“If I were going to storm a pillbox, going to sheer, utter, certain human death, and the Colonel said, ‘Shepherd, pick six guys,’ I’d pick six White Sox fans, because they have known death every day of their lives and, for them, it holds no terror.” —Jean Shepherd, humorist and lifelong White Sox fan I was born in springtime.  For my ninth birthday, I asked for, and received, a baseball uniform.  That summer, my Chicago White Sox made the World Series but lost to the Dodgers in six games.  I still have the incomplete set of baseball cards of my incomplete heroes—my ’59 White Sox ..read more

“The disability of blindness is not blindness but society’s refusal to give them the tools and respect to function.” -Moses Street, “From Victim to victor” episode of The Blind Chick podcast (January, 2024) The symptoms of dwindling eyesight with escalating anxiety ended my career as hospital social worker.  My deepest fear was flattening some post-op patient who’d shuffled into my blind spots.  Even with white cane training and full disclosure of my RP, six years in critical care with critically diminishing eyesight rendered me fearful and frazzled. My colleagues began treating me w ..read more

Even as I lust for life, I wonder about the other side.  I’m curious in the metaphysical sense of souls and energy.  Curious in the physical sense that, if there’s really a bright light, will I see it?  Curious in the practical sense whether I should pack my white cane. Beyond personal curiosity, I possess a professional interest in life and death.  I was a hospital social worker.  I covered the ICU—destination of stroke victims, inadvertent overdosers and those who had intended to end their lives. I met the Irish lass who gulped a handful of Tylenol after being jilted ..read more

“What were we talking about?” asks Lola. “Transactional Analysis.” “What’s Transactional Analysis?” asks Lola. “The title of the blog before this one.” “Oh, I knew I’d heard it somewhere before,” says Lola.  “But what is it, really?” “Something they taught in social work school,” I tell Lola.  “You and I are conversing—we’re transacting.  We’re also interpreting—we’re analyzing.  We’ve found that you and I see things alike even though I can’t see and you can.  My eyesight is missing but I fill in the blanks.  Like, in a symphony, silence is as important as music ..read more

Way back when I was in graduate school, way back when Gerald Ford was president, I studied a psychological counseling approach known as Transactional Analysis.  Whatever your recollection of Gerald Ford, here’s what I recall about Transactional Analysis. Each time I slid a glass of beer across the bar on Wednesday nights at The Bandersnatch Pub, the customer slid fifty cents across the bar to me.  That was a transaction.  When that customer told me he was having girlfriend troubles and I told him I was too, that was a transaction.  When that customer cried in his beer and I ..read more

Adjusting with vision loss takes teamwork.  And my teammate is Lola.  Lola stands five foot four, has curly red hair and a gap-tooth grin.  She feels deeply and laughs easily.  She approaches challenges with enthusiasm.  She wants to learn everything about everything.  She was Professor of Nursing—voted Teacher of the Year.  She was nurse anesthetist—putting people to sleep and, when the danger passed, bringing them back to a better life. Lola has laughing blue eyes and wears reading glasses which she misplaces daily.  I help Lola find her glasses, her p ..read more

Life is complicated.  We need order and predictability.  We need comfort and safety.  We seek to meet our needs within our gang, our crowd, our peeps.  We grant credence and deference to people who look like us, act like us, think like us. Life is complicated.  To people unlike us, we allow nothing more than we are us and they are them.  We lump them into categories: the homeless, the mentally ill, the MAGAs.  We replace curiosity with suspicion.  We fear what makes them different from people like us. For the first half of my life, people like me were si ..read more

I gave to others on Giving Tuesday.  Today, my greatest gift is to give myself a break.  A break from perfectionism and pressure.  A break from the guy judging my every move with clipboard and stopwatch.  A break from needing to prove something, anything about blindness.  Today, charity begins at home…with me. Charity affirms it’s OK to say, “I’m lost” without feeling I’m failing to grasp deeper meaning in blindness.  Self-help gurus implore me to grow from struggle and find meaning in suffering.  But not everything needs to be meaningful, a constant test of ..read more

“Optimism is the faith that leads to achievement.  Nothing can be done without hope and confidence.” -Helen Keller Dear Helen Keller, Did you ever yell, “Oh, Shit,” when you spilled your soup?  Did you then castigate yourself for being clumsy and stupid?  Did you then blame whoever was so thoughtless to put your bowl where you were sure to knock it over?  Did you then tremble with fury over how unfair it all is?  Well, I do. I’ve seen your rage.  I saw it in The Miracle Worker.  I could see back then.  You had animal rage, the fury of animal survival in ..read more

Be brave and curious, not fearful and suspicious. –Eddie Izzard, onstage at Paramount Theatre, Denver, October 30, 2023 Twice a week for ten years, I harnessed my Seeing Eye dog, Randy, patted my pockets for keys, phone, wallet and poop bags and whispered a little prayer.  Then, Randy and I set off for work or home, covering one and a half miles and crossing twenty streets in thirty minutes.  Each trip was an adventure, through rain, snow, sun and wind. Beyond blind faith, each trip combined teamwork, tools, skill and…faith.  Faith in a lot of things.  Faith that the world ..read more