St. Louis Braille

Forgive me for a little misplaced nostalgia, but I miss the days of Braille. I have never been able to read it - I have no exceptional sense of touch, and I've always been able to see well enough to read at some level - but I love the idea of it.

One of my favorite podcasts, NPR's On the Media, did a great segment on the history, effects, and current state of Braille:



There's only one issue I have with the story, which is that it uses a misleading statistic. When they say that 10% of legally blind people today can read Braille, they're probably right: I'm an example of a typical case. But there are plenty of people like me who should never have learned it in the first place. Being legally blind does NOT mean, with today's technology, that you can't read text. There are plenty of options other than audiobooks. Just wanted to put that out there. That said, when Braille first got started, it was the only option.

Bottom line: before Braille, the blind were employable as panhandlers and oracles, and that was about it. Today people forget to make accommodations for us because they figure we can read with our hands. That's progress, right?

Stumbling Blindly in a New Desert

A little over a week ago, my daughter was born. Again, just to stay on topic, I won't go into the details of the birth here, but the short version is as follows:

1. Mama had no drugs, nerve blocks, or anything else.
2. Labor lasted a while.
3. The baby came out.
4. Everybody's happy and healthy.

I was able to see her head come out, even recognize a face - the midwife pointed me to the right place, and I was able to get in close enough to see it. Amazing, of course. Cutting the cord was pretty easy -- they practically put the scissors there for me -- but since they had already clamped the cord at either end, it was a little like being the mayor at a ribbon-cutting ceremony for a new shopping mall. (OK, maybe a bit more significance than that.)

There are a bunch of routines that parents go through several times a day: dressing, changing clothes, changing diapers, burping, and feeding, to name a few. Right now, the mom is in charge of feeding, and we take turns for the rest. Some tasks are easier than others for me: I always have a little doubt that I'm getting the diaper exactly right or cleaning every little nook and cranny that I should be, but I ask the fully-sighted people to check my work, and so far I'm doing all right and slowly improving.

As with anything, repetition helps. Just like learning an instrument or a part in a play, practice turns the difficult into the possible into the run-of-the-mill. At the moment, parenting feels possible, and I doubt that it will ever feel run-of-the-mill... but a few small aspects might.

It certainly helps to know that the blood-curdling screams that we're evolved to interpret as the sound of an abused child are, in fact, perfectly normal expressions of momentary dissatisfaction. Few of us start out this life wanting to be change, bathed, or momentarily denied our nourishment, and we are willing to cry bloody murder to express our rage. For that kind of scream, having limited vision doesn't really hurt: it's my average hearing that suffers.

Luckily, she's adorable.