This is our second attempt to add dialogue and meaning to our blog. My intention is to add some thoughts and observations every day or so and let them just register on this page. Today has been a nice cool day in Baton Rouge, the sun has been out; the wind has been softly blowing, and it has been a lovely day. Our Sunday worship was a good experience, and the afternoon was really nice. We were able to collect our thoughts about how much training had occurred in my life since I have been blinded and where I need to go from here.
I have a Scottie dog by the name of Ralph and Ralph loves to chase squirrels. He often makes that his afternoon exercise and his hobby. In my life I have noticed that the squirrels have something to teach me. The squirrels have to move from tree to tree in order to motivate around the backyard and Ralph watches them as they make their movements. There are times when the squirrels will jump from one tree to another and will come close to missing the limb that they are aiming for. I have even seen a squirrel attempt to jump to a limb and miss completely and fall to the ground. The squirrel got up and looked around as if he was wondering if anybody saw him fall and ran to the tree and rapidly climbed back up. That's what squirrels do. They have to take a risk in jumping from one tree to another. Or they're going to have to spend their life in just one tree.
I found that that is true also of my condition. I am now blind. Obviously I have never been blind before, and I am up in a blind tree. In this blind tree, many of the things that I'm doing now, attempting now, learning now are helping me come down from this blind tree and move to another tree. Like the squirrel, I do not want to spend the rest of my life in one tree either. If I do not do come down, then my life will be limited to just one tree, and that's not much of a tree to get stuck in, so for a blind man to make a Sunday afternoon attempt to jump from one limb in a blind three to another limb in a tree that is governed by computers and monitors and software and e-mail and printers. Hopefully someone will contact me back and let me know how my attempt is going.
We are fixing to have a lovely supper of roast pork, smoked ribs, sensation salad and about six other wonderful friends who are coming over to help us celebrate the afternoon. After all, LSU won again last night; that was a miracle. So maybe it's really nice that we will celebrate this afternoon. Hope you have a good day and a good week and I will write to you later. If you have anything to share with me, I would love to hear it. Thanks for your attention--talk to you later.
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3 comments:
Hi Jim!
Deidre here, in San Francisco. I sure wish we were there to partake in the celebrating, not to mention the ribs! I found your latest blog entry to be very eloquent and could picture the Autumn leaves rustling in your backyard, with Ralphie chasing after the squirrels. That was great imagery.
It also reminded me of something I wanted to share with you. On Saturday afternoon Kat and I were walking downtown on Market Street, which is the main street that runs across the city. Walking in front of us were two young (late teen or maybe early twenties) kids who were blind. There was one boy and one girl. They were unaccompanied and they each had radar canes. There were many people out that day and traffic on the street was heavy. They walked along confidently, stopping and waiting to cross busy intersections without asking anyone if the light was green or if it was safe to go forward. We walked along behind them for about 2 blocks until we just couldn't keep up with them anymore. Yes, they were quite quick, as young people are! I just found it pretty incredible.
I know that you probably feel like that is such a long way off... but I think that your tree analogy is a good one. For me, thinking about experiencing other nearby trees, one tree or one day at a time, is a lot less daunting than trying to think about the whole forest. That applies to a lot of scenarios, actually.
Anyway, I just wanted to tell you that I enjoyed your latest entry and look forward to reading more.
Take care,
Deidre
Hi Dad,
It's Kat, writing from Deidre's email. I have to set up a Gmail account to respond to your blog, so I'll write from here until then. Thank you for sharing your thoughts with us.
It's true that like the squirrel, you have to take some risks and jump to other trees - now more than ever. We are all rooting for you, Dad. And we're proud of you for pushing through and opening a dialog to stay connected to others with this blog. Keep pushing and learning and putting yourself out there. Your efforts are a gift to yourself that we all get to share in.
Love,
Kat
Jim,
Seeing you today was a blessing for me. I look forward to reading your updates and hope the experience you have posting such is not a frustrating one. I have forwarded this blog to my friends so they also may learn from your experiences and find you should their lives need your direction. Through their lives and mine... I pray you share in our lives, seeing through our experiences.
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