I started modeling nude for art students the year I turned 40. The unemployment rate of people who are blind was – and still is – around 70%, and back then the University of Illinois art department was the only place willing to hire me.

My Seeing Eye dog Dora posed with me, and, in the end, most of the drawings were just of her.

Taking my clothes off for college students wasn’t exactly a dream job, but it did have some benefits: standing still for 50-minute poses gave me lots of time to think about my writing, how to reformulate a lead, how to get across a certain idea. I composed my very first published essay in my head while standing naked on a tabletop, and once I got dressed again I rushed home to type the story into my talking computer. Nude Modeling: Goin’ In Blind was picked up by Alternet and published in alternative newspapers all over the country. The success of that essay led to my work on National Public Radio, my one-minute stint on The Oprah Winfrey Show, and, in many ways, the publication of my memoir Long Time, No See.

Last Saturday the New York Times published an essay by another writer who took a job modeling nude for art students. I found Rachel Howard’s essay difficult to read. Not that it was poorly written — I was just jealous I hadn’t thought of writing it myself. In the essay, Ms. Howard describes the short one or two-minute “gesture poses” art instructors ask models to use at the beginning of each class. Quick poses provide students some time to warm-up, and back when I was modeling that idea inspired me to make a habit of writing short email messages before getting into longer pieces of writing. I still do this today — checking the grammar and spelling on the short messages I send out early in the day warms me up for the book writing I do later.

Reading Rachel Howard’s New York Times essay showed me that gesture drawing affected her writing life a little differently:

I was, during those early days of art modeling, struggling to find the life in my stylistically choppy novel. At home alone, I heard the drawing instructors’ voices.
Find the gesture. Don’t worry about the details. What is the essence of that pose? I left my laptop at my desk and moved to the other side of the room to sit on the floor with my notebook.

Funny. The same short poses that inspired me to start my morning working out details (checking for spelling mistakes, watching my grammar) compelled Rachel Howard to do the opposite — to sit on the floor with a notebook and quit worrying about words and sentences. She concludes, “Because really, before we put a word or a mark on the page, both writers and artists must first step back and see. And seeing is not simple.”

Can’t say I agree with that step-back-before-you-write-a-word-on-the-page notion –I tend to write first, step back and listen to what I’ve written, and then work it out from there. As for her last line, “seeing is not simple,” though? I couldn’t agree more.

My friend Lynn LaPlante-Allaway is a professional musician, and earlier this month she sent this email with an offer I couldn’t refuse:

I will be downtown for a rehearsal, would you like me to come by and play my violin for you? I will sit quietly in the corner and play and all you do is lie there, listen and heal.

Lynn arrived two days after I returned from the hospital. Mike met her at the door. I didn’t even get up. She went right to work, setting up behind me so that I wouldn’t feel obligated to smile or react while she played. “I just want you to lie there on the couch, listen, and heal.”

Mike left during Lynn’s performance, and when he returned an hour-and-a-half later he said I looked like I’d just received a massage.

You might remember reading a post I wrote last year about Daniel Levitin, the author of This Is Your Brain on Music. Levitin’s research shows that dopamine (a “feel-good hormone”) is released every time you listen to music you like. Not only that, but listening to music with someone else can release prolactin, a hormone that bonds people together. I’ve never had much success when trying to meditate –I’m just too antsy. Within minutes, however, Lynn’s music had put every worry and pain right out of my mind. It was, in a word, sublime.

Lynn’s beloved mother Alice Gervace LaPlante is the one who inspired Lynn to use music to help friends heal after a trauma. Alice died last year from complications related to Alzheimer’s disease. Lynn had played for her mom her entire life, but she did so with a different intention after Alice got sick.

Alice Gervace LaPlante (left) and my friend Lynn LaPlante-Allaway, taken at one of Lynn’s concerts when Alice was still getting out and about.

“I’d say lots of prayers beforehand, call in all her angels and helpers and mine, too and all sorts of woo woo stuff that works for ME,” she told me. “And when I played for her, I swear to you, something happened: the whole room changed, and my music changed, too.”

The only word Lynn can think of to describe her healing performances is “channeling.” Her own heart rate slows down as she plays, and she says her brain waves slow down, too. She can feel the person she’s playing for slow down as well. “I had no idea I could do this until my Mom got sick.”

Friends have been marveling at how quickly I am recovering, and you blog readers have been leaving comments about how healthy I look in the photos Mike publishes here, too. Many, many good things have combined to help me heal, but I gotta say: that early hit of dopamine and prolactin sure gave my recovery one helluva jumpstart!

It’s been one month since my life-saving heart surgery, and to mark the occasion, Mike and I took a cardio-walk downtown to attend a concert last night. Lynn is the principal violist with the Chicago Jazz Philharmonic, a 55-piece ensemble that combines a jazz band with a symphonic orchestra. “This is the most exciting musical group I’ve ever been a part of,” Lynn told me. “And it just keeps getting better.” Last night was the Chicago Jazz Philharmonic’s first-ever appearance at Orchestra Hall. The music was gorgeous, and knowing Lynn was up there on stage playing her heart out made it all the more special. It was, in a word, sublime.

Hi,

My husband Mike’s giving me a blog break again. Here’s his latest:

She’s back on top of the world.

