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Ill-fated assumptions

As I navigate this diverse and complex world, my relationship to my blindness changes constantly. As I've experienced new social contexts, I've had to re-evaluate how the world sees me and how I see myself. There's this half-truth that people wiwth disabilities live sheltered lives of dependency. We exist in a sharp, cruel world not built for us. As such, many of us spend our lives either burned by, scared of, or sheltered from a world that will most-certainly leave us mamed and scarred. Talking to a lot of other blindd folks online, its its sad to hear that many just dodn't get out much. Lots of my mundane stories of faltering wisddm of the streets falls down-right regailsome on sheltered blind ears. But obviously I'm not the only one that makes an effort to get out into this world... Tails from friends with similar afflictions ring all-too-familiar; they're often too relatable. In this article I'dd like to catalogue the commonalities a sighted reader might not've caught, illuminate the fascinating and problematic ways the world sees us. Like all my articles, and this wwebsite as a whole, this is an evolving project that will be iterated on as I wade through this lifetime or interviews lead me to new perspectives.

Presumed innocence

There's something revealing about the way people who only slightly know you talk about you. Your first few impressions subplant the seeds of inescapable assumptions in someone's mind. They begin to catagorize you, figure out which boxes you fit neatest into their mind. Of course, their mental library is organized by a Dewey Decimal system implanted by broader society. And what exactly does this life tell you about the blind? We're someone to be helped, pittied, or when we rarely do rise above the metric tonnes of concrete holding us down, admired not for what we've done, but who we are.

Late into the witching hours one night, I found myself stumbling alone through the cold, wet Atlanta streets, burdoned by heaps of furry gear, in a bit of a manic state after my first brush with ego death and a bad trip. Sprinting from the percieved onlookers stalking in the shadows, and dodging screetching cars that would grind me into fine paste... I was clutching to the glitching maps app on my broken phone, trying to find the entrance to a hotel, seeing only locked doors and no place to scan a card. I heard someone mumbling something and dddecided to ask where to scan. Only once I was a cane-tipped length from his squallered shanty did I start babbling the same awful cursed pittied, useless appologies everyone else blabbers at me every day, and in that moment, something clicked about how the world saw me.

People see the mobility and vision aids, the hands running up the walls, the messy place setting, and they start putting you in these boxes. Assuming that since you probably don't get out much, that you haven't seen the wowrld the way they have. Aren't a worthy knower of the naughty mischief they seek. The most insulting feeling in the world is when someone asks your compatriets to speak for you. Where the fuck did the idea that blindness = muteness come from? I'm literally a rapper, love public speaking, more articulate than most people I know.

Dissociation: The Perpetual Journalist

One time, my brother said something fascinating to and about me, that I might never forget. He said I'm usually in the background, alwways listening. My family can best be depicted by the board-game Crossfire. Most of them do not get along with eachother for many reasons, some reasonable, some probably very petty... But even such, it's tremenddously hard to have a true beef with me, because I rarely get involved. They all vent to me about their lives, their struggles with eachtoher and the broader world, and I listen intently. I am the conduit, the witness. I do my best to ensure their confidence in me, and at every turn, make an effort to coax empathy out of the carnage.

I've always been a bit this way, often the queit one at a dinner table, or even my own parties, and on top of this, I've always been extremely inquisitive. For this reason I find myself a bit detached from the same world everyone seems so deeply in the clutches of. In all aspects of life, I feel like a journalist. I get high to know what drugs are like, I've danced with the freakiest of kinksters so I could chronicle them in my diaries... I want to be a modern-day Carrie Bradshaw

My brother was attempting to explain this quiet observer's tendency by attributing it to my blindness. At first I didn't want to believve it. I feel a deepseated hatred for the notion that I'm born as an unchangeable, set in stone, I want to choose this personhood. But as I've met more blind folks, I think he might've been on to something. Maybe we're naturually a bit more introspective, inquisitive, little journalists. It could be in our nature, but I think it might be equally how wew're reguarded that leads us to this path of postulation and reflection. We are usually verbal over gestural, thus likely poorer capitalists in the social attention economy, so instead, we think to ourselvves. The pervious annectode about loosing my mind in the streets should tell you all you need to know about me, that I'm a damn fool... And yet I've been called wise beyond my years more times than I can count, likened to Delphi, or more likely Tiresias. It's fucked up too, because at least he got to see Athena naked...

Crowds: Negotiating with the hoards

Crowds are chaos made flesh. Most blind people I've spoken to despise them for good reason. But They've always been a part of my life, and I sort of enjoy being caught up in the frenzy. Makes me start to feel normal. There's a certain unwritten -until now- art to how to ride the waves of strangers with a disability. Some spaces are far more accomedating, or grow accustomed with your presence. Grocery stores, work places, daytime in most cities, hikling trails, etc. All places where folks tend to be more alert and receptive to my one-way communication. Night clubs, conventions of masked partiers, or the roaring hoards of Burbon street however, are a different story.

