September 7, 2023 • 34 mins
When Andrew Leland was a teenager he learned he had a rare disease that would cause him to become blind by the time he reached middle age. He recently decided to prepare by attending a special school for blind people.
You can read Andrew’s essay for the New Yorker, “How to Be Blind” here: https://www.newyorker.com/culture/the-weekend-essay/how-to-be-blind
And you can find Andrew’s new book, The Country of the Blind here: https://www.penguinrandomhouse.com/books/635964/the-country-of-the-blind-by-andrew-leland/
See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
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Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:15):
Pushkin.
Speaker 2 (00:20):
I'm Andrew Leland, and I wrote How to Be Blind
for The New Yorker, and it's the story of the week.
Speaker 1 (00:25):
As I've mentioned before, in a failed attempt to get
you to buy my book, man made a stupid quest
from masculinity. Back in twenty ten, the United States Army
allowed me to join a troop to do a week
of boot camp at Fort Knox. One of the exercises
involved a sergeant taking me out into the middle of
a forest where I was supposed to find a flag
(00:47):
that I was given compass coordinates for. I calculated that
sixty seven of my steps equal one hundred meters and
then went out to find it. The biggest challenge for
me was that this forest had a lot of butterflies,
like more butterflies than I had ever seen in a
butterfly sanctuary, and all kinds of different butterflies, each more
(01:10):
beautiful than the last. My other problem was I couldn't
remember which way was north or east and how many
steps i'd taken, forrest really look the same no matter
which way you go. Eventually, my sergeant gave up on me,
so I know for a proven fact that there is
no way i'd be able to do what Andrew Leland
(01:32):
did in Denver. Writing is hard.
Speaker 3 (01:41):
Who's got that kind of time? When you're already busy
trying to be you all stand So it turns on
a mic. Maybe the twiddles enough because a journalist trand
has got in that juble jibes. Single story. Just listen
to smart people speak. Conversation, film and information is.
Speaker 2 (02:02):
A story U.
Speaker 1 (02:14):
When reporters confront something difficult in our personal lives, our
defense mechanism is to research the hell out of it,
which is what I did when I found out I
was having a boy, and then no idea how to
raise a boy because I know how to be a boy,
and I wrote the book Man Made a stupid Quest
for masculinity, available in bookstores. That's exactly what Andrew Leland
(02:35):
did for The New Yorker when he started to go blind.
Before we start, I know that among the very many
things you've done, you've been a radio and podcast producer.
So if any point you want to correct something I'm
doing wrong or add a sound effect, just feel free
to do that.
Speaker 4 (02:49):
Your headphones are ond backwards, but they are right. No,
I'm just kidding.
Speaker 1 (02:52):
Oh jeez. All right, So when did you first realize
your vision was changing.
Speaker 4 (02:59):
Yeah.
Speaker 2 (03:00):
I was living in New Mexico for about five years
between fifth and tenth grade, and that was the time
of my life when I started hanging out with the
cooler older kids and doing drugs I should not have
been doing at that age.
Speaker 1 (03:13):
What age were you doing drugs?
Speaker 2 (03:15):
I like did acid and mushrooms in seventh grade.
Speaker 1 (03:19):
Oh my god, that's not okay.
Speaker 2 (03:22):
Imagine how intelligent I would be right now if I
hadn't done that, I would be interviewing you right now.
Speaker 4 (03:28):
Works, it's not how it works. But yeah, it was
very bad idea. I regret it.
Speaker 2 (03:33):
And it was that period when there was a lot
of like cruising out into the woods at night happening
as we were being bad, and the drugs made it
confusing because I was kind of like, am I just
like really high. And that's why it's hard to follow everybody.
But the disease I have RP or Retinitis pigmentosa first
manifests as a night blindness, and so I would just
(03:54):
have a lot of trouble picking my way around the
pinone trees and this darkened hillside, and that just those
kind of experiences accumulated to the point where I diagnosed myself.
And then a couple of years later, my mom had
moved to southern California by point, and I had complained
enough by then that she was like, you know, let's
go to a retinal specialist and this like heavy hitter
(04:15):
retinal doctor was like, yeah, retina is pigmenttosa. You'll be
blind by middle age.
Speaker 1 (04:21):
Oh wow, were there moments when you noticed it getting worse?
Speaker 2 (04:26):
Yeah, it's it's such a tricky thing to track because
it's so gradual, and it's really just like I would
compare it to noticing that you've gotten taller, right, And
my understanding of how RP and blindness works is it
is like it's very slow and then things just start
to get disastrous enough in your retina that it kind
of falls off a cliff. And the tricky thing is
(04:48):
that often the milestones are self imposed as much as
they are imposed from the outside. So what I mean
by that is like you kind of imagine a blindness
official coming up to you and saying, sir, I'm gonna
have to revoke your driver's license. But that doesn't happen, right,
Like I can passed the driving test, But then there's
enough close calls that you're like, I think I might
kill somebody by probably gonna stop driving at night.
Speaker 4 (05:10):
During the day it's still totally fine.
Speaker 2 (05:12):
And then at a certain point it's like, oh, that was
the third cyclist I almost murdered. Maybe daytime driving is
not a good idea.
Speaker 1 (05:18):
Right, So giving up driving is obviously a huge change,
But were there smaller ways that your diminishing vision affected
your day to day life.
