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Book Review: “Now I See You”

“You’ve got to read the book I just finished,” I heard Joy telling my voicemail. This was not an uncommon message for her to leave. Recommending the latest and greatest books to each other has been happening since our “Sweet Valley Twins” days.

But what she said next sparked my interest a little more than usual.

“The author is a mom about our age who wrote a memoir about her life and she has RP just like us. She actually sounds like someone we would be friends with.”

I instantly knew she meant that we would be friends with her because of her personality, not her RP. I uploaded the book from Audible a few minutes later, and began the journey into Nicole C. Kear’s memoir “Now I See You”. Continue reading “Book Review: “Now I See You”” →

Bloom

Last summer I had the idea to start a legacy story-telling business that would help capture people’s life stories through video, audio and print. I bought 3 different domain names because I couldn’t come to a final decision, and the name I really wanted (Legacy Storytellers) was already taken. I worked on my web content, read and researched everything related to personal storytelling, met with experts in the industry, interviewed possible videographers, and began making plans to attend “The Association of Personal Historians” annual conference. I talked incessantly about my budding career plans, announcing to family and friends my goals for the year.

And then I took a little sip of air, often referred to as a breath.

And I exhaled for the next several months, wondering if this is the right time to start such an endeavor and feeling kind of embarrassed that I opened my mouth to so many people about it. Continue reading “Bloom” →

Choosing Our Struggles

I love to read about other people’s struggles, especially if they are very different from my own and if they have overcome something unimaginable to me. Whether it’s the personal memoir of an oppressed woman in the Middle East or wise sentiments from a man born with no limbs or a documentary about a wealthy hoarder in New York.

It doesn’t matter whether it’s dramatic, life-altering challenges, though those tend to be the ones that grab my attention, I glean just as much wisdom from writers like Brené Brown and Ann Lamott in their depictions of more common human ailments, such as shame and chemical addiction.

Back when I taught 7th grade, I was the only weirdo English teacher who chose “Life’s Biggest Challenge” as my students’ major narrative essay topic. While other teachers were assigning jovial topics like “What I Did Over Summer Break” in which kids could write about al the fun they had riding Big Thunder Mountain at Disney, I was “that” teacher asking 12-year-olds to think about their deepest struggles in life. And how they overcame them or how they continued to face them. Granted, preteens these days do face incredible challenges, and there were maybe 2 or 3 kids each year who were able to articulate them and put them into any kind of big-picture perspective in a concise essay. But for the most part, I read handfuls of narratives about overcoming skateboarding or gymnastics stunts that the students had attempted to master all of their lives. Continue reading “Choosing Our Struggles” →

Adaptive Skiing

Yesterday was the final day of winter. And although I am really looking forward to sunny spring days and warm summer nights, I am going to miss all the winter activities. I recently learned to ski despite the fact that I thought skiing was something that I would never do. Mainly because every time I have pictured myself skiing, I envisioned heading straight into a tree or some other object/person not within my field of vision. Although running into objects makes for some great stories and blog material, it’s not my idea of fun.

Maybe it was the Winter Olympics, or my dad telling me about a skier with RP in the Paralympics that inspired me to try cross-county skiing this year and hopefully alpine skiing next year. I had no idea that adaptive skiing even existed, but once I started looking into it more, I learned that there are multiple organizations and foundations that support skiers with disabilities. Although I have not yet had the opportunity to receive any special training or adaptive tools, it is something I am looking into for the future.

Continue reading “Adaptive Skiing” →

Take Inspiration: Blind Architect on TED Talks

As we head in to the New Year, I would like to dell out some encouragement to help our readers welcome a strong and hopeful 2014.

Blind Architect, Chris Cowney, gave this incredible TED talk on designing cities with the blind in mind, and how this not only benefits the blind but also offers major advantages for the cities themselves.

Chris Downey: Design with the blind in mind
What would a city designed for the blind be like? Chris Downey is an architect who went suddenly blind in 2008; he contrasts life in his beloved San Francisco before and after -- and shows how the thoughtful designs that enhance his life now might actually make everyone's life better, sighted or not.

