One of the portraits in the "Fade to White" project.

A few weeks ago I got an email from a photographer who said he takes portraits of people who can’t see. “I am emailing you to enquire if you would be interested in participating in the project,” he wrote. “It would be an honor to take your picture!”

Uh-oh, I thought. Another nutjob who heard about my job modeling nude for art students. Before hitting the delete button, though, I did a little research. And guess what? This guy is legit!

Charlie Simokaitis is a sought-after commercial photographer whose eight-year-old daughter has an eye condition that will soon leave her blind. Faye Simokaitis is the inspiration for Fade to White, a compilation of the portraits her dad has been taking of people who are visually impaired or blind. Charlie Simokaitis describes the project as an “effort to try to understand the impending reality” of his daughter’s loss of sight. From his artist statement:

As I spend more time with blind people, I am developing a perverse kinship with the very condition that will eventually lay claim to my daughter’s eyesight. For me, solace lies in the creation of this work.

After reading that, I hit the reply button on his email message. Y-E-S, my talking computer parroted the letters I typed. Sitting for a portrait would be an honor.

Charlie likes to meet with his models to chat before a shoot, so I suggested we meet for lunch at Hackney’s. Once Mike took a look at some of the portraits already up on the Fade to White web site, he decided to come along. “These pictures are great, Beth,” he told me. “I want to meet this guy!”

Charlie is as striking as the photographs he takes. Over lunch, he told Mike and me a little about the research he had done before starting his project. Photographing the blind has its roots in street photography. “It was pretty much voyeuristic,” he said. “You know, the blind person would have no idea the photographer was there.” In contrast, Charlie wants his subjects to know exactly what he is up to, and he doesn’t need us to be grasping white canes or posing with our guide dogs. When I showed him my cast, he assured me it wouldn’t get in his way. “Most of my portraits are from the waist up.” More from his artist statement:

This work looks at the unseeing Other while attempting to understand the fetishism of other people’s perceived pain and the taboos and tacit responsibility of representing a blind person.

It was hot the afternoon we scheduled the photo session, and I showed up wearing a dark red tank top. Charlie knew right away where he’d want me to pose. For most of my shots, I’m standing against a yellow brick wall in Printers Row Park. That’s the park Harper loves to look down at from our kitchen window. The session took about an hour, and it made me feel like a model – only this time, with clothes on.

Charlie uses film to take his portraits, and he’s still scanning mine in. You don’t have to wait to see his other work, though. Charlie’s Fade to White photos are available online, and two of them will be featured in a show opening this Friday at the Catherine Edelman Gallery, W. Superior in Chicago. Charlie’s photos were selected along with the works of 11 other photographers from The Chicago Project, and the show will be up until September 3. If I were you, though, I’d head over there for the opening reception this Friday, July 15, from 5 to 8 pm. The artists will be there that night, and trust me, it’s an honor to meet a pro like Charlie Simokaitis.

More than 3,000 people with visual impairments showed up for this year’s National Federation of the Blind convention in Orlando. That’s a lot of white canes and guide dogs!

I kept my promise to the doctor and used a wheelchair at the airport.

I’d agreed to sit on a panel encouraging people who are blind to consider writing as a career. But that was before I broke my foot. “You can still go,” my doctor said at my foot check-up last week. “Just promise me you’ll use a wheelchair in the airport.” I promised. Harper stayed at home with mike.

My sister Marilee lives in Orlando. She got a special pass to meet me at the gate, and before you knew it, I was surrounded by her wonderful family outside at their house, enjoying mouthfuls of my brother-in-law Rick’s good cooking and hearing earfuls of news about Casey Anthony. The jury was deliberating, and Orlando was buzzing about the trial.

Marilee drove me to my panel the next afternoon, and we were enjoying a quick snack at one of the convention hall restaurants when the Casey Anthony verdict came in. Marilee was one of the very few who took notice. No one else could see the TV screen!

My panel went well, and we had time to check out the exhibit hall before heading to the airport. Marilee took a deep breath before we headed in, readying herself to maneuver me through a sea of waving white sticks and curious guide dogs. Considering my oversized cast, This was, ahem, no small feat.

We were heading for the exit when a man suddenly approached and grabbed me by both arms “Are you an imposter?” he asked. “Where’s your dog?” I’d know that voice anywhere. It was Lukas Franck from the Seeing Eye. I lifted my pant leg to show him my cast. “Harper’s at home with Mike,” I told him, explaining how Mike was following all the Seeing Eye rules, insisting Harper stop at each curb, going on longer walks with Harper when possible.

