There’s lots of kinds of teamwork.

Last week my friend Dean and I parked downstairs in his man cave and watched part of an NFL game. At one point, Dean looked away from the screen and said, “These guys just beat the **** out of each other.” I was thinking precisely the same thing at that very moment.

Watching football is getting less and less attractive to me as I get older. Research about the debilitating effect of not only concussions, but the cumulative damage of multiple non-concussive blows to the head, is making me more and more squeamish about watching people do this to one another every weekend. Stories like this about the 1985 Super Bowl Champion Bears make me squirm a little more. When the likes of Mike Ditka says he wouldn’t let his kid play football if he faced that decision today, it’s noteworthy.

I’m not sure what I’d do if I had a kid who wanted to play football. Like any sport, football, if coached well—surely has a lot to offer in terms of learning teamwork and unselfishness and perseverance.

One thing I am sure I’d encourage if I had a kid coming of age—I’d urge him or her to play a musical instrument and play in a band. Growing up, I didn’t associate the notion of teamwork with playing in a school band, or rock and roll band, or jazz ensemble. But of course, it combines all the virtues that are commonly associated with team sports.

In a band or orchestra, you strive for individual excellence, but must put individual interests second to the collective goal of the group. It’s competitive, whether it’s competition for first chair or matching chops in an open jam. You learn you win some you lose some.

I think the same can be said for other group artistic endeavors, like live theater. And, as I’ve learned of late, improv.

For about ever, I’ve confided with Beth that I’d like to take an improv class at Second City or iO, two vaunted institutions of improvisation here in Chicago. I’ve never had delusions of stardom but having watched and enjoyed improv over the years, I developed a fascination with it. Plus, while those who know me know I’m not a conversational wallflower, if you put me in front of an audience I revert to the adolescent, voice cracking, eight grader in speech class.

So, Beth, partly because she always finds the most thoughtful Christmas gifts for me (and I suspect also out of self interest so she wouldn’t hear me talk about doing it anymore) gifted me the eight-week Level 1 class at ImprovOlympic.

I just finished my second session, and I can tell you—it can be nerve wracking, intense, and exhilarating. And you have no choice but to rely on your fellow team members and to support them. It’s not something I understood about improv—doh—but I’ve never done anything, business, sports, or otherwise, that forces me to identify and drop self-consciousness, pre-conceived notions about people, and personal agendas—like this class does.

I’m the oldest in my class, no surprise. It’s been something of a revelation to learn that I can still push myself out of my comfort zone, overcome my fear, and live to enjoy it and tell about it. I hope to write more about it later.

I can happily say that, so far, no one in my group has suffered concussions or other injury.

I usually avoid reading novels and short stories with characters who are blind. Too many fiction writers portray blind characters one-dimensionally — we’re either heroic or tragic, bumbling or, particularly lately, blessed with super-powers.

But Anthony Doerr isn’t like other authors.

One of the main characters in Doerr’s current best-selling novel All the Light We Cannot See is blind, but there’s much more to Marie-Laure LeBlanc than that. She grew up in Paris, her father is raising her on his own. The two of them evacuate to a village in Brittany called St. Malo after Paris is invaded by the Nazis, her father goes missing, and she’s a teenager by the time the Americans arrive on D-Day.

Doerr writes in third-person, and his chapters are very short — they swing back and forth between the changes young Marie-Laure is enduring in France and those that Werner Pfennig, an orphaned teenager in Germany, faces when placed in an elite Nazi training school there during WWII.

The author avoids using visual descriptions in the chapters about Marie-Laure, since they are written from her point of view. So here’s a question for you blog readers who’ve read the book already: I bet you can describe Marie-Laure’s beloved Papa , but any idea what he looks like? Probably not, because the author never tells us that. There is little, if any, visual description of Étienne or Madame Manec (the pair Marie-Laure and her Papa live with in exile) either, yet readers come to know these characters very well, too. Here’s an example from early in the book, before Marie-Laure’s cigarette-smoking Papa goes missing:

Every time she comes within earshot, Marie-Laure hears the “Pfsssst!” of her father lighting another match. His hands flutter between his pockets.

Afternoons he repairs things around Étienne’s house: a loose cabinet door, a squeaking stair board. He asks Madame Manec about the reliability of the neighbors. He flips the locking clasp on his toolcase over and over, until Marie-Laure begs him to stop.