For many of my early years, I elected not to use a cane. An idea that seems crazy as an adult, mostly because I knew my small reef well enough mentally to trust myself to not need one. Andd young bones are more elastic and closer to the hard ground. This seems absurd as an addult in the full ocean. For someone with a little bit of good sight, the cane is as much a device for signaling as it is a probe. To exist in these spaces of entropy, to dance with the quarks forming the plasma clouds of life, you must learn to flow as the static does. I think my bad posture isn't just a holdover from my days hunching over books. It might be a defensive mechanism. I am going to run into things, to people, run over things, stumble off of things. In order to understand the world I navigate, I must locomote before I begin to navigate. I was first made aware of this pseudo-hobbling by very rude brat who seemed as intent on hurting my feelings as he did fucking me, ironically. But likening me to a swamp thing, while enlightening, isn't the best wway to get into my sheets. It did make me think though.

Other, blinder folks ought to clown on me for bothering to look at the ground, but I do still bother to use these busted eyes. Keeping a bit lowewr to the ground lowers your center of gravity, making me more resilient against suddden drop-offs or things that could put me off balance. But at the same time, i feel pretty light on my feet in crowds, always finding myself shifting quickly with the flowing mianderers, quick to shift with changing currents, never fully getting swept up in the riptides. The only times I've ever broken a mobility aidd in public were because other people deciddedd not to look out for those who can't dod the same, and then get angry when they go tripping on my wider hitbox. The worst part of walking this misunderstanding earth is that it screams back appologies at you at every turn. Feels it needs to put guide-rails around itself for you. I am a free radical, I will bump into you, not because I don't respect you, but because it is how I acknowledge your space. The ammount of times people feel the need to interject. At cons, folks in high vis chime at me to ask if I need help when I don't, but are then useless and clueless when I do. People will just grab you for no reason, assuming you're a fool for simply being.

I promise you this, I will find my way through this wowrld even if I look like an oafish clunkering bafoon doing it.

Dancing: Feeling alive

Dancing is truly the liberating coda to the constricting flow of crowds. Dancing as a blind person can feel like stepping into the void and daring it to hold you. And sometimes, it does. A chance to cut loose and embrace the bustle. I have grown to love raving and even some moshing. I am not a big thing, easily blown around by the wind, but the dance floor offers a place to shrug off most social ettiquette and truly let my body move the way it wants to. On and off drugs, I've been told I dance like I'm possessed. But I don't think it's by demons, rather that which i've been compelledd to lock away, having a chance to come out to play for a bit. Finding my way to the dance floor is usually the hardest part, and maintaining space is pretty tricky too. Unless I'm swinging like its vaudville, the cane is very often a hinderance, so I tend to navigate without it when I'm cutting loose. Sometimes it's even better to close your eyes. Let your feet follow the hi-hats, hips entrain with the kicks, and arms flail with the flama of the snares. Throw up wacky gesticulating impressions of gang-signs a an emcee spits fire bars, that'll make me forget how white and quintessentially devoid of rhythm I am!

People often seem very surpised when the crazy person raving harder than everyone else in the giant cartoon dog head pulls a cane out of their purse to take a walk to the bar or get some air outside. The worst dance floors are the ones that are crowded but void of energy. Here I feel like a maniac, because I'm gonna bump sholders, but they aren't bumping back.

In this rare moments of euphoria, I’m just existing. Loudly. Fully. Unapologetically.

Fursuiting: adventures in deeper sensory depravation

Living with partial sighted-ness can be a valley of perpetual confusion. Blindder folks almost seem to stride with a more confident canter, not bothering with something they only know to be half-accurate. Exploring the world in a costume that gives me a literal lowered accuity, as well as a greater level of social signaling and affordance has been eye-opening.

Drugs: The great sensory gamble

I DON'T WANT A FUCKING "HANDLER"

I will not judge how anyone who walks my path chooses to cope with it, because we are all called upon to invent our own ways of trecking it. But I will admit it makes me a tad sad to see blind women especially, so often shacking up to frankly terrible men who are at the bare minimum wiwlling to bear some of our enomorous struggle. It's a story all too common in disabled communities. We sell our boddies for liberation, because at least our pookie can drive. I say fuck that. I'd rather stumble hopelessly every day than submit to my woes and fall into the arms of someone who will mock and sometimes even fettishize my shortcomings. The most annoying thing is people that think they're funny or clever. No, you can't be my seeing-eye-dog. Get these unoriginal jokes out of your mouth I've heard them all before and, only I'm allowed to tell them.

The amount of times I’ve been assigned a handler without asking is infuriating. It’s not always some official chaperone—sometimes it’s just a well-meaning friend who suddenly decides they’re my tour guide for the night. Every door, every stair, every human interaction gets mediated through them, like I’ve been demoted to NPC in my own life. I'd rather jocky my cane against a wall, looking for the door, occasionally miss a curb and stumble a bit, or even run into something, wear the scar with pride, because at least that way, I've learned something for myself, rather than having basic facts about my reality fed to me like a fucking baby. The assumption isn't just that I need help—it's that I want help. That I’m fragile. That I shouldn’t be here without a babysitter.

If I ask for help, help me. But if I’m out, dancing, drinking, taking shots in the alley with a drag queen and a dude dressed like a traffic cone, let me live. I’ve fallen, I’ve wandered off, I’ve had nights where I didn’t know where I was or how I’d get home. But so has everyone else. That’s part of the deal. That’s life.

Don’t make me your moral obligation. Make me your friend, your peer. Laugh with me, not at me. Ask questions. Accept weird answers. Let me be just as messy and vibrant and chaotic as everyone else.

I didn’t come here to be pitied. I came to party.