Speaker 4 (05:28):
Yeah?
Speaker 2 (05:28):
Yeah, So I would say like every few years I
would have another experience like that. Like, so there was
the close calls driving, and then it started to creep
into pedestrian life. So I was in a cafe and
I turned to go from the register to where the
creamers and the sugars are kept, and I just didn't
see a little toddler there and I kind of hip
checked him and he like fell to the ground and
(05:50):
was uninjured, but it just felt really bad and really
raised the ire of his parents. And you know, like
would kick a dog accidentally, and I knocked over two
full beers like directly onto the lapse of a pair
of women on a date in a bar. Because the
weird thing about it is you can see right, So
like I'm seeing all kinds of stuff. You just don't
know what you can't see. So like I saw a
(06:10):
jukebox and I was sort of like a little tipsily, like.
Speaker 4 (06:13):
I'm going to put on guided by voices.
Speaker 2 (06:15):
And then I was like nothing in between me and
this jukebox, and like all you know, one hundred and
eighty pounds of me just like lunges towards the jukebox,
and I don't see like table full beers. Women on
date just ruined their date, felt really bad. And so
those kind of experiences accumulate to the point where it's
like a cane would have helped in all of those situations.
Speaker 1 (06:34):
So psychologically, what is it like to decide to use
a cane?
Speaker 2 (06:38):
Incredibly difficult the cane. As soon as you go anywhere
holding a long white cane, you are treated as a
blind person. And people don't treat blind people normally. No,
And another big difficult thing about the cane For somebody
with RP, you just feel like a fraud because on
the one hand, it's absolutely saving all the toddlers and
(07:01):
dogs and beers from being knocked over. On the other hand,
people see you look at your phone or like check
the don't walk sign flashing and they're like.
Speaker 4 (07:09):
What was this guy trying to do?
Speaker 2 (07:10):
Is he trying to like gain sympathy over here? And
you could just see it on their faces. It's like
all these weird looks.
Speaker 1 (07:15):
Because we're so binary, right, Like I see someone go
through the airport in the wheelchair and then pop up
and get on the flight or it feels like alive,
but there's a ring photally.
Speaker 4 (07:25):
Obviously of course.
Speaker 2 (07:26):
Yeah, I mean that the wheelchair is a good example.
It's the same thing, like, you know, just because somebody
can physically take steps, does that mean that they're doing
themselves a service? Are they going to be happier getting
through that airport walking? Like no, it's probably going to
be incredibly painful, But that doesn't make them a fraud
or a you know, like a lazy person. It's just
it's like another it's another way of inhabiting the world.
(07:47):
It is interesting though, the it's a common phenomenon, the
sort of disability doubters. You know, people are constantly calling
into question people like Stevie Wonder Truthers is all. There
is a whole horrible subreddit of people.
Speaker 4 (08:01):
Who think Stevie is faking his blindness.
Speaker 1 (08:03):
Why would Stevie Wonder be faking his blindness for this long?
Speaker 2 (08:07):
Of course he's not right, obviously, it's completely bogus. But
the evidence that they provide is bananas. My favorite one
is that somebody saw him in like a Best Buy
or something, buying a TV and they're like, why would
a blind guy be buying a TV? Like, well, maybe
because he like has a family and they want to
watch TV. And also blind people watch TV too, But anyway,
(08:27):
it's it's dispiriting in the extreme.
Speaker 1 (08:30):
I do think none of us not none of us me.
I don't know how to deal with blind people because
I lived on twenty third between ninth and tenth, which
is two blocks from Vision, which is the place that
has a lot of blind people living there in services,
and and so I'd constantly be at the crosswalk with
a blind person, yeah, not knowing if I should make
an offer to help or not. But I didn't know
(08:52):
what I was supposed to do.
Speaker 4 (08:53):
Yeah, I'll tell you offering is fine.
Speaker 1 (08:57):
Fine or good? There's a difference.
Speaker 4 (08:59):
I would say fine.
Speaker 2 (09:00):
I mean it's it's tough because you got to make
the judgment call and like if I was about to say,
if they seem like they need help, then you can offer,
and if not, just leave them alone. But like, the
general public's perception of what seeming like you need help
is for anybody with a disability is grossly, wildly inflated,
because basically, like being blind on a street corner equals
(09:20):
seems like they need help for most people, and the
reality is it's not, especially if you're on like that.
They live there, right, they probably have walked that, done
that crossing a dozen times. Imagine you, right, you're on
your way to work, You're on West twenty third Street,
and somebody says to you, like that's the Empire State Building,
you know, and you're like fuck you, Like I live
in New York, Like I don't need you know. It's
(09:41):
that level of like oh, little child, like is your
mommy somewhere else?
Speaker 4 (09:45):
And it's it's infuriating.
Speaker 1 (09:47):
Also, I think from what I remember, the blind people
were moving at a slightly different pace than me, slower,
and so that's when I get confused about whether someone
wanted help, because I want everyone to be moving at
the same pace as me.
