PERSPECTIVE
PERSPECTIVE FROM THIS SIDE OF MY BABY BLUES:
LIFE IS A PAINT-BY-NUMBERS
by Susan "Sam" Madden
Ms. Country Western Arizona 1997-98 and nationally recognized blind equestrian
Being blind, I don't see life as a black hole; I see it as a paint-by-numbers where I get to fill in the details myself. It's easy to ignore my competition in horse shows and focus on my own performance, and I could boost my confidence by imagining the other contestants in the Ms. Country Western pageant as clad in overalls and missing their front teeth.
I originally entered the Ms. Country Western pageant in order to prove my friend Scott wrong. He accused me of losing my spunk after he read Blind Faith, the story of how I lost my vision to diabetes in 1990 and struggled to regain my independence in order to ditch my sociopathic husband who I had recklessly married months earlier (after knowing him only a short time) because I was afraid of being blind and being alone. I soon realized how important his good looks would be to me for the rest of my life. Among the excitement in my manuscript is when my ex convinces a locksmith to make keys to my apartment so he can stalk me, clean out my bank account after "borrowing" my ATM card, pilfer lingerie and the like, and eventually try to off me by tampering with my medication.
Scott said I was losing my identity and turning into Sonny, with whom I had done everything since leaving my husband (well, after months of living alone with just my cat and realizing that it's not so easy to be blind and independent; for instance, I had to clean out the litter box by hand because I couldn't feel what was clean and what was dirty by using a scooper). Scott's criticism helped spur me on to earn the title Ms. Country Western Arizona after three attempts, graduate from Phoenix College at the top of my class and start a medical transcription service, join Donor Network of Arizona Speakers Bureau to educate the public about the critical need for organ donors after my kidney transplant in 1994, and become a nationally recognized blind equestrian successfully competing against sighted competition. So I'm nothing if not spunky!
About six months into our relationship, one boyfriend mentioned that he was thinking of shaving off his moustache. I told him I used it as a landmark to orient me to his face. But I had no problems locating his lips, even after he did away with my road map!
Having once been so independent, it's not easy for me to ask people for help, and it's even hard to accept help when it's offered. It's also difficult to compromise when, despite my explicit instructions, people don't do things as I would if I could do them myself.
Before I had confidence in doing my own makeup, I went to great lengths and expense to have someone else do it. I would often have my makeup applied the night prior to an event since the salon didn't open until mid morning. I figured, even if I got into a wrestling match with my pillow while I slept, I'd look better than if I tried to fix my own face. One time I told the cosmetologist I'd be wearing a cinnamon and dusty rose colored dress. I was horrified when she told me she had applied lavender and gray eye shadow! I started asking what colors would be applied before it actually took place; but often I got vague, nondescript, patronizing answers like, "It's a pretty shade." Now when I wear makeup I do it myself, foregoing anything that requires a straight line like eyeliner.
In order to form an opinion about how something looks, I have to not only feel it but also get input from several other people and weigh each idea and its source. Sonny saw this as me not trusting his judgement, but I really would be "turning into Sonny" if I merely regurgitated his views.
Shopping for anything usually ends up being a wild goose chase. It would take forever for someone to describe to me everything on the shelves, so I generally have some preconceived notion of what it is I'm looking for. Unfortunately, this notion is based upon something that existed a decade ago.
People choose what they describe to me when we go clothes shopping, and I have to rely on their judgment. I tend to wear the same stuff I've had in my closet for the past 10 or 20 years because I know what it looks like. I had no idea what Sonny's taste in clothes was like; and I didn't want to dress as he would if he were a woman, I wanted to dress as i would if I could see! He was also color blind, and his box of Crayolas had only eight colors; so even if he could discern between different shades, he didn't know their names. The difference between tangerine, salmon, and peach eluded him unless one was juicy, one was fishy, and one was fuzzy; and rust, raspberry, cranberry, and burgundy were all described to me as red (just as all horses were brown), reaffirming my belief that my biggest handicap was my color-blind fashion consultant!
I do have favorite colors based on my memories. I often drag a teal pillow case that I bought 15 years ago to stores, asking if an item is bluer or greener or more vibrant or more muted than the sample - or how they imagine the sample would have been 500 wash/dry cycles previous.
