We Don't Have North here

We Don't Have North here

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WE DON'T HAVE NORTH HERE

by Barbara Pierce

People tend to be curious about blindness.
Perhaps the single item which arouses the most curiosity is how a person can,
without seeing where he or she is going, move about without assistance both
inside and out. Despite appearances there's no magic involved. Barbara Pierce
addresses the subject in the story that follows. Here is what she has to say:

Blindness is both frightening and puzzling
to most people. It's frightening because most people depend completely on their
eyes to tell them about the world, so the idea of moving and working and playing
without that information is more than unnerving. It's puzzling because people
have no notion how anybody could gather enough information using a cane to travel
safely.

Some years ago the five-year-old daughter
of an acquaintance began talking to her mother about the magic lady who passed
their house every day. My friend could not imagine what the child meant until
the day she called her mother to the window to see me walking past on my way
to the hospital where I served as chaplain. I was moving my long white cane
in an arc in front of me, and the little girl triumphantly explained that I
had to be magic since I was there, and the leash was there, but the dog I was
walking was invisible.

Even without believing in invisible dogs,
many people tend to behave as though some sort of magic were associated with
the use of the white cane. It doesn't seem possible to them that a person could
move safely and confidently by moving a cane, listening to traffic noise and
the echoes made by the cane tip, noting wind and sun direction, and feeling
the contours of the ground.

In reality blind people depend on finding
objects with a light tap of the cane and then avoiding them. The long white
cane is very good at identifying cars parked across sidewalks, holes in the
street, and parking meters.

It is hard for sighted people to believe
that blind people really do know where they are and where they are bound. I
have a blind friend who entered the elevator in her office building one morning
to find that the only other passenger was a gentleman. As she stepped in, he
inquired, "Do you know what floor you want?" She smiled and pushed
the correct button, but she wondered what he thought she was planning to do
in the elevator if she didn't know
where she was going.

As a blind traveler I always appreciate
receiving accurate information in an unfamiliar area. In my work I travel a
good deal, so I frequently find myself in unfamiliar airports. I was once walking
toward the ground transportation area of an airport new to me when I became
aware that a man was following me down the almost deserted concourse.

My cane touched a sign post, and I detoured
around it and continued toward the exit. The man said, "I don't understand
how you walk so straight." I commented that I had obviously not been walking
quite straight or I would not have touched the sign. He replied, "I have
been watching you for a hundred yards, and I know what you've done. I explained
that the public address speakers in the ceiling, the periodic metal strips running
across the concourse, and the conversation of other people all helped me walk
along the proper path.

As we came to the terminal, I asked him
for directions to the escalator. Without a pause he said, "Thirty feet
ahead at two o'clock." I thanked him and commented that he must be a pilot.
He was surprised that I had guessed his occupation, but pilots, too, have to
know where they are and how to talk about it. Many people find it hard to give
good directions to a blind person, and sometimes the stress of giving directions
is just too much. I will never forget a conversation I had with a member of
the staff of a hotel in which I was staying for a week. On the first morning
of my visit I was standing in the lobby with my secretary, asking her questions
about the floor plan of the area. We were having a hard time communicating without
using the points of the compass for reference. So I stopped an employee to ask
which way north was. The woman paused a moment and then announced, "We
don't have north here."

I assured her that even though the river
flowing through the city meant that the streets did not run exactly north-south
and east-west, compasses still indicated north in that part of the world, but
she couldn't tell me which way it was. In the end I had
to put my question to someone else.

In short, there is nothing magical about
using a long white cane. It takes practice, common sense, and good information.
You can help.