Lukas gave me a big, long hug and then asked if Harper had been improving before I got hurt. yes, I said. He had. “Good,” he said. “We can send someone out to give you a refresher course once your foot is healed.” Lukas also suggested I consider sending Harper back to Morristown now, while I continue to heal. “We could have people here work him every day.” In that scenario, I might return to Morristown after my foot heals, meet up with Harper and work with him there for a while before hitting the streets of Chicago again. “Think about it,” Lukas said. “You know, Mike could use a break.”

The school had a table in the exhibit hall. What fun to visit with all those old friends – and meet some new ones, too. It was so reassuring to know that even with my injury, the Seeing Eye isn’t giving up on Harper. Or on me. And they also realize that the success of a Seeing Eye dog not only changes the lives of those of us who are blind, but the lives of those around us, too. Like Mike. And Marilee.

Outside the convention hall Marilee and I couldn’t help but notice a helicopter hovering. Turned out the Casey Anthony jurors had been sequestered right there where the convention was. Guess with all the blind conventioneers there, court officials knew the jurors would be safe. No one would spot them.

That’s us–the memoir class, or at least most of us–at Jean’s Hyde Park apartment and had a wonderful time.

Years ago I assigned the topic TVland to the “Me, Myself and I” memoir-writing class I teach for senior citizens here in Chicago. Beverly read an essay confessing her childhood desire to be Jim Anderson’s daughter on the radio/TV show “Father Knows Best.” I’ve been calling her Princess ever since.

Earlier this month I asked the students to start an essay with the words, “If I could be any age, I’d be…”. Princess is 86 years old now, and at least three fellow writers in class are in their 80s, too.

Hanna turned 90 in January. After living all those years, was there one age they’d like to be for ever and ever?

Many of them wrote about being in their twenties, and one came in at age 35: “By age 35 you’ve lived long enough to have some serious experiences, but you still have a lot of life ahead.” A few (including Princess, of course!) chose 17, but none wanted to be any younger than that. From Beverly’s essay:

My mind was an internal tangle of books, movies and magazines. Make believe filled my thoughts when I was alone. Different scenes and dialogs rolled before my mind’s eye when I went to bed. It put me to sleep. I was a good sleeper back then.

Princess dreamt of being a lawyer. Her father insisted she study nursing. She didn’t argue. “Having dad there to tell us what to do made things easy.” Like many of her fellow writing students, Princess finished her essay saying how grateful she felt to be the age she is. She may never have become a lawyer, but now she volunteers regularly at the VA hospital. “At age 86 I am happy to be alive and well,” she wrote. “I’m surrounded by the love and concern of my two wonderful children.” After reading that essay aloud in class that day, princess returned home and suffered a stroke. Mom’s speech is improving, her daughter reports in email messages to me. The next questions are in the cognitive arena.

Our class is on a short summer hiatus now, and last Saturday Jean, one of the writers, had us all over to her place for some snacks and refreshments. Another student chauffeured me and my Flintstone-sized cast to Jean’s Hyde Park apartment. A third was waiting at the door to help me inside.

Our hostess Jean has been in the memoir class since 2006, shortly after her husband Charlie died. “I was feeling low,” she said. “I hoped maybe your class would help.” I think it has. She still misses Charlie, of course, but when her fellow writing students walked into her apartment and gawked at the thousands of books lining the walls, Jean was happy to explain how she and Charlie always liked to read. From time to time she’d pull a book from the shelf, show it to a fellow writer, explain the book’s significance, why she couldn’t part with it.

A conversation about books led to one about art, then one about writing, then one about parties. And there I was, surrounded by old friends, laughing my broken-foot-blues away.

Not everyone could make the party, of course. Maria was back in Italy to visit relatives, Eldoris had a bridge date that afternoon. But you can bet that those of us who were there made a point to lift our glasses of iced tea to Princess and her speedy recovery.

Now, back at home, I am toasting to all my friends in that memoir class. Here’s to you. You consistently show me how to appreciate life — at any age.

Link to Shutterfly here to see more photos from Jean’s great party last Saturday.

A couple weeks ago I was interviewed for a show on Pet Life Radio: “the #1 Pet Podcast WiFi radio network.” I just love that tag line.

