Out of Sight..again.

Tanvir Naomi BushMy Dad 4 Comments

The thing about being visually impaired is that you can’t see very well. I mean not see very well in the ‘usual’ sense. Most visually impaired and blind people I have met are often a lot more insightful, focused and aware then others with their full 180 degrees of vision. They have to be. With a visual impairment it becomes more important to be able to suss voice, intent, energy and potential action of people around you to avoid ..well …potential death lets say, as i don’t want to be too dramatic. (i.e. if you can hear someone screaming and a noise behind them that sounds like a trumpeting insane runaway elephant it pays to have that heightened awareness and a glimmering idea of where to run for safety. )

Photo (c) T. Bush 2010

For me there are two annoying side effects of having no peripheral vision.

1. I have to stare intensely using my 10 degrees of central vision. Staring intently is not most people’s idea of blindness. I also seek and lock eye contact. This can be disturbing to people especially when I stomp over to them at railway stations, peering hard directly at them and then proclaim fearsomely ‘I need help. I can’t see the Signs.’.

2. Things disappear. Usually my bloody magnifiers and magnification specs. Which is ironic. Also cell phones, black marker pens, keys, glasses of gin and tonic, £10 notes and sense of humour. Strangely I can always put my hand on the biros that don’t work that I was sure I flung out last time. Always. I must have a breeding colony of defective biros.

cartoon from internet

Anyway – I am in Radstock. Here for the week to try and wring out some more words of this bottom heavy thriller. It’s going slowly but at least it’s going. A lovely catch up with a couple of MA friends yesterday assured me that I am not as off kilter as I had thought.

On Skype, Dad now has a fuzz of white hair and is looking a little less translucent. ‘I’m sure it’s grown since yesterday,’ I say reassuringly peering into the screen. His blood counts need to grow faster too though. Those are harder to see from here.

image from internet

In the evening I wander woozily into my sister’s veggie patches with the watering cans. I stub my toe, drop the can, soak my dress, refill and do it all over again. She has a good load of salad courgettes, tomatoes, herbs and sweet peas, rhubarb, roses, maize and at least one triffid that keeps whacking me from behind the poly tunnel. I am rigorous and steadfast and although have to pluck several bits of twig from my hair and wash off the ants stuck to my cocoa buttered legs I am proud that I have saved the garden from a parched withering.

That night it rains.

Comments 4

  1. I think the dead pen thing is universal – among sighted & impaired-seers alike. Except that I know for a fact I will try a pen & then put it down if it doesn't work – instead of throwing it away. Sigh.

    My husband, Dr. M, is the watering man & has definitely spent some quality time with the watering can only to have it rain later. Very frustrating.

    Love the picture of the bra planter. Dr. M has already shot it down though – I won't be trying it here in Ohio.

    Still praying for your dad each night.

  2. Post
    Author

    Thanks Bug,
    You are a honey! Those pens..why do we never chuck 'em? Maybe they'll work after a rest we think. Why do we think that? Same with batteries. Wellll there may be just a litttllleee more juice. i'll REST it and try later. ?? Nuts!
    Shame no bra planter! Come on Dr. M! (cud try a speedo..holds water well too)
    T xx (and thank you so much for praying for dad! That's wonderful. T x

  3. oh yes the dead pen thing rules round here too! and disappearing glasses – spend/waste a lot of time looking for keys while muttering about a world without crime being a world without keys..etc

    Hope your Dad continues on the road to wellness

    hugs to you and Grace xxV

  4. Hey Tanvir, Your sister is lucky to have you water her garden (which sounds like a paradise, my sweet peas are stunted by a virus, no flowers, am gutted)- a garden helper is a luxury! It always happens that way, the moment you have watered, it bloody rains! …Don't stress too much about wringing out the words, they will come, they will come. Glad your dad is going in a good direction… Wanted to also tell you my book is now available as an ebook, available from the book depository, so you will be able to read – hopefully your ereader is listed, I know nothing of these things! And it is cheap as chips, only £2! x
    x

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