Marie-Laure doesn’t have to be able to see her Papa to know he is anxious, and neither do we. If Marie-Laure could see, the author wouldn’t have pointed out that she sees the cabinet door he is fixing, he would have just said “he’s fixing a cabinet door.” And so, he doesn’t use extra words to point out Marie-Laure hears the squeaky cabinet door, either. We know he’s fixing the cabinet door the same way Marie-Laure would know, and that helps us stay right in her head and experience her life during WWII the way she is.

As I continued reading, I noticed how often Doerr chose the verb “find” rather than describe Mari-Laure “feeling through” something or “”touching” an object. Sounds simple, I guess, but to me, keeping it simple like this is brilliant. Over and over again, the author resists the temptation to sound trumpets to remind the reader that Marie-Laure can’t see, and that keeps readers in the moment. Here’s another example, this one from later in the book when Marie Laure is alone and escaping into the attic:

Only thing to do is climb. Seven runs up into the long triangular tunnel of the garret. The raw timbered ceiling rises on both sides toward the peak, just higher than the top of her head.
Heat has lodged itself up here. No window. No exit. No where else to run. No way out, except the way she has come.

The passage continues:

Her outstretched fingers find an old shaving bowl, an umbrella stand, and a crate full of who-knows-what. The attic floor boards beneath her feet are as wide across as her hands. She knows from experience how much noise a person walking on them makes.

Isn’t it something, the way that using senses beyond the visual can make writing more colorful? I’m hard at work on a book of what I’m learning from the memoir classes I lead, and now I just might borrow some of the verb choices and twists of phrase that Anthony Doerr used in All the Things We Cannot See in my own writing. Downright enlightening to learn that a sighted writer is teaching me new ways to describe the way I do things!

I’ll leave you with a quote from Marie-Laure near the end of All the Light We Cannot See. I especially related to this quote, and if you haven’t already, I heartily recommend you read this book. It’s très bien.

“When I lost my sight, people said I was brave. When my father left, people said I was brave. But it is not bravery; I have no choice. I wake up and live my life. Don’t you do the same?”

Whitney posed as Hanni during our visit to Sears School last year — can you tell which is which?

Whitney usually leads me to the train station in downtown Chicago on her own, but when my gem of a husband, Mike Knezovich, generously offered to walk us this morning, I said “YES!” Reasons:

• Freezing temperatures — if Whitney and I got lost or turned around for just a few minutes, we’d end up with frostbite!
• Snowy slippery sidewalks
• Salt (Mike can spot it on the roads and help us avoid those areas so it doesn’t end up in Whit’s paws)
• The train we’re catching leaves at 7:52 a.m., which means we’ll be approaching the train station precisely when commuters are getting off trains and rushing to work

Today marks the start of our 2015 year of visits to schools — we’re heading to the Joseph Sears School in suburban Kenilworth. We were at Sears School last year about this time, and the kindergartners squealed with delight when Whitney led me in wearing snow boots on her paws. “That‘s our special guest Mrs. Fink,” their teacher announced. “And that’s Hanni, the dog from the book, too!”

We’d arrived late to Sears School last year (our commuter train had been delayed in Chicago due to weather) and our opening assembly had to be cut back to 15 minutes. After that, Whit and I gave separate fifteen-minute sessions for each and every kindergarten and first grade class.

Fifteen minutes was not enough time to explain that my last name, Finke, rhymes with “Pinky” and really, I prefer you call me Beth, that Hanni, the star of my book Hanni and Beth: Safe & Sound, had retired, that this was a new dog, I’d had to decide when it was time for Hanni to retire, I could have kept Hanni as a pet or brought her back to the Seeing eye but I decided to find friends to adopt her, that she’s doing fine and is living an enviable retirement in Urbana, that I had another dog after that, his name was Harper, he retired early and lives in Wheaton with friends, and now, this new dog is Whitney, a sassy urban girl who is a ball of energy.

And so, I did what I had to do. I referred to the dog at my feet generically. She was “my Seeing Eye dog.” Ick snay on it-whey ee-nay. The questions during the classroom visits last year reflected what the kindergartners and first-graders were learning to do in school:

• How do you put on your shoes?
• How can you print your name if you can’t see the paper?
• How do you read those green signs that tell you what street it is?
• How do you get dressed?
• Can you tell time?
• Does your dog really know right from left?