Speaker 2 (09:59):
Right, Yeah, I mean, this is like the kind of
I think you're touching on like a kind of core
idea in disability, which is like it makes people uncomfortable
when the norm are challenged a little bit, and any
disability challenges norms, you know. Nowadays, with my cane, I've
had this experience numerous times recently where I'll be in
a restaurant trying to find the bathroom, and I'll end
(10:19):
up in a weird little alcove where like there's a
pair of people on a date, you know, and I'm
suddenly like at their table as though I'm a waiter,
but instead I'm just like random blind dude. But the
more I do it, the more I'm like, that's just
like my way of finding the bathroom is I might
end up in a couple of cul de sacs, but
like I don't need anybody to grab my elbow and
take me there. I just realize, oh, I veered too
far to the left. I'm going to zoop around to
(10:40):
the right and look at that I'm at the bathroom.
And to me, more and more, I'm like, that is
a blind way of finding the bathroom in a dark restaurant,
and I'm comfortable with that. But I think the thing
that I would like you to appreciate is basically that
like that wasn't being lost. I don't need to be
embarrassed about that. You don't need to be embarrassed about that.
That's just like how I do it right.
Speaker 1 (11:02):
It's almost like dealing with a different culture that you
don't You don't impose your culture on the Japanese when
you go.
Speaker 2 (11:09):
It's not almost like it it is. I mean, disability
culture is a different culture.
Speaker 4 (11:12):
Absolutely.
Speaker 1 (11:14):
Okay, So you knew your condition was going to get worse,
So how did you decide to prepare for that?
Speaker 2 (11:19):
I think, like most people with RP, I postponed it
for as long as I possibly could, until I was
in this situation where I'm like, Okay, things are getting
more and more dangerous. And the most important thing that
I did, and that any person who's going through what
I was going through can do, is to get blindness skills.
(11:39):
And I'd started to get some blindness skills from my
local sort of state Commission for the Blind, where a
rail instructor came to my house, and there was a
cane instructor, there was a guy who showed me sort
of techniques of daily living. But all of those people
were cited, and I had been doing more and more
research and realizing that there were other ways of learning
(12:00):
how to be blind out there that were in fact
quite different from what I was getting from the State Commission.
And so finally, after a while, I decided I would
go to the Colorado Center for the Blind, which is
one of the National Federation of the Blind's three residential
training centers. And normally the stay is nine months. Because
I had a young son and you know, a lot
(12:22):
of other things going on, I didn't feel like I
could go for nine months, but they let me go
for two weeks, and then I ended up going back
like a year later for another two weeks. And so
I think everything I say about it should have that
asterisk next to it that, like, the real training is
a full nine months.
Speaker 1 (12:36):
And what are the politics of this organization, because I
know in the blind community there's different philosophies.
Speaker 4 (12:42):
Yeah.
Speaker 2 (12:42):
So the National Federation of the Blind was founded in
nineteen forty and they really are the first instance in
the US of an organization by the blind for the blind. Like,
there is a really really strong history in the history
of blindness of cited people with exceedingly low expectations for
what blind people are capable of teaching them the bare
minimum and basically like feeding them into lives of smallness
(13:06):
with good intentions, but they have failed to give people
real independence. Is the NFB's contingent. I think if you
look at the history of blindness, there's example after example
of the failure of cited people to imagine a rich, full, successful, independent,
joyful blind life. And you really see that in the
outcomes of the seventy percent unemployment rate for one.
Speaker 1 (13:30):
Oh wow, Okay, so this is a slightly more libertarian take,
is that it is that we can teach ourselves to
do anything.
Speaker 4 (13:37):
Yeah.
Speaker 2 (13:38):
So everyone who works at the NFB training centers is
blind with very few exceptions. And they have a former
YMCA that they bought in Littleton, which is one of
the like cities within Denver. You know, it's like got
the same footprint of the YMCA, but it's just wild
because it's a completely blind space. Like the receptionist is
blind and you walk in and she's like, who's that
(13:58):
you know, and then you kind of engage with her.
And there's a braille typewriter right there that every time
you come in or go out, you sign her out.
It was an incredible experience for me arriving there, because,
you know, as somebody who had felt so isolated in
my experience of blindness and even curious if I counted
as blind, suddenly I was deeply immersed and included.
Speaker 4 (14:17):
And it felt really good.
Speaker 2 (14:18):
The thing I should say is that all of the
training there, you're wearing sleep shades unless you have a
no from your doctor that says you have no light perception,
which is really only like fifteen percent of blind people
have no light perception at all.
Speaker 1 (14:29):
Everybody just being like one of those masks that you get, like.
Speaker 2 (14:32):
I always associate them with like fancy people on airplanes
or a sleep mask.
Speaker 1 (14:36):
So you put these on the whole time you're.
Speaker 2 (14:38):
There to eight to four pm Monday through Friday. You
are occluded and you get in trouble if you take
them off, although everybody's blind, so how are they really
going to know you took it off?
Speaker 1 (14:49):
But yeah, So what's a typical day of blindness training?
Speaker 2 (14:52):
Like, so typical day at the Colorado Center is you
wake up at the apartments and everybody gathers at the
bus stop and it's wild because like it's just a
regular city bus, but like there's that one stop that
every morning at seven forty one, like two dozen blind
people just like storm it and it's just like this
fun like blind bus, you know, and then everybody gets
off at the Littleton station and then it's like school.
(15:15):
You know, it's like college a little bit where there's
like blocks of classes and you might have like braille
and home management in the morning and then long travel
in the afternoon.
Speaker 1 (15:23):
Is it like college or summer camp? Like do people
make friends or people hooking up? What's it like?
