My Dad lives across town and when I visit him, usually a couple of times a week, I often take the bus to UCLA and he picks me up by the medical buildings.  I was walking to meet him the other day, at the usual pick up place, not really paying attention because I am pretty familiar with the route, and bang; I had a head on collision with a bright blue light pole.  The thing is, I had Zelda with me…tucked safely inside my bag.

Zelda is my white cane and we hang out together, a lot.  I take her pretty much everywhere I go, but I have to be honest, I haven’t actually been using her.  I figured I could just use her when I need her, but this is some pretty skewed logic.  The nature of my blindness is that I don’t see what’s around me, so things like poles and curbs and cars, jump out at me from, seemingly, nowhere.   With the exception of walking at night and in dark spaces, I can’t really anticipate when I will need Z.  I understand that this means I probably need her all of the time, but that means accepting her and the truth of my vision loss.  How is it that I can live so deeply inside the reality of my blindness, and yet turn my back on it with such alacrity? Perhaps I am not really living inside the reality of my disease, but more tangled up in the confusion of it; one of the most difficult parts of my blindness is that I can still see.

I know that one day I will come to  accept and appreciate Zelda, but it has always been my way to come to things slowly.  I am more of a stare at the water for a really long time and contemplate the idea of putting a toe in, rather than a jump in with both feet, kind of person; honestly, I often get up and walk away from the water altogether, taking a road no-one else seems to see. I guess I am trying to walk away from my affliction, but the reality is that now, all roads lead back to RP.