Thanks for all the sweet comments to Wednesday’s blog post about leading memoir-writing class in-person again. A few of you requested I let you know how “opening day” played out, so here I am with some highlights:

• My good pants still fit
• Luna emptied during her morning constitutional – welcome news
• The cab I ordered arrived late – unwelcome news
• Everything I’ve heard about drivers ignoring speed limits during the pandemic proved true
• Cab driver floored it on Lake Shore Drive
• Luna and I arrived at The Admiral just a few minutes late
• I had the right amount of cash on hand to tip the driver
• The temperature check at the front entrance came out normal
• Barbara, the class organizer, was right there to direct us to the conference room we were meeting in
  

  We’re on the road again.

The writers cheered when we entered the conference room and were especially excited to meet Luna. Barbara led me to a seat at the table that was socially distanced from others seated there. The four or five who couldn’t fit sat socially distanced behind us, a peanut gallery of sorts. I don’t give writing assignments during breaks from class but I do encourage those itching to write to do so on their own and bring those essays along to read out loud during the first class. A majority of them did just that, and when Bindy Bitterman was called on to read first, we readied ourselves for something uniquely Bindy.

She did not disappoint.

After pulling her mask down to read, she started her essay with a question. “Remember the song ‘Que Sera, Sera’?” From there, she belted out the first part of the 1956 Doris Day hit song for us. What can I say? Joy, laughter and applause comes through a lot better in person than over Zoom! For an encore, she sang her personalized-for-Bindy version: “Will I be published? I won’t be rich! That’s what I say to me!” Bindy has been trying two years to get her children’s limerick book, Skiddly Diddly Skat,” published, and she used the rest of her 500 words to share some good news. A mishap with her laptop required her to get help retrieving lost data. The data retrieval recovered long-lost information of an artist who been a friend of her late husband and the two got back in touch. “Self-publishing didn’t appeal to me before, but now it feels perfectly do-able,” she read with joy in her voice. “No, I won’t make money at it, and yes, it will cost a lot — Rich is much younger than I, and this is how he earns his living — but this style fits Skiddly so perfectly it’s bound to be a hit!”

What a great start to the in-person class. Being in the room to hear others read their essays was so moving, many of them featuring personal encounters in the past with family members, caring for a grandson who’d been born prematurely and is now a healthy teenager, making friends with a man who happen to sit next to him on a flight — back when strangers were used to sitting together on flights. A piece one writer wrote about how Zoom helped her survive the pandemic served to remind us that holding class online this past year was downright amazing.

At the end of class I took Luna’s harness off and welcomed those interested to come on over and pet her. When she rolled on her back for bellyrubs I knew for certain: Luna prefers in-person learning.

Happy Immunity Day! It’s been 14 days since Mike and I got our second Pfizer vaccine, and I’m celebrating by leading a memoir-writing class in person this afternoon.

Luna’s not worried.

The last memoir-writing class I taught in person met 13 months ago. It is downright amazing how quickly we all adjusted to using Zoom and meeting online. So comfortable that, as much as I hate to admit it, I’m feeling a little anxiety over physically attending class in a few hours. A story on CNBC tells me this is normal –sort of.

More than a year into the pandemic, people have become accustomed to the lives they’ve built and the routines they’ve created in their “Covid caves” and are not looking forward to a return to normal.

For some, this comes from an extreme fear of the disease, or anxiety about reacclimating into society.

Others have found that the pandemic has brought about positive changes in their lives, and they’re afraid of losing what they’ve gained.

My anxiety has little to do with the COVID virus: today’s class meets at Admiral-at-the-Lake, a Chicago senior housing facility where every resident and all staff members received their vaccines in February. I’ve been fully vaccinated, my writers have all been fully vaccinated, we all can meet in the conference room around one table and, get this: read essays with our masks off. So why am I nervous? It’s the little stuff.

