September 23 - Accepting Assistance

These past three weeks I have been in Australia visiting family. During my time away, I often needed to be out and about by myself. Mostly this was in unfamiliar places. I was surprised by how awkward this felt. I was also surprised by offers of assistance from strangers. Sometimes these offers were very helpful and at other times, not so much.

For instance, one day I had gone for a short walk in the neighbourhood where my sister lives. I was concentrating on my location and heading back to her home when from across the street I heard a male voice shouting out an offer to help me across the road. This was so unexpected that it took me a moment to realized that the young man was speaking to me. I did manage to thank the helpful stranger and continued on my original path. I’m still unsure as to why he thought I needed to cross to the other side of the street.

While this offer was a bit of overkill, I then remembered sitting near another young man in the airport lounge. There was nobody around to direct me to any of the goodies available there and I was very thirsty. I asked this stranger if he could perhaps get me a glass of water. He obliged but did so without uttering a word. He then sat in the chair next to me eating and drinking his own coffee and ignoring me completely.  Perhaps he was embarrassed by my helplessness.

My best experience was at the Sydney airport. My guide had obviously had some training in helping folk with visual challenges. She identified herself by name and then asked me, “Now, how can I best assist you?”  The airport that morning was exceptionally busy with an industrial action which led to long line-ups and crowds of people milling about. With my assigned guide’s simple question, I was able to briefly describe that I did have some limited vision, that I preferred to take her right elbow and that it was best if I stayed quite close to her. Her question and my response immediately took the stress out of what could have been a very stressful situation.

While these instances are at different points on the continuum, they have given me cause to ponder. While I might know precisely what assistance I need, people who don’t know me or my sight challenges, are only able to offer assistance from their own experience and perspective. I think that my own response to these situations is to be as gracious as I can be in acknowledging the concern that has been shown to me.

September 16 - Degree of Difficulty

I am nearly always ready to face new challenges but I think that sometimes it is the smaller things in life that are more likely to trip me up. For instance which of the following would you think would have the greater degree of difficulty for a visually impaired person?

a.  a journey of several thousand miles over a 24 hour time period and involving 2 separate flight segments.

b.  a taxi ride of only 2 or 3 kilometers and perhaps 10 minutes in duration.

Recently I experienced both of these so please let me tell you a bit more about each.

Ten days ago Lyle drove me to the airport to begin a flight from Canada to Australia. After I checked in Lyle secured a gate pass so that he could escort me right to the boarding area. From here I was escorted onto the plane and shown to my assigned seat. In Vancouver there was a similar process. I was guided from my first flight to the departure lounge for the second flight. During the course of both flights I received excellent consideration and courtesy from the Air Canada cabin crew. In Sydney ground crew helped me through customs and immigration and identified my luggage for me. I was then guided to the exit where my sister Jill was waiting for me. Although I initially had some nervous trepidation about the trip everything went like a breeze.

Now for trip B. A few days after my arrival in Australia I got sick and needed to make a doctor’s appointment. Because Jill was also unwell I needed to get to this appointment under my own steam. The taxi ride to the doctor’s office was not especially difficult. However the challenge came on the way home.

The receptionist called for the cab and alerted me when it arrived outside the office. She told me it was directly out the front door and there it would be. I stood with my white cane and proceeded out the door. I could not see a taxi. There seemed to be several dark coloured cars parked alongside the curb of a very busy road. I stood uncertain as to what I should be doing. There were butterflies in my tummy. At that point another patient rushed out of the medical centre, grabbed me by the elbow, propelled me forward between the parked cars where the taxi had double parked. It was all beyond my line of sight. The good Samaritan opened the cab door and bundled me inside somehow managing to do up my seatbelt in the process.

So, by now you might have guessed which of these two trips was more complicated for me - the marathon journey across the Pacific or the short jaunt by taxi. As I wrote, sometimes it is the seemingly simple tasks that are more confusing and pose a greater degree of difficulty. I am grateful to the good Samaritan who helped me find my taxi.

September 2 - Palms and Perspective

Did you know that there are over two thousand different species of palms? Probably the best known of these is the tall tree bearing coconuts, but in fact, not all palms are even trees. Some are shrubs or bushes and not all palm trees bear fruit.

When I was growing up in Australia, there was a large palm tree growing in our front yard. It was tall and had a thick trunk. Sometimes as youngsters we would try to encircle the trunk with our outstretched arms. We would press our faces against the rough bark and reaching out we would see if we could get our fingertips to touch. My memory says that it took three of us to do this successfully.

At the time, we lived in the same house as my grandmother and the tree was a source of annoyance for her. Strong winds would sometimes blow the spiky palms down from the treetop littering the garden path below. The pigeons who built their nests among the palms also left their evidence on the path. On the odd occasion a pigeon would become disoriented and find itself trapped in the chimney of the house and down into my grandmother’s bedroom. My grandmother was a neat and tidy person and she found all this quite distressing.

In Maui, the palm trees we saw were a different kind. They were very tall with narrow smooth trunks. They must also have had good root systems because even when the wind blew gustily, the trees swayed but always appeared to be firmly planted into the ground.

I liked these palm trees for another reason. Our condo unit was on the sixth floor and when I looked out from our balcony, I could actually see the top of the nearest palm. Of course, from that height, I couldn’t see the base of the tree. This was quite different for me because when I am on the ground, I normally can’t see the tops of trees.  It seemed an almost upside down way of seeing things. I guess that it is all a matter of perspective!

Following are two pictures. The first is of a row of palm trees along the walkway between Ulua and Polo Beaches. The second is of the tall palm tree taken from our sixth floor balcony. Even at this height one needs to look up to the top.

Row of palm trees

 

Palm tree