Grateful that the cab driver who took me to the hospital on Saturday morning was tuned into WBEZ and This American Life. After I got in he turned it down to be polite. I asked him to turn it back up, and we rode to the hospital listening to David Sedaris read his story about his jazz-loving father’s record collection, his dad’s ill-fated attempt to enlist his children into his own private jazz combo, and listening to Sedaris’ uncanny Billy Holiday impressions. The cab driver and I laughed together the whole ride.

Here’s the illustration from the book that sparked the questions.

My friend Nicole Dotto and I both volunteer for Sit Stay Read (SSR), a literacy organization that encourages Chicago Public School kids to love to read. SSR uses dogs and volunteers in all sorts of clever ways: children read aloud to specially trained therapy dogs, human volunteers visit as “book buddies” to help individual kids, and people like me come as guest readers – the books we read to the kids always have something to do with, guess what? Dogs!

I haven’t been able to visit the schools lately with Whitney like I usually do, but…Nicole to the rescue! She read Hanni and Beth: Safe & Sound out loud to fourth-graders at the schools she was at this month, and sent me a fun homemade card listing the questions the kids asked when they got to the page where Hanni prevents me from falling into a hole. “What a perfect treat!” Nicole wrote. I had to agree, and thought I’d share some of those questions with you blog readers as a treat for you, too:

• What if there is a hole and her dog doesn’t see it?
• But what if she just doesn’t?
• What if Hanni falls into the hole first because she’s looking at a bird?
• After she falls, how does she find her toothbrush?

I bet whoever asked that last question has a great smile. Gotta love a kid who, even in the face of danger, keeps her mind focused on dental hygiene.

Heard the one about the deaf girl showing up at the Blind woman’s doorstep?

In our case, this was not a joke. I’m trying to slowly get back into the swing of things, so I stuck with a plan to have 20-plus students from a disability studies class at DePaul University come visit last Thursday. My memoir Long Time, No See is required reading for this “Explore Chicago” class, and students hop on the Red Line from Lincoln Park every semester to come see where/how I live and ask questions about the book. A story in DePaul Magazine about the teacher, Karen Meyer, explains:

She requires her students to draw from an extensive list of books, articles and films-including familiar titles such as “To Kill a Mockingbird,” “Sea Biscuit” and “Frieda” — which tell stories about people with disabilities.

“They tell me they pick movies they’ve seen before, but after they see it with a different understanding, they have a completely different perspective. They’re looking for themes that they’ve never looked for before,” she says. “We meet the author of ‘Long Time, No See’-we go to her house,” says Meyer, who is friends with writer Beth Finke.

Mike has been reluctant to leave me at home alone since my surgery. I’d be safe with Karen Meyer and her class here, though, so he was going to take advantage of that time and head to the gym. Our doorman called while Mike was getting his gym bag together. One student was here early, and he was sending her up to our apartment. The student never knocked on our door, and when Mike took off to leave he saw her sitting on the floor in the hallway, looking at her phone. She pantomimed to him, and Mike understood right away. “Are you deaf?” he asked. She read his lips and nodded yes.

Most of the students in this Explore Chicago class are average kids who want to learn about disabilities. This is the first time one of them had a hearing impairment, and mixing a person who is blind with a person who is deaf can be, well…awkward. We disabled types are a resourceful bunch, though. I was confident we’d manage. I let Mike usher our guest to a seat at the breakfast bar, and I shooed him out the door.

The student was probably perfectly happy looking at her phone while she waited, but I couldn’t see to know that, and if I asked, she wouldn’t hear me. What to do? I gave her a copy of my children’s book Hanni and Beth: Safe & Sound and headed to my room to change clothes.

I have a special clipboard that has a line guide. I used it to leave a note for Carla.

I heard her thumbing through the pages for a while, but by the time I returned to the kitchen, the page-thumbing had stopped. I still had some things to do to get ready, but I didn’t want our guest to feel like I’d abandoned her. Eureka! My clipboard!

I’d also hoped to get some quick email messages out when I’d finished in the bathroom, but with a guest sitting in the kitchen alone, I didn’t feel right hiding away in my office. Wait! My talking computer is a laptop. I could bring it into the kitchen! I started typing there , and it dawned on me. I used my pointer finger to call my guest over to the computer keyboard, then pointed at the screen. . “This is how I type,” I wrote. “My computer talks. What is your name? She came to the keyboard and started typing. C-a-r-l-a.

We were in business! It was like TTD, except Carla and I were in the same room. I’d type, she’d read the question and answer. I’d manipulate the keys on my talking laptop to hear what she’d typed, and type out a response. By the time the other students finally arrived (they’d been waiting for Carla downstairs, of course!) I’d learned she lives in Rogers Park, she has one sister who is  only two years old, and sometimes it gets tiring chasing her around the house. “Will you sign my book for me?” she wrote, placing a copy of Long Time, No See in my hand. I signed it in print and in Braille. “To my new friend Carla.”

A sign language interpreter had arrived along with the group of students and stood next to me as I gave my presentation. The only thing that might have tipped them off that I had open-heart surgery weeks ago was seeing the beginning of a scar at my neck. That, and my request to sit on the piano bench rather than stand as I spoke to them. Based on last week’s success, I’m keeping a commitment to speak at a retirement community tomorrow on the benefits of memoir-writing. This Friday Mike and I are attending a birthday party for one of my favorite 80-year-olds, and next Monday I have appointments with the cardiologists who saved my life last month. After all that? I think we’ll rest.