Speaker 2 (15:29):
It is a little bit of a Hogwarts for blind people,
I would say, And there you know, they've got roommates
and that the weekends people are grilling and drinking and
it's a whole scene.
Speaker 1 (15:39):
Do you think anyone was hitting on you?
Speaker 4 (15:43):
No, I don't think so.
Speaker 2 (15:45):
I mean I think people knew that I was married,
although that hasn't stopped plenty of folks there from hooking up,
because you do, like they leave their sighted spouses behind
at home and then they're there and that feeling I
was describing of sort of being suddenly like among peers
is really intoxicating. But I love my wife dearly. I
was not any risk of making out with any blind people.
Speaker 1 (16:04):
Yeah, but I imagine if that happens at teachers conventions
where it's just like, oh, you're a teacher too, totally
imagine this is much more intense. So what do you
have to do to finally graduate from this place?
Speaker 2 (16:16):
Yeah, So, like there's final tests in all of the subjects.
So like the cooking final test is you have to
cook a meal for the entire center, which is like
sixty people, and you do all the shopping undersleep shades.
Speaker 1 (16:26):
So cited people your age can't do that.
Speaker 2 (16:29):
I mean if they had nine months to work their
way up to it, they could. What'd you make a
kale salad and a red lentil soup? And I made
it for I think like six people in my apartment.
And then there's like, you know, in the tech class,
you have to like format Microsoft word documents properly. But
then the big famous thing that everybody talks about, and
it's mind boggling even to blind people, is they drive
(16:55):
you around under sleep shades in circles around Denver. You
have no idea where you are, you know, so some
people who are super advanced, they'll drop them off like
three cities over on the top of a parking garage,
which is a very confusing place for a blind. Parking
lots in general.
Speaker 1 (17:10):
If you're cited, I can never find my car. It's
parking lots are mazes. They're hard.
Speaker 4 (17:15):
Yeah, it's nuts.
Speaker 2 (17:17):
But regardless, everybody to graduate has to do some version
of this test, which is called the independent drop. They
let you off and then they say, okay, find your
way back.
Speaker 1 (17:25):
Okay, So what are the rules?
Speaker 2 (17:26):
Rules are no smartphone, You can only ask one person
one question.
Speaker 1 (17:31):
You can only you can ask one person one question.
That's crazy. I don't think you take most people without
his cell phone and drop them somewhere and hope they
would get back with all the sight in the world. Yeah,
had you heard like horror stories about the drop that
scared you?
Speaker 4 (17:46):
Yeah, for sure.
Speaker 2 (17:47):
I heard an account by a blind historian named Zachary
Shore who talked about the first time he did it.
And this is a good strategy I've found, but a
can backfire, as he discovered where he just sort of
heard a busy street and at a certain point of
your loss, like kind of picking a direction of just
going with it sort of makes sense, and you're like,
I'm going to find something that will be helpful, and
(18:08):
so he just sort of upburnly did that for a
really long time, and then a car pulled over next
to himhich're going to have to be a cop car
and they said, my friend, you're about to walk onto
the highway, and he jumped in the cop car and
they took him back to the center, you know, to
give you a sense of the intensity of these of
these training centers.
Speaker 4 (18:24):
You know.
Speaker 2 (18:24):
When he got back, the director was like, you failed
this time. We're going to make you do it again.
We're going to give you even harder drop next time,
and then next time you're going to do it, and
then lo and behold, next time he did it.
Speaker 1 (18:34):
When we come back, Andrew will be dropped off in
the middle of nowhere. But first our advertisers are going
do we even have advertisers? I've never listened to this podcast.
So you've been doing all of this training and it's
(18:54):
leading up to this big final test, your independent drop.
How does that go down?
Speaker 2 (19:01):
So there's a big morning meeting where everybody takes rold
call and then one of the travel teachers is like
an Todays for Andrew's independent drop, and everybody is like,
h everybody's cheering and razzing me, and you know there's like, oh,
I guess we'll say goodbye to him now because you'll
never see him again, like that kind of stuff.
Speaker 1 (19:19):
WHOA, Okay, Yeah, so you head out on your independent
drop and you've got those sleep shades on, and they
put you in a van and drive you around in
circles until they finally drop you off somewhere in Denver.
Speaker 4 (19:32):
Yeah.
Speaker 2 (19:32):
So I get in the van. The one of the
only sighted employees at the place, Josie, is driving me.
She seems more nervous than I am. I think she's
very unhappy about the like only one month in support
independent drop thing. And then she finally drops me off
and I get out, and I'm being very careful because
the thing is like when you're sighted and you get
(19:54):
confused or turned around. I think instinctually we all do
this where you kind of like do three sixty turn
your feet all the way around and the site keeps
you oriented right. But if you're blind, that is a
very bad idea because every one of those turns is
a chance that you're just gonna mess up which direction
you are right, not whole map. It was almost like
I landed from the van, was like a lunar lander,
(20:14):
you know, and I just like had planted my feet
on this new planet a little bit, and I was
like every step felt important in that first moment. I remember,
like on that sidewalk, so I felt with my cane
and I felt the grass line, and I found that
the curb. I felt the son on my face. It
was like, you know, eight thirty in the morning. So
I was like, okay, I'm facing east. And the thing
(20:35):
everybody tells you is find a bus. And there're one
question for one person smart money is you asked the
bus driver where how do I get to Littleton Downtown station?
