We Don't Have North here

We Don't Have North here

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.