TToT: Jagged Echos Off The Snare – Wet and Dry, #10Thankful #UnitedNations2016 #WomensEqualityDay #HappyInternautDay

Every single day that my vision fades, no matter how slowly over time, I remain, to some extent, a visual person. The sights I once saw, colours which used to be so bright, they have never left my brain. I attempt to bring what I still can’t help seeing in my mind’s eye out or else I go a little loopy.

This is what I like to call “BlacK and Yellow”.

“I’ll be yours instead in my head. I’ll be yours instead.”

Sweet World – Braids, from “Companion”

Of course, this song doesn’t sound nearly as thrilling here, but the line from above seemed to fit with the visual images in my head of which I am attempting to do my best to bring forward through visual art.

Nothing is so black and white or, in my case, black and yellow.

🙂

I’m thankful for black and yellow, the darkest and the lightest colours that I can only now see such a vague idea of, compared to how I will always remember them.

I am thankful that I had a few moments of pure blissful peace. All I did was play Braids on top quality sound and let that stereo sound take me away from everything. It was as close to meditation and drowning all my other chaotic thoughts out as I ever get.

I’m thankful for siblings, such as an older one who is understanding and does not mind helping me out with a writing project which has the potential of being huge. All it took was a request and my brother was all ready to go. I trust his insights and impressions after all this time. I appreciate that more than he knows.

That my younger brother makes such breathtaking music, with his friends, with his own talents, and now with his sister.

😉

He plays, unafraid, loudly and I feel the vibrations of that music’s power through the floor under my feet and into my heart and soul. He is so cool, his outlook on life and on getting on with it, as best we can, and not allowing negative thoughts and feelings to drag you down, no matter how hard they try.

And also for the pictures that show a new life and my sister’s own strength in giving that new and developing life a safe and healthy place to grow, for as long as it needs.

I’m thankful for fresh peach soft ice cream sundaes
.

I’m thankful for women who speak up on the most vital matters that I wish I myself could do/say more about,

such as this woman in particular.

She is one of my heroes, in feminism, in literature, and in the art of just being a decent human being who stands up for what’s right. She spoke most recently at this United Nations 2016 meeting for World Humanitarian Day.

I am thankful for the thing which happened 25 years ago this week.

Happy Internaut Day. With the creation of the World Wide Web,

thanks to Tim Berners-Lee,

I would soon be able to find out anything I could ever wish to know and a whole new world of possibilities would open up to me, so many others, and especially the visually impaired.

I am thankful for the violin lesson I had, even for the rain that soaked me and made my shoes all squeaky as I stepped inside the music school. I am trying to get past feelings of silliness when my teacher shows me another technique she learned as a child. I am improving, slowly but surely.

I am thankful for the kindness and compassion shown to me by a nurse practitioner. She took the time to speak to me, not making any attempt to rush me, and I felt like she was really listening to what I had to say about my own years of illness and pain. I did my best to explain my many medical issues and how I’ve dealt with them. I tried to explain how far I’ve come, in making an effort in spite of the pain and the stress, to live my life. Not all medical professionals are nearly as understanding or empathetic. I don’t take such an attitude for granted when I come across it. I am lucky to have the medical clinic to reach out to in my town. It wasn’t so easy getting there.

I am thankful the Toronto Blue Jays are doing so well and that they won the game my brothers and my father were at. Here’s hoping for more of the same, as we head into autumn and a possible second year-in-a-row of playoff potential for our only Canadian baseball team in Toronto.

I am thankful my nephew is so big into the planets right now, just like I’ve been since childhood.

We enjoyed singing along to his favourite planet tune, even though I told him:

“In my day we had nine planets.”

Why is Pluto no longer a planet?

Pluto will always be a planet to me.

🙂

I leave off this post with what I’m calling “Circulation” even if those I’ve asked all guessed I was trying to draw the planets, but I originally began with only the images of coloured circles. I don’t mind. I love the planets.

Things change. Nothing stays the same. I am thankful that I have learned to recognize my thankfulness.

Men Are From Mars, Women From Venus, and Then There’s Jupiter

Well, I said, at the end of last week’s

RDAC post: Seeing Is Believing,

that it would come down to what was going on that particular day.

I was right.

***

Q: Do you see disability as more of an asset or a drawback in your daily life?

A: Let’s just call it 70/30 and I will explain why, but this could change if I were to answer this same question, say, a week from now. I suppose, though, that would be true for many of the questions I’ve answered and have yet to tackle.

I will respond using two examples of things happening during the day or two it has taken me to actually answer this question.