Because at that point everybody knows backwards and forwards getting
from downtown Littleton station to the center. And so then
the sort of corollary is, if you want to find
(20:58):
a bus, you want to find a busy street, right,
So every pretty much everybody is the same thing I did,
which is you listen and you listen for where that
busier street is. And so I knew I was east.
It sounded quiet to the east. I kind of heard
something behind me, some traffic, like distant traffic, and so
I turned around and I started walking west. Twenty seconds later,
(21:18):
I'm at a corner and I can feel the corner
right with my cane, and then I have a decision,
Am I going to go north or south?
Speaker 4 (21:25):
Right?
Speaker 2 (21:26):
And I heard more traffic to the north, so I
took a left.
Speaker 1 (21:30):
But this is incredible, Like before you did this, would
you have had a sense in your head at all
times of which way's north, south, east and west?
Speaker 4 (21:37):
Never?
Speaker 2 (21:37):
And And honestly, like it's been a couple of months
since I did this, and of its atrophied, like because
I haven't worn sleep shades that much and I haven't
practiced this, and it's I feel bad. I feel like
I haven't been going to the gym, you know.
Speaker 1 (21:48):
But Okay, so you're at this corner and you're listening
for traffic and walking in that direction.
Speaker 2 (21:53):
Yeah, and it's just interesting like what I am picking up,
not just in terms of orientation, but just you know,
I also just have like a curiosity about where I am,
and like my cane hits a what really feels to
me like a piece of ply that's on the front
of a building, and that that to me signals like
a kind of a run down situation.
Speaker 4 (22:13):
You know, like why is I like plywood?
Speaker 2 (22:14):
And then like a dog starts barking behind the plywood,
and I was like, oh, that's interesting, Like is this
like a residence or something, you know.
Speaker 1 (22:21):
And you're scary.
Speaker 4 (22:23):
Uh.
Speaker 2 (22:24):
I was a little scared, not of the dog, but
just of like, you know, bothering somebody or you know,
like because I didn't know exactly where I was, so
it was like I had accidentally wandered to somebody. I
didn't think I was in somebody's yard, but it was definitely.
I was overwhelmed, and especially in those first minutes, like
extra overwhelmed. So, like, one thing that's really difficult while
doing blind cane travel is driveways just mess me up
(22:47):
because you'll be walking and you know, there's like the
concrete of the sidewalk and it gives way to the
asphalt of a driveway, but the roads are asphalt too,
and so that change in texture. Sometimes it's ambiguous, like
is this a am I at a corner? Or is
I just like crossing and there's like a supermarket there,
you know, And I felt one of those and I
was like, uh, I kind of feel like this is
(23:08):
a but I'm not sure. And because it was like
my first time alone, and like I was being very
meticulous about it. And then suddenly I heard a guy
had pulled his car. He had like slowed his truck,
and he's like, you lose something, buddy, because I think
I just looked like I had like dropped my keys
or something. And I was like, no, I'm just just exploring,
and he was like all right, you know, and he
(23:29):
like kept.
Speaker 1 (23:29):
Going just to exploring always a good answer.
Speaker 2 (23:32):
Yeah, that's my new stock answer. But I mustered the courage.
I crossed the driveway, made it to another corner, and
then from there then I finally made it to what
was clearly a busy artery. And then I had another decision.
You know, am I going to go left or right?
And I kind of felt like going with the flow
of traffic made sense. So I just went with the
(23:53):
flow of traffic, crossed a number of streets, and then
I finally got to another intersection that was clearly like
an even bigger artery, and I was like, Okay, this
has got to be where the bus is. That was
the first time I was actually scared, because it was
I stood there for a really long time listening because
this is what I've been trained to do, is like
you listen to the traffic pattern. If you stand there
long enough and you pay enough attention, you can figure
it out. You're like, Okay, I can clearly hear that
(24:13):
there's four lanes here, you know, two going one direction
to going the other, because I heard a car, you know,
go close. But also about like what there is there
an arrow?
Speaker 4 (24:22):
You know? When are the left turners coming?
Speaker 1 (24:24):
Oh?
Speaker 4 (24:24):
Right?
Speaker 2 (24:25):
And so it's a lot of thinking about the timing.
So I just stood there for probably ten minutes just
listening studying this intersection.
Speaker 1 (24:33):
This sounds exhausting, Like that's all I'd be paying attention to.
There's no room for like thinking about other stuff while
you're walking around.
Speaker 2 (24:40):
Oh my god, that can't be overstated how exhausting it is.
I would come back from one of these training sessions
and I would feel like I had just taken the
l SAT like eleven times, Like my brain is just
toothpaste in my head because the cognitive load is really, really.
Speaker 4 (24:52):
Really heavy.
Speaker 1 (24:54):
And did you take the al sets?
Speaker 4 (24:55):
Never taken the alset? Never will?
Speaker 1 (24:56):
That was a weird that's a weird fear you have,
that's a specific.
Speaker 4 (24:59):
Well I don't know. It seems hard.
Speaker 1 (25:01):
It does sound hard. Yeah, maybe this is my insecurities.
You sound like you're walking around curious and somewhat confident.
I feel like i'd be an panic and feel alone
and I'm not seeing other people. It just sounds claustrophobic.
Speaker 4 (25:17):
I mean it's a journey, you know.
