I refer to my mom by her first name, and if you follow this blog, you already know a lot about Flo. Over the years, you may have read:

• that she was only 45 years old when our dad died, and from then on she worked full time and raised us on her own
• a post called Flo on the Pot about her first-ever massage and her first-ever phone call from a hotel bathroom on her 92nd birthday
• that she has enough faith in her blind daughter to have me take care of her overnight by myself after she had out-patient surgery for a malignant melanoma
• about her dance with a young handsome stranger at a Louisville jazz club on her 93rd birthday
• how she partied at Hackney’s with bartender Billy Balducci, Mike, my sisters and me after my presentation at the 2009 Printer’s Row Book Fair
• how we celebrated her 95th birthday in 2011 on the 95th floor of the John Hancock Building in Chicago
• a post called Because the night belongs to Flo where she explains that she only wanted two kids, and how it is that she ended up with seven

Hmm. Maybe I’ll end the list with the link to that last provocative post. What can I say? The gal is game! (more…)

That’s 14-year-old Hanni on the left, 5-year-old Harper on the right, and Whitney with her back to the camera. (Photo by Larry Melton.)

Sunday was dogapalooza in the suburbs. Beth and I and Whitney took the train to Wheaton, where our friends Steven and Nancy, with Hanni in tow all the way from Urbana, picked us up. From there, it was on to Chris and Larry’s, where Hanni, Harper and Whitney—Beth’s last three Seeing Eye dogs—met and rollicked until they and we were exhausted. (more…)

The good folks of Saints Cyril and Methodius Catholic School gave us flowers. (Photo by Penny Wong-Matzelle)

I often write posts listing the questions kids ask me during school presentations, but I don’t always tell you how I answer those questions. Penny Wong-Matzelle has two daughters at Saints Cyril and Methodius Catholic School (SSCM) in Deer Park, N.Y., and this article she wrote for the Deer Park-North Babylon NY Patch about our visit to first, second and third grade classes there last Monday lets you in on how I answered one of them. “The most poignant question came a short way into the Q & A session from a small girl in her neatly pressed SSCM uniform.”Penny wrote.

The question that girl asked was, “What does it feel like to be blind?” I’ve been asked that question in other school presentations. My answer changes with my mood. When things are going well, I don’t notice my blindness much at all, and just shrug it off. That morning I’d woken up in a motel room, though, so the article said, “She went on to describe how it can be frustrating at times, because it just takes longer to do certain things and she has to remind herself to slow down and take her time to avoid fumbling…”

I love that Penny thought to mention that the girl who asked was so small, and that her uniform was “neatly-pressed.” It gives me such a great image. It wasn’t the only visual detail Penny Wong-Matzelle included in her article — here’s another one:

The enthusiastic students of SSCM each had questions burning in their minds and the only thing Mrs. Finke may have missed out on was not being able to enjoy seeing the number of hands that flew into the air when she announced it was time for some Q & A.

And then there’s this:

Mrs. Finke’s demonstration of how Whitney works to guide her to the nearest exit brings nearly every student quietly to their feet as they lean forward and crane their necks to watch the pair make their way down the hall and back, stepping easily in stride with one another.

Without being able to see the audience during our school visits, I’m left to assume/imagine/hope the kids aren’t napping. I’ve had parents and teachers tell me their kids really liked our presentation, but I’ve never had anyone spell out visual details the way Penny Wong-Matzelle did in this story. Thanks, Penny – very fun to imagine a bunch of first, second, and third graders leaning forward and craning their necks as Whitney leads me out of a classroom!

Hello from Seattle! I flew out here with Whitney – our first solo trip since my emergency open-heart surgery last year. This was a major milestone, and I’m not ashamed to admit I was pretty anxious about it before we left. The flight was loooong, and already at takeoff Whitney decided she didn’t like her spot under the seat in front of us. Good thing the passengers next to us loved dogs –Whit was a bit of a sprawler. I was thrilled to hear our Seattle friend Greg calling out my name at baggage claim after we landed, and Whitney was happy to see him, too. She had to go, if you know what I mean.

I brought a Magic 8-Ball as a gift to thank Greg for picking us up, and I almost didn’t get it through security – to many ounces of fluid, doncha know. It got through on a technicality – they regarded it as a snowglobe, and snowglobes recently got approved by the TSA. In exchange for his Magic 8-Ball, Greg treated me to a couple of Seattle micro-brews (Mack & Jack’s lager  – yum!) at the hotel bar before Whit and I settled into our room.

I’m here to attend the annual conference of the Association of Writers and Writing Programs (AWP) here in hopes of finding a publisher for my next book

All the snow and ice in Chicago this winter has had one (and probably, only one!) benefit: it provided a lot of time to stay inside and write. I made major progress on the book I’m writing about the memoir classes I lead for Chicago senior citizens, and Whitney and I will spend a lot of time at the AWP book fair going table to table to talk about my new project to anyone who will listen. (By the way, it’s in the 50s, sunny and I’m not wearing snow boots.)T

My author friend Audrey Petty encouraged me to do this, explaining that AWP is the perfect place to come with a writing project that isn’t quite finished. Publishers and other writers I meet might like my idea and give me guidance on how to shape it differently or rework it somehow before it’s entirely finished.

