Aurora's Blog

Picking up from last time –

The most nerve-wracking obstacle to do blind was the water slide. I was warned we’d be fully submerged at the bottom. I don’t know how to swim! And I wasn’t going to be able to see? Well, let’s hope I don’t die.

Nick went down first to be able to help me out of the water. Joanna was behind me and really seemed pretty darn nervous. Part of that made me nervous, but part was actually helpful, because having someone by me who was nervous almost made me want to keep it more together.

I saw later in pictures that people were sliding down holding their noses. That might’ve been smart…

But I didn’t think about it. I just went down and got muddy water all up in my nose. As soon as I hit the water, I started moving my legs and arms, trying to get back above water. Almost instantly, Nick and one of the people manning the slide were helping me out. (I’m pretty sure they thought they were just helping me ’cause I was blind for the day – not ’cause I totally can’t swim…)

Either way, I made it outta there. It was very interesting to me how just being submerged in water for a moment could make me so disoriented. People were telling me to go to the left, and sort of leading me that way. But it sounded like I was just going straight toward people coming down slides (I’d think right into me). However, I trusted the sighted people, since you know, they could see. And I didn’t get hit by anyone, so they certainly did not lead my astray.

It was just interesting to me that I really could not tell where I was when I was in the water…

At some point after we were safely back on the course, Joanna commented on how beautiful the lake is. I could picture a beautiful lake because I have seen lakes. I could picture the costumes Joanna and Nick were explaining to me. Heck – I could picture the obstacles when they were described to me. Because I have seen. These are things in my brain that I can call upon.

But what do you think it’s like to be born blind? How do you get a sense of what a lake looks like?

I’m sure there are ways. I’m sure people can draw things in your hand and you feel them, and that’s helpful. You could go get in a lake, and feel it. That would also probably be at least somewhat helpful. but it was interesting to me to think about – if I had never seen a lake – if I had never seen anything at all, so I had absolutely no frame of reference whatsoever – how would I picture a lake in my head? Would I even picture it as a picture? Or would I just have memories of feelings with no visual?

I didn’t do any research to answer those questions, but they were ideas that interested me while out on the course.