Speaker 2 (25:19):
I think I felt that way, and I'm sure that
I will continue to feel that way, you know, as
I become more blind and hit more obstacles. But I
think the reality of that training is they work you
up to it, you know. So like the beginning of
that claustrophobia feeling is like you're just sitting there in
a room with a bunch of other.
Speaker 4 (25:37):
Blind people, and like you in that you have.
Speaker 2 (25:39):
Hours to just like absorb it and like get from
the chair to the locker where your lunch is, you know,
and then back to a different chair, and like that
experience really shakes some.
Speaker 4 (25:50):
Of the mystery off of it.
Speaker 2 (25:52):
And so by the time you're standing on that busy intersection,
a lot of that fear and claustrophobia it's still there.
Like I'm not going to lie to you and be
like everybody is cool with it. But like you're at
the level where I mean it's like kind of like
anything right, Like I feel like you could pick any
accomplishment at random, and it's like when you're at the
beginning of the journey, you're like, there's no way I'm
going to jump out of that plane, write that book,
(26:13):
you know, like marry that woman whatever, you know, but
like you get there, right, Marry that woman was maybe
a mirrored one, the best one.
Speaker 1 (26:22):
Okay. So you're at the intersection for possibly ten minutes.
Speaker 2 (26:27):
And so this guy comes out and he's like, yeah,
I'm like an electrician working on this hospital. I was like,
oh hospital, there no idea there was a hospital. And
he was like I just I saw you standing here
for a really long time, like are you lost? And
then this was like the one time I like kind
of cheated where I was like, oh, no, I'm not lost,
I'm just looking for a bus stop. And you know
that does not count as my one question right smart
(26:48):
but no, no, but it was totally cheating. But he
was like, oh, hang on, and he like looked at
his phone, and I could have then been like no, no,
you mustn't look at your phone, and he was like, oh, yeah,
just like if you cross the street here, there's a
bus stop like halfway up that block.
Speaker 1 (27:01):
And I was like, you were fantastic.
Speaker 2 (27:02):
Though, yeah, and I would have found it anyway. But
it was very relieving to know that I was on
the right track. But he like, it was like he
was leaving me to die. He was like, I was like,
I'm good, thank you, like I got it from here,
and he was like are you sure, like and I
was like, hey, I'm like, this is the training I'm doing, and.
Speaker 4 (27:21):
He was like, okay, you know, be well.
Speaker 2 (27:23):
But it was clearly he was just like I just
am leaving this guy to his death, and it was
It kind of made me laugh. But he also smelled
like overwhelmingly of weed and body odor, which was interesting.
It's a fallacy that blind people smell better or hear
better than cited people. But when that's all you are
relying on for like your impression of the world, like
(27:44):
these things they have a bigger impact, you know, like
you're you're more attuned to them.
Speaker 1 (27:47):
You know, it's not a fallacy that everyone in Denver
smells like body odor and weed.
Speaker 2 (27:54):
Yeah, indeed, you got me there. Anyway, I finally muster
the courage. I've like studied this intersection more than any
person other than the person who designed it has and
I cross I make it either side. My heart is
like in my.
Speaker 1 (28:09):
Yeah, you're sweating. Your heart's beating.
Speaker 4 (28:12):
That was definitely a pulse pounder moment. Yeah, but I
did it.
Speaker 2 (28:16):
And then I find a bench and I'm like, oh,
this could be a bus stop because it's a bench.
And then like I I kind of like inadvertently lift
my cane up a little higher and it hits this
like very hollow sounding roof that I didn't know was there,
and I was like, oh, like bench underneath a shelter, Like,
what on earth is that in the United States other than.
Speaker 4 (28:33):
A bus shelter.
Speaker 1 (28:33):
How long have you been out at this point?
Speaker 2 (28:35):
Not that long, probably like an hour. I've made it
like a quarter of a mile probably, and then the
bus arrives and then I'm like, here we go. One
question one person. And I asked the bus driver and
he's like, you know, in true bus driver form, it's like, oh, yeah,
just ride this bus to the end of the line
and then you'll be at like a light rail station.
And then once you get to that light rail station,
(28:56):
it's only like two stops to the downtown Littleton station,
and so I like, I sit there and by that
point I'm feeling very pleased with myself, Like getting on
the bus is like a major milestone. And then when
we got to the end of the line, the driver
offered to walk me to the station and like to
the to the train, but I was like, no, no, that's
that's going too far. I'm you know, I'm doing the
independent drop here like I'm good. But I did allow
(29:18):
him to be like, there's stairs right there, you know,
and you go up them across a bridge, and so
I made it, and that was weird. The light rail
station in sinteresting, you know, like I go up these
concrete stairs and there's like a brief moment of panic
where I was like, did I just like walk up
onto like a tiny concrete tower that I'm about to
fall off of.
Speaker 1 (29:35):
It's from watching mister McGoo as a kid.
Speaker 4 (29:37):
Yeah, right, yeah.
Speaker 2 (29:39):
But then of course, like good old Caine, you know,
gave me evidence of what was actually going on. I
found the pedestrian bridge over the highway to the light
rail station, and by that point I had been in
like I've been in Denver light rail stations like a
dozen times or more, and they're all set laid out,
you know, roughly the same right. I've been trained how
to find where the doors open, and so like I
(30:00):
felt for the tactile dots, and as I was doing that,
there was somebody wearing headphones and so they didn't hear
me coming, and I scared the crap out of them
because I like passed like very close to the and
I think just like all of a sudden, they were like, oh,
there's a guy right there, which kind of cracked me up,
just because like it was funny like that I was
scaring other people instead of other people scaring me.