I was honest with the little girl who asked that last question. I really wasn’t sure. “We say the word ‘left’ when we want our dogs to turn left,” I told her. I went on, then, explaining how Seeing Eye trainers teach us to point to the left and face our shoulders left, too, at the same time we give the “left” command. “So I don’t know if my Seeing Eye dog understands the word ‘left’ or she sees my body language….” I could hear the kids starting to fidget. I was losing my audience, so I stood up to show them how it works.

In the real world, out on the street, a blind person memorizes or knows the route before leaving home. The pair gets themselves situated on the sidewalk and faces the direction they’ll start. The blind person commands “Forward!” and the dog guides them safely to the curb. When the dog stops, the person stops. That’s how a blind person using a guide dog knows they have arrived at an intersection.

If the person wants to turn right or left at that corner, the person commands the direction, simultaneously turning their upper body in that direction and pointing in that direction, too. The dog turns, and the blind companion follows the dog’s lead.

Back in the school classroom, I woke up the dog sleeping at my feet and lifted the harness off her back. And then, uh-oh, it dawned on me. These kids all thought my dog was Hanni.

Dog is my co-pilot. I offered a quick prayer. “Please, Whitney, go along with the ruse.” Pointing both shoulders and my pointer finger left, I commanded, “Hanni, left!” My Seeing Eye dog turned left with more exuberance than usual. She was onto the fake. I gave her another command. “Hanni, outside!” Whitney led me to the door.

This morning we should be there in plenty of time for me to explain to the students that Hanni, the star of Safe & Sound, has retired, and Whitney is my new dog. Our school visits this past year taught me that the kids are intrigued by a dog “retiring,” and it makes them feel special to meet the young dog – especially when she misbehaves and I have to put her through her obedience ritual. “It’s like a time out!” a boy at one school we visited exclaimed.

Just pressed the button on my talking clock. “It’s 5:52 a.m.” Uh-oh. Time to get ready. Wish us luck!

Beth wrote a post last week about how author Laura Hillenbrand and NPR’s Terry Gross—like Beth—conduct interviews without being able to see their subjects. Of course, that’s owed to very different circumstances for each of them. Not being able to do something in a conventional way can be the mother of invention for other methods that have their own merits, and that has long been fascinating to me.

That happens when you live with someone who is blind for 30 years, and with someone with multiple disabilities (our son Gus) for 16 of those years.

I’ve observed all sorts of workarounds. They range from Beth using rubber bands to distinguish shampoo from conditioner, to a wobbly Gus getting off the couch to steady himself with a hand on an end table so that he could sidle over to the living room wall, where, from there, he could go all over the damn place holding on to said wall. And Beth, somehow, finding my eyeglasses in our apartment after they’d gone missing for weeks. (I may have never found them.)

Beth’s written about using talking computers, which sort of replicates the way sighted people use computers, and about her talking iPhone. These are remarkable things that have made an enormous difference in countless lives.

But I’m not talking about replicating an ability here. It’s something else.

I’m thinking about this again, for the umpteenth time, because of a recent This American Life radio segment about a man who was born blind who has learned to maneuver using echolocation, a kind of sonar. It involves his clicking and using the sound feedback to conceive of and navigate the spaces and objects around him. So well that he, his mother, and—it seemed to me the reporters—believe that this echolocation is like seeing with eyes. He’s nicknamed Batman.

Well, the radio story is compelling but it is problematic, in my opinion, on several levels—reportage, semantics, implicit judgments, and others. I need to listen to it again before I can formulate my thoughts. But it is a worthwhile piece, I hope you’ll listen to it, and undeniably this Batman guy has a one-of-a-kind story and he does get around in a remarkably fascinating way.

Anyway, back to Beth’s post. Beth focused on the way Laura Hillenbrand got the most out of long-distance interviews. Another part caught my attention. The article puts it this way:

It may be tempting to think of Hillenbrand as someone who has triumphed in spite of her illness. The truth is at once more complicated and more interesting. Many of the qualities that make Hillenbrand’s writing distinctive are a direct consequence of her physical limitations. Every writer works differently, but Hillenbrand works more differently than any writer I know of. She has been forced by the illness to develop convoluted workarounds for some of the most basic research tasks, yet her workarounds, in all their strange complexity, deliver many of her greatest advantages.