You can hear the “Working Like Dogs” show online now — I was interviewed by a lovely woman who has spina bifida, and her service Dog Whistle was at her side for the entire interview. We spend the first part of the show talking about the work our dogs do. The second half is devoted to the different jobs I myself have held since losing my sight. From the Working Like Dogs web site:

She even shares one of her most humorous stories about how a woman who is blind and her guide dog landed a job as a nude model!

Ah, that infamous stint as a nude model. I must say, it did launch my career as a writer. Staying still for 50 minutes at a time for that job gave me a chance to think about my writing, how to reformulate a lead, how to get across a certain idea. I used that quiet time to put together an essay about my modeling experience. Nude Modeling: Goin’ In Blind was published in The Octopus, the alternative weekly newspaper in Champaign, Ill., and was picked up by alternative newspapers all over the country. I started writing regularly for the paper after that, and only quit working for them after Mike finished his master’s degree in journalism in 2002 and took over as senior editor.

Like so many other weekly newspapers, The Octopus is out of business now. Smile Politely (an online magazine in Champaign) published an oral history of The Octopus this week, and music editor Marci Dodds is quoted about an assignment she gave me to interview bar owners and find out the positives and negatives of hosting live music.

She {that’s me} was thorough — and very good at getting people to talk. Club owners, who had never been asked, had quite a lot to say. Even though she was balanced, the upshot of the piece wasn’t “all live musicians are wonderful and all club owners are greedy, bloodsucking pigs.” I think we pissed off every musician in town with that piece — and oh, my. The scathing letters I got! I had wanted to establish the music section as independent and maybe even a little provocative. I think I succeeded. Perhaps a smidge too well. I swear sometimes I think there are musicians in town who are still mad at me from that story.

What a nice compliment! I mean, I hate to think of musicians in Champaign still walking around angry, but I gotta admit: it was fun to read that oral history and realize that some of the work I — and especially Mike — did for the weekly alternative newspaper in Champaign is still recognized down there.

I am forever grateful to The Octopus for taking a chance on me as a writer eleven years ago — it truly launched my career. And now, when new writers ask me advice on how to get a career started, I can just laugh and tell them it’s easy. “All you have to do is model nude for art students!”

One of my table mates was kind enough to help me meet Ann Patchett, and another was good enough to take this photo.

Mike dropped Harper and me off at the Women’s Athletic Club on Michigan Avenue this morning to hear my fellow Bark magazine contributor Ann Patchett give a presentation. It was my first outing alone with Harper since they put that Flintstone cast on my foot, and we made sure to hobble in early. I alerted the strangers who joined us at our table that there was a dog underneath, and one of them lifted the tablecloth to have a look. “Oh, a black lab!” she exclaimed. “How sweet!” It didn’t dawn on me until later: She’d mistaken the behemoth cast on my foot for Harper.

Ann Patchett, the best-selling author of Bel Canto and Truth & Beauty was there to talk about her new book State of Wonder. As her talk came to a close, she let us in on her next project: opening an independent bookstore.

“I live in Nashville, and we don’t have any bookstores,” she said, lamenting that their independent bookstore, Davis-Kidd, went under last December. The Borders store in Nashville closed a few months later. “It’s weird to have a book and not have a place to sell it in your hometown.”

She paired up with former Random House sales rep Karen Hayes in January, and the two of them hope to open Parnassus Books in Nashville before Christmas. Karen will be doing most of the work putting the store together (“She knows which cash registers to buy, stuff like that”). Ann plans to use her author cred to bring attention to her new store, and, in turn, to independent bookstores everywhere. “I heard you all sigh when I said we didn’t have a bookstore in Nashville,” she told us. “And you cheered when I said we were going to open one of our own.” She challenged us all to do our part, too. “Now get out there to your own independent bookstore and buy a book!”

We all had a chance to meet her challenge right away: The Book Stall, an independent bookstore in Winnetka, had copies of State of Wonder on hand. The Wonder-ful strangers at our table teamed up to help me pick up copies for my friends Jenny and Jill, and Ann Patchett couldn’t help but admire Harper as he guided me to the table to have her sign them. The future bookstore owner and I chatted about our work for The Bark and I told her how much I enjoyed the audio version of Truth and Beauty —  she recorded it herself.

She poo-pooed the compliment. “Hope Davis, you know, the actress? She reads this one,” she said, drumming her fingers on the signed hardcover in my hand. “She’s really good.” I’ll have to buy the audio version once it comes out, I guess. You know who I’ll order it from, dontcha? Our local independent bookstore: Sandmeyer’s!