When I was young, I read all of the Laura Ingalls Wilder series. I remember feeling as if my own sister was developing blindness when Laura's sister, Mary, did. I don't know if that point was the precipitating moment for my pondering a loss of senses but ever since then I have wondered from time to time what it would be like to be without one of them-----my eyesight, sense of hearing, taste...
I thought about it again this weekend after listening to the very last piece of This American Life; it was an audible story of a blind girl exploring a cemetery in England. It's rather fascinating.
I think in my own life, without sight, I would be lost----no colors to dance upon my eyes; and how I would draw, sew, and enjoy photography?
But, there would be other things that would allow me to navigate through my life. Sounds and smells, for instance, marking the changing of the seasons. The sounds of summer----- campers pulling into the nearby campground. The smell of campfire smoke and that inexplicable smell of campground showers (shampoo & soap mixed with early morning air) that signal the height of summer here. Or the plaintive call of the Red Breasted Robin in the evening, just before the sun sets.
And this distinctive early summer birdsong--- the song of the Swainson's Thrush. It is so distinctive that when some of our friends were visiting from another part of the country, they thought the call of this bird was my husband lurking in the woods playing a trick on them. The link above will bring you to a site with this bird's beautiful song. Funny, the bird itself is rather plain looking-----all the more reason to have a wondrous song, I guess. They are only here for a couple months; traveling through on their migration south----but their song is truly a gift of the season.
Thank goodness I haven't developed the same malady that Mary did, but as I've grown older I have come to realize that within the human spirit is the will to survive----to bend to the wills of life. I appreciate what I have, but I know I have the strength to tackle obstacles that might come----that it's all part of life. But for now, I appreciate what I do have and live in the moment.