My great-nephew Raymond does not attend St. Raymond Preschool, but when Whitney and I visited there, and I let the teachers know what a saint this loveable three-year-old is, they gave me a t-shirt to present to Raymond as a gift. Thank you, St. Raymond!Note to my blog followers who are blind: the photo shows my saintly blue-eyed towheaded great nephew Raymond in a red t-shirt with “St. Raymond City of Little Saints Preschool” emblazoned on the front.

I interviewed Betsy Folwell for a story in Bark Magazine five years ago, and we’ve kept up with each other via email ever since. We have a lot to talk about, I guess: Both of us lost our sight as adults, and both of us are published authors. I was delighted when Betsy agreed to write a guest post for my Safe & Sound blog today, and once you read this entry, I think you’ll see, ahem, why.

Into the Eye’s Mind

by Elizabeth Folwell

Morning announces itself to me not with roosters crowing but squiggles of yellow, blue, white and red on a black background. Like a drawing by Keith Haring. Or an aboriginal sand painting.

Betsy Folwell on Chimney Mountain, near Indian Lake, NY, with her dogs Kesey
(left), Tinkerbelle (right) and guide dog Oakley (foreground). Photograph by
Nancie Battaglia.

Ever since I lost my sight 10 years ago these moving pictures have been part of my routine. In fact, if I wake up without the show I feel cheated.

There’s a scientific name for this phenomenon, of course, and a scholarly explanation. Swiss naturalist and philosopher Charles Bonnet commented on the intense hallucinations his 87-year-old grandfather witnessed. The old man, blind from cataracts, told Charles about the faces, buildings and activities that appeared before him, as real as anything he had seen with young eyes. Bonnet was formulating complex theories about how the nervous system works as a series of vibrations, and the happy village scenes of his grandfather were evidence of energetic pathways between the optic nerve and brain.

We can thank Bonnet, who trained as an attorney but never practiced law, for several modern scientific observations: how butterflies breathe, how primitive animals regenerate limbs, how plants communicate. The last item continues to dazzle researchers today. Bonnet passionately pursued botany and biology until his own failing sight turned his mind inward, to philosophical explanations of nature’s progression toward perfection. To Bonnet, everything was evolving, climbing higher and higher, until insects attained angelhood.

Only some of Bonnet’s work has been translated into English, and he’s remembered more as a religious thinker than scientific innovator. In our times his name is attached to Bonnet syndrome, a handy phrase that family practice doctors and ophthalmologists can tell their patients who ask querulously, “Am I going crazy?” when they describe seeing little green men bouncing purple basketballs down Main Street. I am not making this up; when I described my own psychedelic worm farm to my family doc, he shared that story — without violating any HIPPA rules since he did not say who had aliens on the brain.

When Beth’s blog Imagine described how different parts of the brain respond to words(how, for example, the word “lavender” can make the scent-sensitive territory light up as if a bundle of flowers were right there) I thought of my own suggestible head. The visual cortex, even without accurate input, wants to stay in touch.

Elizabeth Folwell is the author of Short Carries: Essays from Adirondack Life as well as articles and blogs at Adirondack Life.

The kids at St. John's enjoyed our presentation, thanks in large part to Jen and Nicole for getting us there!

Whitney and I were supposed to take a train to visit St. John’s School in Western Springs yesterday morning. Good thing we didn’t!

April 4, 2012 (CHICAGO) (WLS) — Emergency crews responded to a track fire near Chicago’s Union Station Wednesday morning.
According to ABC7’s Roz Varon, traffic was jammed near Canal and Jackson because of the emergency activity in the 300-block of South Riverside.

No one was injured, but I sure wouldn’t have wanted to put Whitney through all that mess. Not to mention…me.

Jennifer Cristina and Nicole Dotto (two lovely young women I met volunteering in a program for kids in the Chicago Public Schools) offered to pick Whitney and me up right in front of our apartment building. The suburban school we were visiting yesterday had nothing to do with the program we volunteer for, but Jennifer and Nicole took time out of their schedules to help us anyway. They drove us all the way to the suburban school, sat patiently through the presentation, took care of Whitney while I signed books, then drove us back home again.

Traffic was bad on the way back to Chicago. I took Whitney’s harness off so she could relax, then started asking Jennifer and Nicole how they’d found out about Sit Stay Read!, the literacy program we all volunteer for. Turns out neither of them are originally from Chicago. Jennifer left her home in Baton Rouge to live in a bigger city. Nicole is from Southern California and knew she could run her online business selling vintage clothing from anywhere. “I love seeing new places,” she said, doting on Whitney from the back seat. “I visited Chicago and liked it, so I decided to move here.” Volunteering was a great way to meet new people, and Sit Stay Read was a good fit: her hours are flexible enough to allow her to visit schools in the daytime.

Jennifer works as a nanny, and her charge is growing up. “I’m free during the day while she’s in school, and I love kids, and I love dogs,” she shrugged. “And you know, if you ever want to feel needed, all you have to do is volunteer. It’s good for you.”

Jennifer was absolutely right. In a story in the Nonprofit News about a study on the health benefits of volunteering, the executive director of the Saguaro Seminar at Harvard University referred to volunteering as the “new hybrid health club for the 21st century that’s free to join.”

The study finds a significant connection between volunteering and good health. The report shows that volunteers have greater longevity, higher functional ability, lower rates of depression and less incidence of heart disease.