How did I used to get there every week? What’s the address again? Do I have the right cash to tip the cab driver? What time should I leave so I get there on time? What should I wear? Will my good pants still fit? What do I need to bring? Where is my lipstick? In class we pass Scrabble tiles around to see who reads first, second, third…where on earth did I stash my little zippered bag of Scrabble tiles after classes were cancelled last year? Will my bus pass still work? My Seeing Eye dog has only been to the Admiral once or twice, will she get me into the lobby alright? What prompt should I assign for next week? Is my iPhone fully charged?

I look forward to coming home this afternoon, rereading this post and wondering what I was so worried about. But that comes later. Now, I’d better start getting ready.

You know where we’re having dinner tonight? At the White Sox-Cleveland game!

It’ll be different than the last game we went to in 2019, to be sure. We’re assigned to a section and we can’t roam the park and hang out on the outfield concourse like we usually do. But I’ll float on the aroma of grilled onions and tubular meats like Bugs Bunny levitates to the smell of carrot stew.

I feel like a six-year-old on the day before Christmas.

COVID anniversaries these past few weeks have driven home how much we’ve all gone through together. Indeed, we’re not out. But Beth and I will celebrate immunity day this Wednesday, marking two weeks after our second Pfizer vaccination. We’re daring to believe the light at the end of the tunnel is not the headlight of a train.

This morning, during our twice-yearly phone meeting with Gus’ caseworker, his nurse, and his house manager, Beth and I came away assured that the transition from Bethesda to Broadstep—the new owner/operator of Gus’ group home in Wisconsin—is going well.

Even better, we learned that after this Wednesday we can visit him! He and his housemates and staff received their second shots weeks ago, we’ll be fully vaccinated, so On Wisconsin!

Finally, just this morning I learned from Beth that the Bangles song Just Another Manic Monday was written and performed originally by Prince. I can’t believe I didn’t know that.

And so, tonight at the game I’m going to party like it’s 1999. Please continue to take care, and happy Monday everybody!

Today’s guest blogger, Cynthia Jones.

I am pleased to feature Cynthia Jones as our Saturdays with Seniors guest blogger today. After a long career in nursing and social work, Cynthia officially retired in 2013 and before March, 2020, had been working part-time at City of Chicago senior centers and a residential facility for people with chronic mental illness. Her furlough is our gain: she now has time to participate in the memoir-writing class I lead via Zoom on Thursday afternoons.

Goodbye Alexandra

by Cynthia Jones

I dressed myself and my one-week old daughter carefully for the meeting. I knew the impression we made would be important and lasting. As part of our adoption agreement, we were to meet Mariah’s birthmother and maternal grandmother at the adoption agency today, the day Alexandra would sign the final paper to relinquish her parental rights.

I was functioning on automatic pilot so as not to get bogged down in my emotions and become unable to prepare. Fear that Alexandra had changed her mind about giving up Mariah. Fear that Alexandra wouldn’t like me and forever feel bad about the adoption. Guilt about “taking” Alexandra’s child. most importantly, not wanting to be flooded with memories and associated feelings about that long ago day when I was the unmarried 20-year-old birth mother signing away my own newborn.

Mariah and I hadn’t yet established the synchronous flow that develops between a mother and her infant. We’d only had 2 days together. But she was my second child so I felt confident in handling and caring for her.

The drive was long and silent with our dread. The social worker my husband and I had met at the hospital met us at the reception desk, whispered that Alexandra had already signed the papers, and ushered us into a conference room.

At least this no longer felt like an audition. Alexandra and her mother, Gwen, sat side by side. Mariah was asleep in her carrier. We sat across the table. I noticed Alexandra’s beautiful sweet smile. I don’t remember much about the conversation except that it was uncomfortable.

Fortunately, my wonderful husband had thought to bring a photo album with pictures of us with our son Josh on happy occasions. It was a perfect ice breaker and gave Alexandra a chance to see Mariah’s new brother.

We’d been told by the social worker that Alexandra and her mom wanted to keep her baby and raise her, but since Alexandra and her family were white and Mariah’s father African American, her father was absolutely against having Mariah in the family. We learned that Alexandra had lived in her parents’ home throughout her pregnancy. After about 20 minutes of that conversation, Mariah woke up crying and hungry. I was prepared with a bottle and settled to feed her.