THE DATE AND THE NIGHT SKY

So there I am, with the contents of my closet strewn across my queen sized bed, wondering if I should just back out of the date altogether and save myself the hassle.

Dating when you can’t see is a hassle. Yes, I would use that word. I don’t like to complain because I know other people, who can’t see like me, some have trouble even getting a date to begin with.

However, out of the options offered in today’s question (asset or drawback), the latter is the one that seems to be the winner for me, given my most recent circumstances.

It’s a drawback when you want to look your best, like any girl off on a first date, but you must rely on another person’s opinions because otherwise I would leave the house wondering just exactly what best self I were going as.

I am afraid my hair will look too messy, my clothes will not match or will have some mysterious and unknown stain, and then there’s the ever-present question of makeup/no makeup?

My left eye was struck with some unexplained virus years ago and had to be removed. Now I can’t bring myself to leave my house to meet someone new without first asking someone I trust if my eye has turned.

Yes, because it does that. I am somewhat comfortable with this inevitability around my family and friends, boyfriends have found it interesting and we’ve learned to make jokes to lighten the mood, but I never want it to be the first thing an unsuspecting guy notices upon meeting me for the first time.

😉

I wait until at least the fifth date to reveal that particular quirk to anyone who has made it that far in my presence.

🙂

You just never know how someone might react.

The makeup debate rages on inside my head on an ongoing basis, but comes up particularly strongly when I am dating. Do I bother? Should I present my best self and want to look the best I can for a first meeting? I know I won’t keep up the habit going forward with any subsequent dates. I feel I’m being disingenuous because makeup is not my thing and I wouldn’t normally bother. Maybe I should just go without because the natural look is my trademark and any guy not okay with that isn’t the guy for me anyway.

My sister is my makeup artist and my manicurist. I do enjoy having my nails done. It makes me feel feminine, even if I can’t apply the polish myself.

What do I do with my hair? I don’t usually do much of anything with it. My inability to see what it looks like in the mirror certainly would make the drawback category, in this instance when I want to look well-put-together.

So I must call in the reinforcements every single time I want to have a first date. This means dragging my sister away from her own life to help me have a social life of my own.

I feel the drawback pulling at me and I want to cry. It’s only drinks, after all.

I just want to date and have a social life, like any other girl. I want to be spontaneous and carefree and live a little.

I just want to meet a guy for drinks, not having to make a huge deal of the whole thing before even leaving the house.

Drawback. Drawback. Drawback.

I guess, in the case of some guys, I could look at my disability as an asset.

This is where I try to see the positive side of the coin and I try to look at my situation as an asset. It’s only an asset in that this pretty big part of who I am could be considered intriguing to some.

They are unsure of what I am like and how I do certain things. Meeting me is a curiosity to them, not in that I am not worth meeting for other reasons mind you.

It’s another talking point and something that definitely makes me unique to most of the other girls they’ve likely met.

So I don’t give into the temptation to cancel the date and I give it my best shot.

I wear minimal makeup and nothing too flashy on my nails. I show up and try not to look as nervous as I feel inside. I talk about my blindness, am open and honest, but it’s not all we talk about.

I leave and tell myself there’s no way I can control how they saw me or what their final impressions may have been. And I hope for the best, remembering that what will be will be.

So now I stand outside, after midnight, staring up at the sky.

I am thinking over how the date went and trying to not let things out of my power make me crazy.

It’s supposed to be one of those nights where two planets (Jupiter and Venus) are closer than usual to one another.

I have come out here to stare up at the night sky, not actually hoping to see this phenomenon, but hoping that I miraculously just might.

Yeah, so I would again use the word “Drawback” to describe my disability. Tonight I would.

Because, damn, I love outer space and the planets and I wish I could see this predicted special sight. I know, reality and all that, but I am angry that I have this drawback which is preventing me from seeing what so many others are getting to see.

Okay, so I may wake up to hear that the predicted spectacle didn’t turn out like they had hoped it would. Maybe nobody got a very good show after all. Maybe it was much too cloudy anyway.

I come back in the house. There are shouts of early celebrating, on the eve of Canada Day, and then the rain comes.

I hear the sudden downpour out my window, having just avoided getting wet myself.

At this point, I have been blind for more than thirty years and I don’t often cry about any specific drawback that I experience.

The assets normally do balance them out.

But now I let the rain out my living room window fall, in place of the tears I can’t quite muster.

***

Check out Rose’s blog for:

Redefining Disability Awareness Challenge questions

and our relatively new

Facebook page.

And I’ll be back, next Memoir Monday, with whatever’s on my mind.

Free post day!

Happy Canada Day or Fourth of July, which ever one you may be celebrating.