Speaker 1 (30:16):
That thing, I must have it all the time now
that everyone's staring at.
Speaker 4 (30:18):
Their phones, Oh totally.
Speaker 2 (30:20):
Yeah, it's really annoying also just as a pedestrian because
they're like staring at their phones as they're walking, and
then you're like you're the blind one like bumping into me,
an asshole. So then I get on there and then
I'm like feeling extremely confident because like I hear that
it's like the right train, and I've been on this
train and I know it's going and I know it's
two stops and then people start talking to me on
the train.
Speaker 4 (30:39):
And when somebody starts being like.
Speaker 2 (30:41):
Sir, there is a chair immediately to your left, and
I was just like, buddy, I am, and I'm like
kind of like riffing. I'm like in such a good mood.
I was just like, buddy, like I'm good standing. And
then I its like dorky, but I was like holding
onto the you know, the strap, and I was like, oh,
I'm just like one of those like I'm like a
nineteen thirties commuter. Buddy like look at me like I'm
a snowboarder, like raight, you know. And they were like, oh,
(31:01):
this guy's feeling his oats. But at that point, I
was just like singing in my head because I really
know where to go. And as I get closer to
the center, you know, I start to hear canes and
I'm like, oh, like here we are. We're getting closer.
And then actually Charles, my travel instructor, he's out with
another student, but like he kind of comes back and
I hear him under his breath.
Speaker 4 (31:19):
It's like, great job, dude, great job.
Speaker 2 (31:21):
He's really proud of me and made me feel great.
And then yeah, I got back, and then there's a
tradition when you get back, you know, you check back
in and you tell the receptionist that you're there, and
then they announce it over the intercom.
Speaker 4 (31:31):
You know, they're like, Andrew just got back from his
independent job.
Speaker 2 (31:33):
And then I hear like, you know, all in the
Braille classroom in the kitchen, everybody's like oooh you know
what I feel like, Oh, it was.
Speaker 4 (31:40):
It was incredible.
Speaker 2 (31:41):
I mean, I'm like getting I'm getting the chills again
right now just telling.
Speaker 4 (31:45):
You about it.
Speaker 2 (31:46):
You know, the fears that I have about becoming blind,
the real like intense anxiety about like, am I just
going to be like the guy who goes into his
mom's basement and just like can't do anything anymore? When
this happens, it just undermines the hell out of that
because it's like, yeah, it's going to be hard and
exhausting and like triple l sat every day if I
am going to places I've never been, but also like
(32:08):
it's one hundred percent doable. If like my vision we're
going to completely go out tomorrow, it would be heinous,
and I would like accelerate all of the stuff I'm
trying to do. But also like I would continue pitching
stories for magazines, and I would continue like going to
people's weddings and like checking out new restaurants, and like,
it just gave me that confidence. So like, my life
does not have to end by any stretch with the
(32:29):
loss of sight.
Speaker 1 (32:31):
The oddest thing might be that you seem less afraid
of going blind than you are of the elsats.
Speaker 2 (32:37):
Oh yeah, I really don't want to take the l
s terry times. She seems I just don't have a
legal mind.
Speaker 1 (32:43):
Andrew Leland, you wrote the new book The Country of
the Blind, a memoir at the end of site, and
also this article in The New Yorker, how to be Blind.
It's the story of the week, and you've made me
a better person.
Speaker 2 (32:57):
Hey, I hope that's true, Joel. Thanks, I really enjoyed
talking to you.
Speaker 1 (33:01):
Me too well. I learned so much from talking to Andrew.
My main takeaway is never grab anyone by the elbow.
Does anyone ever enjoy that? I mean, even if you're
paying at Dominatrix, if she grabs you by the elbow,
you're not coming back for a second session. I mean,
(33:21):
you can yank someone by the hair, but don't touch
their elbows like you're some kind of schoolmaster in Little
House on the Prairie. Leave people a little dignity.
Speaker 3 (33:33):
At the end of the show, what's next for joel Stein?
Maybe you'll take a napper bok around online.
Speaker 1 (33:40):
Our show today was produced by Kate mccauliffe and Nishavenko.
It was edited by Lydia Jan Kott. Our engineer is
Amanda kay Wang and our executive producer is Catherine Shira Dahl.
And our theme song was written and performed by Jonathan
Colton and a special thanks to my voice coach Vicky
Merrick and my consulting producer Laurence Alasnik. To find more
(34:03):
Pushkin podcasts, listen on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or
wherever you listen to your podcasts. I'm Joel Stein, and
this is the story of the week. Who are the
attractive Like? Who are the blind?
Speaker 4 (34:17):
Sex symbols in pop culture?
Speaker 1 (34:20):
Yeah?
Speaker 4 (34:21):
I mean probably me.
Speaker 1 (34:22):
I would say, I think I think you're up there.
Maybe Mary from Little House in the.
Speaker 2 (34:26):
Prairie All right now, isn't she like eleven?
Speaker 4 (34:30):
Not?
Speaker 1 (34:30):
By the end of the show,
Pushkin.