The writer goes on to say that Hillenbrand’s chronic fatigue syndrome prevents her from leaving the house to read old newspapers on microfiche.

“Instead,” the article goes on, “Hillenbrand buys vintage newspapers on eBay and reads them in her living room, as if browsing the morning paper.”

It was that kind of immersion in the news, advertisements, and the tone of the time that helped inform her superb writing for Seabiscuit. And it also led to her writing Unbroken, very directly: While reading an article about Seabiscuit in one of the old newspapers, she saw an item about Louie Zamperini. And that became her next project.

It likely would not have happened if she could get out to the library to view microfiche.

And that’s what I’m talking about.

When our friend Mary Ivory told me early last year that she and her husband were going to volunteer to raise a puppy for Leader Dogs for the Blind, I asked if she’d be willing to write a blog post about the experience. Mary is a clinical professional counselor, social worker, life coach, and co-author of Parenting by Strengths: A Parent’s Guide for Challenging Situations — she’s a busy woman, but she said yes to my offer right away, feeling sure she’d find the time to write. 

And then, the puppy arrived.

Mike and Mary live on the 12th floor of our apartment building. Imagine how many trips they took up and down the elevator for house training – and that was just the beginning! Mary explains it all in this lovely guest post.

Puppy raising: it changes the street life

By Mary Ivory

Everybody say aaaahhhhhhh! That’s Ananda at a very young age taking a nap.

My laid-back husband Mike came home one day in early November sounding defeated. “I just walked up the street and no one said ‘Hi’ to me!” We’d been living with Ananda, a female Black Labrador Retriever for ten months, and we’d just returned her to Leader Dogs for the Blind in Rochester Hills, Mich., two weeks earlier. Mike had forgotten what urban life without a puppy is like.

We live in a very friendly and close knit neighborhood, but it’s still the big city. Everyone is in a hurry and distracted with their own lives, but you have to slow down when you are walking a puppy, and when others see you with the puppy, they often slow down, smile and say hello, too.

Watching and knowing what a dog can do for a person’s quality of life is a bit of happy mystery. Watching and knowing what a trained service animal can do for a person who needs assistance is the mystery turned into a real miracle. I have always had animals in my life, and as life would happen, I found myself with time and energy to volunteer to raise a puppy for Leader Dogs. Lucky for me, Mike was agreeable to this adventure.

As the job title implies, puppy raisers are charged with creating an environment and focusing on skills to help a puppy become a candidate for a career as a leader — a guide dog for a blind or visually impaired person.

Puppy raising is about nurturing a calm and focused dog to prepare them for the actual skill training that takes place after they are returned. For the first months of life after they leave the litter they live in homes to learn such skills as becoming house broken, yes that means going outside hourly when awake when they are very small. Yes, that means even in the winter of the polar vortex you go for a walk. You also are taught how to teach calm walking on a leash, not easy when your pup is sweet and just full of friendly wiggles and licks, and the other ‘basics’ like sit, stay, come, no, heal, down……oh yes and ‘drop it’ or ‘leave it’ as she snuck a sock from the dirty clothes or found a stray chicken bone on the street.

Everybody say “thank you” to Mary, Mike and all the puppy raisers for all the schools. It’s a tremendous and generous effort.

And all of this happens during all hours of the day, which means you walk down the street a lot. It’s a busy but fun time — strangers snap out of a distracted or grumpy state to talk about the dog, and people seemingly down on their luck rise up to chat about and pet a friendly puppy.

That mystery of connection with animals and people is powerful and amazing to me. My busy city street transformed into a small town lane during the ten months Ananda was living with us. And yes, it was hard to take her back to her career home. Ananda, which means joy or bliss in Sanskrit, was an intense and wonderful presence in our lives.

Today I got an email from the Puppy Development Department at Leader Dogs with this picture telling us she is progressing in her career training. We miss her but are so happy we had this chance to be a part of this great big task, and who knows? We may do it again. Next time, though, we’ll sign up when the dog doesn’t need hourly walks in deep freeze weather.