And of course the recipients of the good deeds benefit, too. Whitney and I can vouch for that. Avoiding Union Station yesterday morning added dog years to our lives. Spending time with these two thoughtful and caring young women helped us function better during our presentation at St. John’s, and we avoided challenges at Union Station that might have brought us down. Thank you, Jennifer and Nicole. Your ad lib volunteer efforts yesterday warmed our hearts.

I didn’t buy a lottery ticket last week. I wasn’t afraid of the odds, I just knew money couldn’t make me happier than I am right now.

I know, I know. Too many pink Sweet ‘n’ Low packets. But hey, it’s not all saccharine. There really is evidence-based research on this lottery happiness thing.

Back in 1978, psychologists from Northwestern University right here in Chicago published a study called Lottery winners and accident victims: Is happiness relative? Our Illinois State Lottery had just begun back then, and the researchers asked 22 winners to rate their happiness months after the initial elation of winning the big bucks. In addition, they asked the winners how much pleasure they were taking in mundane activities like reading a magazine or meeting friends for coffee. Then they interviewed 58 people who had not won the lottery but lived in the same neighborhoods as the winners. The results showed that months after the winners were announced, the non-winners were just about as happy as the lottery winners, And by then the so-called losers were finding much more pleasure in everyday activities than the winners were.

As long as they were at it, the researchers decided to interview 29 people who were injured in accidents that same lottery year, too. In each case, the accident left the victim paralyzed. After initial sadness and depression, the newly-disabled people rated their pleasure in everyday activities slightly higher than that of the lottery winners, and their life satisfaction was nearly the same.

Interesting.

It’s Monday. After I finish the cup of coffee Mike made and poured for me after we woke up together this morning, I’ll flip on the radio and listen to some pop music while getting dressed. Ben Folds? Jackson Five? Warren Zevon? Stevie Wonder? From there I’ll head outside with Whitney. It’s a cool, sunny, spring morning in Chicago. Maybe we’ll take the long way home, listen for birds, smell the lilacs.

Back in the apartment, I’ll spend a few hours on my part-time job for Easter Seals and then give Flo a call. She’ll tell me about everyone who phoned her over the weekend. She’ll say how much she is looking forward to sitting outside today and let me know what she has planned for the rest of the week. Her credo is to do only one thing each day that takes her out of her apartment. No more, no less.

Flo is one happy woman.

Our call will end the way it always does. “I love you, Mom.” “I love you, too.” Flo turns 96 later this month.

Out with Whitney again. Maybe this time I’ll brush her, too. Mike is working from home today, so I might listen to a book while waiting for him to finish. I’m re-reading my favorite book from childhood, one my older brothers and sisters read aloud to me when they were teaching me to read: The Adventures of Winnie-the-Pooh.

After my trip to the 100 Acre Wood? Off to Costco! I’ll hang on to the back of the cart, eavesdrop on people from all walks of life, try to decipher the dozens of foreign languages I hear, all while Mike pulls us through the aisles. He’ll stop periodically, say “Feel this!” and drop an enormous oversized jar of some unknown substance into my hands. “Miracle Whip!” he’ll exclaim with glee. I always roll my eyes, but I can’t help but laugh, too. And I can’t help but relish, ahem, the $1.50 hot dog and pop we enjoy before we leave. Free refills, too!

After unloading the Land of the Giants groceries at home, we might slink over to Hackney’s to share some wine with friends: Mondays are half-price bottle nights.

Back in our apartment building, if our favorite maintenance man James is working, we’ll stop and talk baseball before stepping into the elevator. Opening day is coming up, Chicago! A dear old college friend emailed today to say he can’t make it to the White Sox home opener on April 13. He’s mailing us his tickets. For free. Who wouldn’t think they’d won the lottery after a day like today? And the thing that makes me the happiest: I didn’t even buy a ticket!

Since Hanni and Beth: Safe & Sound is a picture book, some schools figure the older kids won’t be interested in what we can show them. But guess what? Older kids are as curious about what it’s like to be blind as the younger ones are. And hey, they like dogs, too!

Fourth graders (and up) were a great audience.

And so, talking with the 4th, 5th and 6th graders during our visit to St. Mary of the Lake School last week was a treat. During the Q&A part of our presentation to the older kids, one boy asked, “Is it boring, not being able to see TV?”

After giving the question some consideration, I told him I guess I’ve gotten used to it, and no, it isn’t boring. Not at all. “It’s kind of like reading a chapter book all the time,” I said. “Without any pictures, I always have to imagine what the stuff in my story looks like.”

A New York Times story I read after visiting St. Mary’s reported that in addition to stimulating the “classical” language regions of our brain, reading fiction also activates a whole bunch of other parts:

Words like “lavender,” “cinnamon” and “soap,” for example, elicit a response not only from the language-processing areas of our brains, but also those devoted to dealing with smells.

The piece quoted similar research about the sense of touch – when people read descriptions involving texture, say, “hands like leather” or “hair like silk” the part of the brain responsible for perceiving texture through touch was activated. Another study explained that words describing motion activated the part of the brain that coordinates the body’s movements, but there was no mention of any study showing that vivid descriptions of visual images might activate the part of the brain that has, in my case, been dormant for so long. If it turns out that it does, I guess I have something new to worry about: my visual cortex might be over-stimulated!