Georgina Kleege is a writer who by the age of 11 was declared legally blind as a
result of macular degeneration. Primarily she is a writer of fiction but took
pen to paper or fingers to keyboard to write very differently about blindness in
our society and how blindness is portrayed in movies, literature, and art and
its effect on her as a person and on us as a reader. She spent many years
working hard so that others around her might not actually know that she was
blind. She also brings up many issues, which we might just deal with
differently with our patients after reading this book. I know I will.
Here is a section from the
introduction:
Both my parents were visual
artists. I grew up surrounded by there are and an awareness that vision
involves more than merely aiming the eyes at a particular object. Viewing a
painting requires conscious mental effort, an understanding of the choices the
artist made, a knowledge of the aesthetic traditions and conventions that the
artist works within or against, a familiarity with the methods of applying and
fixing pigments. Similarly, viewing a movie require the ability to decode a
complex array of visual messages. The pleasure I derive from visual media,
and from the visible world in general, suggest that
although my eyes are blind, my brain is still most sighted.
In the opening section,
“Blindness and Culture”, she spends a good deal of time talking about the word
blind and all the things it triggers in people. It is apparent
that she has had some very traditional eye care but that she has
also come in contact with some vision care professionals who go well beyond
this. From that section:
To express the opposite of
blindness, however, we need at least two words. Generally, we use the words
sight and vision interchangeably, though recently some eye
specialists make a distinction, using sight to refer to the functioning
of the eye itself and vision to refer to the functioning of the eye and
brain together. Originally vision was used to mean spiritual or
metaphysical perception. Later it became synonymous with sight. In common
usage positive connotations predominate. Seeing, after all, is believing.
We speak of vision as a virtue. We want our leaders to be at clear-sighted,
if not possessed of “that vision thing.” We hold dear our views, outlooks,
and perspectives. We know a picture is worth a thousand words. We want to
see eye to eye. (Page 22)
She puts to rest the idea that blind people hear better or have their other
senses become more acute. She states:
You discover not that you hear better but that you are better
able to make sense of sounds. (Page 32)
In a section entitled, Blind Phenomenology – The Minds’ Eye, she
states:
The sighted can be so touchingly naïve about vision. They
apparently believe that the brain stays out of it. Or at best, they extend the
camera metaphor and envision a tiny self seated inside the skill, passively
watching images as they are projected on a movie screen, then pushing buttons
and pulling the levers that will make the body respond appropriately by
speaking, running, reaching, or closing the eyes. (Page 96)
The sighted preserve this absolute faith in the image despite
everyday experiences when their eyes deceive them or when they see more (or
less) than actually meets their eyes. For example, picture this. You are
waiting to meet a friend in a crowded train station. You are able to spot him
from across the large waiting room, a distance of perhaps forty yards or so.
The next day you are there again, waiting for someone else. Your friend of the
day before also shows up and walks toward you, buy you do not recognize him
until he is much closer, perhaps only a yard or two away. Why? The image
projected on your retina is pretty much the same. And you’re alert to it,
actively scanning the crowd. Your friend’s image is there in your eye on
Tuesday as it was on Monday. You should see him but you don’t. (Page 97)
Throughout her treatment ophthalmologists have consistently
treated her in certain ways that she talks about at length in the text. To sum
up some of what she learned she states:
Ophthalmologists are not necessarily well versed in the
neurology and psychology of vision. What goes on in the brain is someone
else’s province. (Page 102)
Later in the same section where she is explaining how she
experiences her visual condition she states:
The unimpaired human eye provides the brain with such a surfeit
of visual information that only a certain amount consciously registers at any
moment. In effect, your brain privileges certain aspects of the retina’s
images and disregards others. Each eye sends the brain a billion messages per
second. Together the two eyes transmit twice as much information to the brain
as the rest of the body combined. With all this information flooding in every
second, the perceptual system seems designed to adapt readily to losses and
distortions, whether because of eye damage or other circumstances. (Page 107)
In talking about a type of visual training she talks of a
prominent athlete who worked on improving his vision.
Certain people in certain lines of work seem to train their
perceptual systems to perform specific visual tasks that other people would find
impossible. Such people may have only average eyesight but seem to see more,
more quickly and more accurately. Senator Bill Bradley claims that during his
basketball playing days he trained himself to use his peripheral vision more
accurately, as a way to give himself an advantage on the court. He would walk
past a store window with his eyes aimed straight ahead and try to identify the
objects on display. Then he would go back and check. Over time, he claims, he
actually expanded his visual field. (Page 109)
Relative to the type and degree of our conditions, we learn to
interpret the world through minimal visual information. We learn to combine
these imperfect and incomplete images with our other sensory perceptions, plus
what we know about the laws of nature, and call it the world. (Page 110)
Later she gets into the concepts of compensating for visual loss
with gadgets and devices.
…no single device, or even a gambit of gadgets, can completely
compensate for the sight you’ve lost. To be an informed consumer of all the
equipment now on the market, you will have to think of vision is a new way.
Vision is a series of discrete activities, not a constant, seamless, pervasive
ebb and flow of information. What’s more, you will need to prioritize, decide
which activities are worth performing visually. Otherwise you may leave the
doctor’s office laden with cumbersome and expensive paraphernalia but little
guidance on how to deal with the world without sight. (Page 114)
In the last parts of the book she talks about the manner in which
society has classified books-on-tape as a sort of second-class type of reading.
Many busy people who listen to books on tape while driving or exercising seem to
be apologetic and consider this form of “reading” inferior to the actual process
of reading. She talks at length about this actually being a different manner of
experiencing written text and how she uses it in her own life. She is an
English composition and writing teacher at a college and must grade papers. I
found it very interesting her discussion of what she looks for in a good
reader.
She also addresses the issue of learning Braille, which she did
not do until late in life, when you are not supposed to be able to do this.
She laments not having been exposed to Braille much earlier in life.
However, this was seen at that time, as shouting to the world, “I’m BLIND” and
this was not a step to be taken lightly. All the ophthalmologists and
other people in her life just thought that using more magnification of better
devices that they could just keep moving on. Although with devices she can
read some text in a very laborious style using what sight she has left, learning
Braille freed her from the extreme physical efforts involved and allowed her
another way to access written language. I certainly will consider
suggesting to some people who may be in a similar situation to Georgina that
they learning Braille earlier in life as a direct result of reading this book.
There is so much more to be harvested from this book. This is a must read.
QUICK REFERENCE!