My favorite take-aways from this talk are:

Continue reading “Take Inspiration: Blind Architect on TED Talks” →

Lessons in Decompression

I have never been good at letting go. Tense conversations, goodbyes, friendship changes, job transitions, moves….all keep me awake at night far longer than it seems they should.

So it wasn’t entirely surprising when my plane touched down in Seattle 2 weeks ago, and I couldn’t immediately let go of real life to enter vacation mode.

I’ve been in this quaint, picturesque Bavarian-themed village in the Cascade Mountains since the beginning of July, and I’m only just starting to decompress. Prior to leaving for this trip, there were a lot of stresses at home and I pictured this serene, oasis trip in which I just played and played with my children without worrying about my typical daily to-do lists. I had this vision of myself, unplugged and ultra-present. Continue reading →

Liebster Award

If there’s one thing writers really need, it’s community with other artists. I have this amazing friend, Emily, who shares my love of writing. We belong to the same writer’s group and have fun drinking tea and/or wine over topics involving creativity, editing, publishing, and the like. She writes a hilarious blog and recently nominated me for a Liebster award. Thanks Emily, for your encouragement and for being someone with whom I can share writing joys and frustrations and engage in super-nerdy conversations.

As part of my acceptance of the Liebster, I had to answer the following 11 questions from Emily: Continue reading “Liebster Award” →

Saying Goodbye to My Grandma Jean the Queen

The call came at 3am Wednesday. Grandma is dying. She probably won’t make it through the night. If you want to say your final goodbye, you should come.

The lights at grandma’s house were dim when we arrived, and the air was heavy. Short, labored breaths rattled out of her lungs, sounding like a child with croup. She lay tucked under blankets in a hospital bed in the middle of her living room; my cousin leaning over her, inserting morphine tablets under her tongue to keep her comfortable.

Being on hospice for the past week, the call had not been entirely surprising, though she had been so alert and responsive the prior few days that we had thought it might be weeks until the end. But here we were, in the middle of the night, beginning our final farewells. Some family members sat perched on the queen-sized bed near her hospital bed, while others lingered on the couch in the adjoining family room, taking turns leaning over her and whispering words of love and gratitude. Continue reading “Saying Goodbye to My Grandma Jean the Queen” →

News Flash

It’s been almost a full month since Joy or I have posted anything. Shame on us! It’s not that we haven’t thought about blogging, but we’ve both been a bit pre-occupied. Also, neither of us like to post out of any sort of obligation. We like to write when we have something worthwhile for our readers. Today I have something worth mentioning on the blog. I’M PREGNANT!

Perhaps you’re wondering why I am wearing a mask in this photo and why the pictures to the right look blurry. It’s not your vision (or perhaps in some cases it is…) It’s smoke. I live up in the mountains and we’ve had wildfires over the last 4 weeks, which has caused a tremendous amount of smoke in our county. Between morning sickness (which I think is misleading considering the nausea often lasts the entire day – not just in the morning) and the smoke stacks, I’ve been a bit distracted. But I’m happy to report that I am now 14 weeks along and feeling so much better, and the wildfires have subsided as well.

I will have more to share in a couple of weeks following my eye appointment in Seattle along with my first day of cane training. I need to get as much done as I can before baby number two arrives in spring!

Accessibility Software Giveaway (first-ever doublevisionblog contest!)

To end our mini-series on “parenting”, we’d like to offer a chance for our readers to win a free reading assistance software, Kurzweil 1000 version 7, $1000 value (this version was released several years ago, but can be upgraded to a newer version if desired). The software is new, in package, and still shrink wrapped.

Here’s the challenge… this is for either parents of kids/adults with visual impairments or kids/adults with visual impairments to answer:

Kids/Adults: Share a story/memory about how well a parent or teacher handled a situation involving your vision.

parents: Share a favorite memory of how your child handled their vision challenges with humor, wisdom, a positive outlook, etc.

Email your submission to joy@doublevisionblog.com by Friday, March 2nd. Submissions can be brief or detailed– it’s up to you!

We will post our favorite one as well as a runner-up to doublevision and will send the winner this software.