Unceasing Echoes

On a video chat last night with friends… Someone playing a wonderful piece of music. My phone had fallen out of position and my camera slipped.   Me: “That was lovely, thanks. Did you write that piece?”   Him: “I can’t see you”   Me: “Will you only talk to me if you can see me?”  

Here we are nearly eight weeks into the lockdown and I wanted to comment on how it’s going, how I’m feeling now after nearly two months and the extent to which the struggles in relation to blindness that I highlighted at the start have shifted.   Qualifiers and provisos: I am fortunate to live in a house with a garden and to have my Son’s company through the lockdown .  I live on a street with a strong connected and supportive community , I have friendly/helpful  local shops where I’m known, a partner and a long-established network of friends… And crucially,  I also have a permanent full-time job with a secure salary   I have the (mainstream and specific accessible) technology that I need to work and keep connected with friends and family,  I’ve been able to adapt, develop new skills and learn new software both for communication and recording music.   I’ve tried to avoid wording this to sound terribly smug, that is the last thing that I want to convey. It seems important though to put

(repost to provide contxt for new visitors) I suspect that there is an expectation that a new blogger, particularly one writing about personal issues, should introduce themselves at the start of writing a new blog. I confess that I’m reluctant to do too much of that here at this stage as I hope that who I am )whatever that is) will emerge in ways that I couldn’t predict. More importantly though, I’m reluctant to position, restrict  or limit myself to you by providing too many auto-biographical shortcuts. I think it is probably particularly nuanced for disabled people as strangers’ desire to ‘know’ more about us than the relationship deserves, is so entrenched in our experience. I’m nervous of saying too much about my blindness, how much I might be able to see, how it limits me, how long I’ve been blind for, how I live etc. I’ll see how I go with it … suffice it to say that I am fascinated by the role that blindness has played in shaping who I am and my relationships throughout my life.