking blue eyes framed by dark lashes. I had never been able to hide my differences and neither would she. 

Something broke inside me. I don’t remember the exact moment, but I remember the year--that year with my first baby. I swore I would not put that burden on her. I would not doom her to a lifetime of trying and failing to be “normal” at all cost.

My children know their own roots. They know and love the Romani culture and people. They practice Romani dance and Romani vocabulary words. We go to every Romani cultural event we can find. They need close Romani friends, and that is a bit of a challenge, given the vast segregation of society here. But still they are proud of their heritage at this point. 

My seven-year-old daughter told her class she is Romani. I was nervous but the kids don’t know the word “Romani.” They’ve only ever heard the insulting word “Gypo,” so they don’t even know what she’s talking about… yet. 

The thing that I wish I could tell my quiet friend who always stays within the lines is this: I didn’t choose to be different. Neither did my children. But I do choose not to be ashamed. There are many things we don’t get to choose in life, but there is one thing we can always choose. 

I choose to be true.