Diverse Abilities

It is totally okay to use the words see, look, and watch when talking to someone who is blind. These are not uncomfortable words for the majority of us who are blind. We do see, look, and watch only differently.

You look at a garden and see a beautiful orange rose. You smile as you admire how pretty it looks.

Please let me share with you how I see that same rose using no vision.

I go right up to the flower and gently feel the soft and many velvet-like, petals.  At the same time, I breathe in and smell the sweet floral scent. While I am there smelling I continue to gently feel the stem and thorns while listening to the bumblebees buzzing from flower to flower around me.

I do not see the pretty orange flower the same way as you, but I see it as equally beautiful but different.

I use touch to identify objects instead of my eyesight. When I know what something is, as I touch it I in turn am seeing that object. If I touch something and do not know what it is. I learn what it is, what it does, and I feel it and understand it better. The next time I see (touch) that item I will know exactly what it is.

When I am looking for my lipstick in my purse, I move my hand around inside my purse until I feel the lipstick. When I apply my lipstick, I do not look in the mirror as I can not see my image clearly.  I roll up the lipstick and gently feel it with my fingers, so I know I have not rolled it too high to break. I then hold the lipstick and with my index finger, I guide the lipstick to my lip feeling my lip first.  I then apply the lipstick and can feel it is even by pressing my lips together and moving my jaw to feel an even glide of gloss over my lips.

I watch T.V. shows and movies just like you only I turn on a feature called audio description built into the settings already on Telus Optic T.V. and Netflix. What is audio description? It is a feature that you can turn on in settings and a narrator describes what is visually happening on the screen. This way I watch the same shows and movies as you, only I watch it a bit differently.

I still see, look, and watch like everyone else, just in a manner that works for me.