On one occasion I hired a woman to help clean my house. Supposedly on a quick cleaning supply run, she returned several hours and about $100 later with black dish towels and a blue dish drainer to replace my white kitchen accessories, green cat bowls in place of the mauve ones she had already tossed out, and new area rugs described to me as "country Amish" when my decor is blatantly contemporary southwest. She reasoned that people would ask who had helped me decorate, so my home would be a reflection of her taste. I have carefully picked out everything in my home myself, and I made her return everything but the Comet and Clorox for which she had originally gone.
I see in my dreams, and I even dream in color, but I think of myself as blind. I tend to dream about people I knew back in high school, even if I didn't know them personally, only because I have a real face to associate with the personality. People I've met more recently tend to take on the likeness of someone to whom I can match a face in my dreams, and I imagine that people who sound alike also look alike. Tall, dark-haired, lanky Ross from "Friends" sounds like, and to me looks like, pudgy, carrot-topped, freckle-faced Ralph Malph from "Happy Days." And yes, I still say I "watch" television; and when I ask to "see" something I hold out my hands.
In 1995 I was fitted for prosthetic eyes which elicited an interesting phenomenon, as did my first pair of glasses (my feet were suddenly in focus, making me feel much shorter). Without my dark glasses to hide behind, I had to consciously think about looking people in the eye, which was about four inches higher than where I'd been looking previously because that's where the sound came from. With my new eyes I felt short again, with everyone suddenly four inches taller!
After receiving my prostheses (painted the exact blue of my real peepers from a photograph), I saw a new endocrinologist who shined a light in my "eyes." When I realized what he was doing, I told him they weren't real. He proceeded to the other eye and shined a light in it, too, and declared, "I can't even see your retinas." So I knew that the fancy paint job on my oversized opaque acrylic "contact lenses" must look convincing!
Things like feeding the cat can be more than a simple chore. I once opened a new can of food and dropped it on my foot (ouch!) when I opened the microwave, forgetting I had put the cat food in front of it. While rummaging around on the floor trying to find the can, I stepped in all the food that had spilled, giving my socks a lovely aroma.
One of the most frustrating things about being blind, especially for a control freak like me, is the loss of regulation I have over basic aspects of my own life. When people read my mail to me, they always want to be my brain instead of just my eyes, perusing everything first and paraphrasing it rather than reading it to me in toto and allowing me to decide for myself which information is important.
I have a neat bit of software called Money Talks (my screen reader is called VocalEyes; even blind people have a sense of humor!) that lets my scanner tell me what denomination a dollar bill is. Unfortunately, I haven't had the opportunity to test it with anything greater than a 20!
I check for errors in my typing by "prooflistening." My computer reads everything exactly as it appears, so if there's a mistake I can usually hear it. I do medical transcription for a living, and the typo of the century award goes to: He used an ice pick on his swollen testicles. This was supposed to say ice PACK! I've even learned to discern among to, too, and two. My hearing is no keener than anyone else's, but I've learned to be more cognizant of my auditory inputs.
Books on tape are fabulous. I "speed read" so the tapes sound like David Seville at 78 r.p.m. Men are easier to listen to because women's voices get into the "dogs only" hearing range at high speed. Prerecorded books typically don't include things like Manual of Horsemanship because there's not a huge demand for this among the blind population. In order to have a book of my own choosing recorded, I have to provide two hard copies, which ends up being an expensive endeavor and not extremely timely.
My scanner is of limited benefit. It allows me to read very clean, black-on-white typed originals using a common font. Magazines, newspapers, and horse show premiums are a complete disaster; and it's laborious to scan anything of great length. The scanner software also tends to read things out of order, so they often don't make sense.
I used to be a somewhat competent cook, but after losing my vision I stood there scratching my head when instructed to brown the beef. How was I supposed to tell brown from pink or green? This might have something to do with how I inadvertently ended up mostly vegetarian. That and the fact that I just don't like meat that much.
Eating out is another challenge, like when nobody tells me my sandwich has a toothpick in it or when there is a pat of butter on my plate that feels just like carrots to my fork. One New Year's Eve I took my visiting parents to a murder mystery/comedy/musical dinner theater production in an elegant restaurant. I was told my squash was at six o'clock, and I realized it was not round slices but long spears when I nearly put one up my nose!
But when God put me on this earth, He didn't owe me my vision or anything else. I count my blessings every day for having had the gift of sight for 29 years, for still having memories of all the wonderful things I have had the opportunity to see, and for having a vivid imagination to fill in the paint-by-numbers experiences I continue to live every day.