That’s Audrey with Alex Kotlowitz during a presentation last year. (Photo: Janet Smith)

You might remember Audrey from blog posts I’ve written about her before. She started thinking about doing an oral history of people who’d lived in high rise public housing back in 2008, and after McSweeney’s took notice, she spent most of the past three years under their guidance, tracking down former residents of Chicago’s housing projects and interviewing them for High Rise Stories: Voices From Chicago Public Housing, published by McSweeney’s Voice of Witness series late last year.

The conference doesn’t start until tomorrow, and I’ll meet up with Audrey then. She’s invited Whitney and me to come as her guests to the McSweeney’s cocktail party tomorrow night. Before then Whitney and I need to learn our way to the lobby from our room on the 26th floor of this absolutely huge hotel blocks away from the convention center. (Whitney is in front of our floor-to-ceiling windows enjoying the view as I type this blog post.) Once we tackle finding our way through the lobby, we’ll tackle making our way the four blocks to the convention center. I figure if I register before the conference starts they might let me in to figure out the lay of the land ahead of time. That way I’ll feel much more comfortable going table to table at the book fair tomorrow, asking each person there who they are and what they do, and then leaving my business card (it even has my name in Braille on it) to anyone who takes interest. Wish us luck!

My writer’s group met last Tuesday, and when we got to talking about editing I brought up a part from my published memoir, Long Time, No See as an example of the value of good editors.

It’s been a while since I read that book, so after the meeting I dug up the excerpt to read it again. When I read to the last line I thought, gee whiz, this same part could work as a (somewhat unlikely!) Valentine’s Day blog post, too!

But first, the editing part. Before University of Illinois Press published Long Time, No See they had a couple editors go over my manuscript. One checked the medical information, the other copyedited and suggested literary changes, and, surprise, surprise, I discovered I actually enjoy being edited. Those University of Illinois Press editors would ask me to choose the exact word to describe something, and that would force me to put myself back into a situation and really think hard about what it felt like at the time. Not always easy, but very therapeutic.

In my rough draft, I wrote a scene where the retina specialist examines my eyes after all the surgeries and breaks the news to us. The day was July 25, 1985, just three days short of our one-year wedding anniversary. The doctor tells us I’ll never see again, we listen, and then we walk out of the office and head to White Sox Park for a baseball game.

The editors read my version and absolutely insisted that I tell my readers what was going through my head when we found out my blindness was permanent. I didn’t exactly want to describe that time of my life in detail: doing so would force me to put myself back in that room, hearing that bad news again. I did it, though, and writing that scene turned out to be GREAT therapy. I had to think. When I was told I’d never see again, was I disappointed? Angry? Sad? Scared? The answer is here, in that excerpt from Long Time, No See (University of Illinois Press, 2003):

“I’m afraid there’s nothing else we can do,” he said in a tone I recognized from his final report on my left eye.

All I could think to ask was, “Can I lift my head up now?”He said I could. Thankful for at least that, I raised my head for the first time in over a month. I was struck by a sudden feeling of freedom and relief. No more lasers, no more operations, no more weekly visits to Chicago, no more worrying whether or not this all was going to work. We’d been at this for nearly a year; now it was finally over. I swiveled my head as if to look around. I saw nothing.

Mike talked to the doctor, asking sensible questions, I suppose. Turning toward their voices, I asked if this was really it, if we’d really exhausted the possibilities. “I’m a religious man,” the doctor answered, “and in the religion I follow we believe in miracles. I believe God has cured all sorts of ailments. This could happen with you, but there’s nothing else I can do for you medically.”

We stood up to leave. I reached out for the doctor’s hand. He clasped mine with both of his, and I thanked him for all he’d done. He was shaking. I felt sorry for him; I would’ve liked to tell him we were going to be all right.
The White Sox were in town that day. Going to a ballgame after learning I’d be blind for the rest of my life was probably a strange thing to do, but it beat heading home and sitting on our pitiful second-hand couch and wondering where to turn next.

The White Sox were having a rotten year. There were maybe 8,000 people in the stands; Floyd Banister pitched, the Sox lost. But it was strangely pleasant, sitting next to Mike with my head up, not giving a thought to eyes or surgery. We each had a bratwurst and a beer. Between bites and gulps and giving me play by play, Mike bantered with other fans, cursing the underachievers on the team. I laughed at Nancy Faust, the Sox organist—she’s famous for picking songs that play on player’s names. Mike marveled at the endurance of Carlton Fisk, and we both wondered out loud why every time we went to a game, that bum Banister was pitching.

Wedding day, July 28, 1984. We’re headed for our 30th this year.

The three-hour ride home was quiet. Once there, we found ourselves sitting on our miserable couch, as we’d feared, holding hands, trying to imagine how we’d cope. Our only decision that night was to go to sleep. Our bed felt wonderful. I was home for good. Despite everything, a powerful relief came over me, a sense of security, such a change from how I’d felt during those months in my hospital bed. And I realized right away that sight isn’t needed under the covers.