Notes on Blindness Page #2

Now...

it will be cloudy, um,

throughout the evening.

Er...

and a big patch of wind on the,

um, satellite picture

just coming over and lots of...

What now?

What next?

I'd learnt how to lecture without notes.

Learnt how to recognise

the students by their voices.

The cassettes were pouring in faster

than I could read them.

All of that was done.

It was at that point

I realised

that I had to think about blindness

because if I didn't understand it

it would defeat me.

This is cassette one, track one.

Notes on Blindness

and this is the 21st of June,

After nearly three years of blindness,

I find that the pictures

in the gallery of my mind

have dimmed somewhat.

People and places I know and love so well.

Memories of my early life

spent in Australia.

So I found with great distress

that I could no longer remember easily

what my wife looked like.

Or what my daughter, Imogen, looked like.

I found that memories of photographs

were more easily recaptured.

In the case of my daughter, Imogen,

I have a wide range

of visual memories of her.

Of Thomas, now nearly three,

I have a few very vague impressions

based upon the first six or nine months

of his life

before I lost sight altogether.

And of Elizabeth,

I have no visual memories at all

and never have had.

Just a minute.

I am concerned

to understand blindness,

to seek its meaning,

to retain the fullness of my humanity.

We need to know

what kind of necessity is it.

Is it a psychological necessity?

Is it logical?

Is it a historical necessity?

A note on smiles.

Nearly every time I smile,

I'm conscious of smiling.

I mean, I'm conscious of the movement.

Even, one might say, the effort of smiling.

I think the reason is that

there is no returning smile.

One never gets anything for

one's own smiles.

One is sending off dead letters.

Consequently, I can feel myself

stopping smiling.

Or I think I can.

I must ask someone close to me

whether this is true or not.

A note on Thomas' awareness of my blindness.

He sadly wandered off into the mountains,

knowing that he could never look into

the beautiful eyes

of Rapunzel again.

Thomas asked me, "Why was he blind?"

"Because his eyes were poorly."

"My eyes are poorly."

He said to me in a very serious

and probing voice...

"Are you blind?"

"Yes, I am."

"Your eyes are closed."

"Yes, but even when I open my eyes,

I still can't see."

"Can't you see the pictures?"

"I can see the pictures."

"Your eyes aren't poorly."

I put my hand over his eyes

and held his eyes closed.

"Now can you see?" I said.

He said, "No."

"Now?"

"Yes, I can see now."

"Yes, my eyes aren't poorly."

I am reminded of being in Wales with Imogen,

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