It was then that I noticed Alexandra was crying. My heart broke for her, and I asked if she wanted to feed Mariah (which I’m sure was against agency policy). Alexandra nodded and I placed Mariah in her arms and the bottle in her hand. She had long brown hair which cascaded over both their faces as she leaned forward to feed her daughter one last time. Mariah made satisfied sucking sounds while Alexandra continued to cry softly. Gwen put her arm comfortingly around her grieving daughter as she, too, cried softly. I tried my best not to cry, but tears streamed down my face, too. So much mother grief in that small room.

After Mariah emptied the bottle, Gwen said softly, “Give her back to her mother now.” This time my heart shattered as Alexandra placed Mariah back in my arms.

I just got word that the Justice Department has moved to intervene in a disability discrimination lawsuit brought by private plaintiffs with visual disabilities alleging the City of Chicago fails to provide people who are blind, have low vision, or are deaf-blind with equal access to pedestrian signal information at intersections.

Sighted pedestrians can see flashing “Walk/Don’t Walk” signs and countdown timers to alert them when it is safe to cross the street. We can’t see them. Devices providing pedestrians with safe-crossing information through audible tones, speech messages, and vibrotactile surfaces do exist, but few intersections in Chicago offer them.

Chicago currently provides visual crossing signals for sighted pedestrians at nearly 2,700 intersections, but it has only installed Accessible Pedestrian Signals (APS) at a mere 15 city intersections. The proposed suit alleges that the lack of accessible pedestrian signals at over 99 percent of Chicago’s signalized intersections subjects people who are blind, have low vision, or are deaf-blind to added risks and burdens not faced by sighted pedestrians, including fear of injury or death.

I’ve come across accessible pedestrian signals in other cities we’ve visited — Madison, Wisconsin comes to mind, and Urbana, Illinois has a few — but those were inconsistent. At some intersections hearing “beep, beep, beep” meant I should cross, and at others it meant I should stay put. Looking for the button to press to activate the Accessible pedestrian signals got me off-track and made it hard to find the crosswalk again. Sometimes the beep, beep beep noise was so loud it made it difficult to hear and judge the traffic surge. I pitied the poor people who lived and worked near one of the APS and have to hear it all the time.

When I was newly blind and learning to use a white cane, orientation and mobility (O&M) instructors taught me to rely on the surge of traffic at my parallel to recognize when the signal is green and it’s safe to walk. That principle is reinforced every time I travel to Morristown, New Jersey to train with a new Seeing Eye dog. In fact, at the Seeing Eye, one isn’t eligible to be matched with a dog without having completed O&M training.

Dogs are color blind. Seeing Eye dogs can’t read the stoplights, so it’s not their job to determine when it’s safe to cross a busy street. They are trained to go right up to every curb at each street crossing they get to, stop right there, and trust their human partner to use their sense of hearing to figure out what direction traffic is moving. Once we’re certain that traffic is flowing the same direction we want to travel, we give our dogs the command to cross. Dogs are trained to keep an eye out and to disobey their partner if the team is in harm’s way. It’s called intelligent disobedience, and it’s a pretty difficult thing to ask the dogs to do, when you think about it.

Traffic in Chicago has changed immensely in the year Luna has been with me — things started out normal in February. Then came the COVID shutdowns in March. Cars were few and far between, making it difficult to rely on my sense of sound to judge traffic flow. “Is the light green?” With so few people out and about, there was no one to ask.

Traffic increased again when things opened up in the summer, then decreased again when a surge in COVID forced another shutdown in fall. I’ve made my share of bad decisions at intersections during these times, and I cringe to think that onlookers are blaming my young new Seeing eye dog Luna when it’s me who made the mistake.

So I’m no longer skeptical when it comes to accessible pedestrian signals. Do I need one at every corner? No. Be selective and put them at particularly difficult intersections — the T-intersection down the street at Dearborn & Polk comes to mind. I need all the help I can get at that one. You know what else would help? Mike tells me that most intersections display countdowns until the light next changes. Simply making those audible would be a great help. And as long as I’m getting greedy, can you please make sure I don’t have to locate a button to make the thing work?