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Garden State — selections from the soundtrack. Especially Iron & Wine's cover of "Such Great Heights." I just saw this movie on Friday and it's still with me; I'm tempted to write a really long review of it here.... |
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To live exhilaratingly in and for the moment is deadly serious work, fun of the most exhausting sort.
— Barbara Harrison |
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I can be reached at romanlily ~at~hotmail.com. Or you can join the notify list here. |
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September 13, 2004
Shopping Spree
If you've never gone on a shopping spree with a blind person, you really should try it. I had my first chance a few weeks ago with Rita.
My encounter with the blind man on Peachtree Street last spring inspired me to finally sign up for volunteer service at Atlanta's Center for the Visually Impaired a few months ago.
After I'd completed my volunteer training, I was referred to a woman named Rita. She lives on her own in a condo just a few miles from me.
I wasn't sure what to expect, but we hit it off. Rita is a fantastic, strong, independent woman. She has a couple of grown children and even a few grandchildren. She works full-time in a professional job and serves on the speaker's bureau for CVI and also serves as a mentor to visually impared youth in Atlanta. She's a busy girl.
On our Saturdays together, we'll go run some errands. We'll take her seeing eye dog, Ramsey, to the groomer, then swing by the grocery store or the hardware store. (Atlanta's public transportation is so crappy that there are some errands Rita just can't do on her own.) We'll eat lunch together and then sometimes I'll help her with chores around her place.
One of the first things Rita told me was that she loved shopping. Couldn't get enough of it. Shopaholic! she said.
I didn't really know what this meant. How does a blind person shop? Is it even possible for a person like Rita to love shopping?
So it was with great interest that I agreed to accompany her on a shopping trip a couple of weeks ago. She wanted to pick out a dress for her granddaughter, a little suit for her grandson. Oh, and matching shoes. And socks. Maybe another play outfit for the granddaughter. And maybe a nice pair of jeans for her grandson. And a pair of sandals for her, Rita, too, because why should the grandchildren have all the fun?
We hit the department store on Saturday morning and were there for three very intense hours. We shopped til we dropped. Or until our feet really hurt.
My role during the trip was to serve as a sort of personal assistant to Rita. I listened to what she wanted to buy, then led her to the appropriate section of the store, and picked out different items and let her handle them. The whole process was weirdly fascinating.
My powers of description were pressed to the limit during our excursion. I tried to push my descriptions toward the poetic. "Rita, I have a toddler girl's Sunday dress in my hands. It is a loosefitting gown made of pink gingham, fringed with white lace and decorated with purple and yellow flower applique. It comes with a matching white straw hat. If Jackie O was a toddler in 2004, this is what she would be wearing..."
We shopped and shopped and shopped. Rang up $350 worth of stuff, shipped it all to the grandkids.
So we've built a little routine together. Sometimes instead of getting together on Saturdays. I'll pick her up after work. We'll drop off Ramsey at the groomer's, and we'll take ourselves to dinner. Lately we've been going to the Roman Lily Cafe, and then we'll walk just a few paces down the bumpy sidewalk to Jake's for ice cream. (Is it a good thing or a bad thing when your ice cream "frequent diner" card is almost full?)
A couple of weeks ago, Roman Lily was closed, so we visited the Old Spaghetti Factory on Ponce de Leon Avenue. She requested a menu in Braille, and they actually had one.
Watching Rita read Braille is surprisingly powerful. The things that people are capable of never cease to astound me.
After reading the Braille menu, she told me that she misses reading books. I've never asked Rita how she lost her sight, but apparently at one point many years ago, it was good enough for her to be a voracious reader. She says that audiobooks really don't work the same way as reading in print does. The information enters your brain a different way — she finds listening to books less satisfying than reading them.
I certainly ended that day with a deeper gratitude for my own ability to read.
Two things keep coming back to me during my time with Rita.
The first thing: it sounds all saintly, right, the way I do this work for a blind woman? Well, it's not. I never, ever feel like going to help her after work. I usually have a bad attitude about it. After work I'm often grouchy and worn out, and the last thing I want to do is to go pick her up and drive around running errands.
But every time I just try to remember that she's counting on me, and I go do it anyway. And I'm always glad, every time. Every time I help her out, I end up having a great time myself. (Funny how that works.)
The second thing is that the world is not as horrible a place as I sometimes think it is. I'm encouraged when I see how kind people are to Rita. People go out of their way to assist her, though she often remains unaware of their kindness. They give her a huge discount on the dog grooming, or they say gentle words to her, or they accommodate us in the grocery store as we make our unwieldy, obnoxious way up and down the aisles.
Some people don't quite know how to act around her (hint to the general public: blind people have trouble seeing, but they are not deaf). But after an evening of moving through the world with Rita, it becomes a gentler, sweeter place. And I am grateful that she has allowed me to see this.
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