Speaker 2 (00:20):
I'm Andrew Leland, and I wrote How to Be Blind
for The New Yorker, and it's the story of the week.
Speaker 1 (00:25):
As I've mentioned before, in a failed attempt to get
you to buy my book, man made a stupid quest
from masculinity. Back in twenty ten, the United States Army
allowed me to join a troop to do a week
of boot camp at Fort Knox. One of the exercises
involved a sergeant taking me out into the middle of
a forest where I was supposed to find a flag
(00:47):
that I was given compass coordinates for. I calculated that
sixty seven of my steps equal one hundred meters and
then went out to find it. The biggest challenge for
me was that this forest had a lot of butterflies,
like more butterflies than I had ever seen in a
butterfly sanctuary, and all kinds of different butterflies, each more
(01:10):
beautiful than the last. My other problem was I couldn't
remember which way was north or east and how many
steps i'd taken, forrest really look the same no matter
which way you go. Eventually, my sergeant gave up on me,
so I know for a proven fact that there is
no way i'd be able to do what Andrew Leland
(01:32):
did in Denver. Writing is hard.
Speaker 3 (01:41):
Who's got that kind of time? When you're already busy
trying to be you all stand So it turns on
a mic. Maybe the twiddles enough because a journalist trand
has got in that juble jibes. Single story. Just listen
to smart people speak. Conversation, film and information is.
Speaker 2 (02:02):
A story U.
Speaker 1 (02:14):
When reporters confront something difficult in our personal lives, our
defense mechanism is to research the hell out of it,
which is what I did when I found out I
was having a boy, and then no idea how to
raise a boy because I know how to be a boy,
and I wrote the book Man Made a stupid Quest
for masculinity, available in bookstores. That's exactly what Andrew Leland
(02:35):
did for The New Yorker when he started to go blind.
Before we start, I know that among the very many
things you've done, you've been a radio and podcast producer.
So if any point you want to correct something I'm
doing wrong or add a sound effect, just feel free
to do that.
Speaker 4 (02:49):
Your headphones are ond backwards, but they are right. No,
I'm just kidding.
Speaker 1 (02:52):
Oh jeez. All right, So when did you first realize
your vision was changing.
Speaker 4 (02:59):
Yeah.
Speaker 2 (03:00):
I was living in New Mexico for about five years
between fifth and tenth grade, and that was the time
of my life when I started hanging out with the
cooler older kids and doing drugs I should not have
been doing at that age.
Speaker 1 (03:13):
What age were you doing drugs?
Speaker 2 (03:15):
I like did acid and mushrooms in seventh grade.
Speaker 1 (03:19):
Oh my god, that's not okay.
Speaker 2 (03:22):
Imagine how intelligent I would be right now if I
hadn't done that, I would be interviewing you right now.
Speaker 4 (03:28):
Works, it's not how it works. But yeah, it was
very bad idea. I regret it.
Speaker 2 (03:33):
And it was that period when there was a lot
of like cruising out into the woods at night happening
as we were being bad, and the drugs made it
confusing because I was kind of like, am I just
like really high. And that's why it's hard to follow everybody.
But the disease I have RP or Retinitis pigmentosa first
manifests as a night blindness, and so I would just
(03:54):
have a lot of trouble picking my way around the
pinone trees and this darkened hillside, and that just those
kind of experiences accumulated to the point where I diagnosed myself.
And then a couple of years later, my mom had
moved to southern California by point, and I had complained
enough by then that she was like, you know, let's
go to a retinal specialist and this like heavy hitter
(04:15):
retinal doctor was like, yeah, retina is pigmenttosa. You'll be
blind by middle age.
Speaker 1 (04:21):
Oh wow, were there moments when you noticed it getting worse?
Speaker 2 (04:26):
Yeah, it's it's such a tricky thing to track because
it's so gradual, and it's really just like I would
compare it to noticing that you've gotten taller, right, And
my understanding of how RP and blindness works is it
is like it's very slow and then things just start
to get disastrous enough in your retina that it kind
of falls off a cliff. And the tricky thing is
(04:48):
that often the milestones are self imposed as much as
they are imposed from the outside. So what I mean
by that is like you kind of imagine a blindness
official coming up to you and saying, sir, I'm gonna
have to revoke your driver's license. But that doesn't happen, right,
Like I can passed the driving test, But then there's
enough close calls that you're like, I think I might
kill somebody by probably gonna stop driving at night.
Speaker 4 (05:10):
During the day it's still totally fine.
Speaker 2 (05:12):
And then at a certain point it's like, oh, that was
the third cyclist I almost murdered. Maybe daytime driving is
not a good idea.
Speaker 1 (05:18):
Right, So giving up driving is obviously a huge change,
But were there smaller ways that your diminishing vision affected
your day to day life.
Speaker 4 (05:28):
Yeah?
Speaker 2 (05:28):
Yeah, So I would say like every few years I
would have another experience like that. Like, so there was
the close calls driving, and then it started to creep
into pedestrian life. So I was in a cafe and
I turned to go from the register to where the
creamers and the sugars are kept, and I just didn't
see a little toddler there and I kind of hip
checked him and he like fell to the ground and
(05:50):
was uninjured, but it just felt really bad and really
raised the ire of his parents. And you know, like
would kick a dog accidentally, and I knocked over two
full beers like directly onto the lapse of a pair
of women on a date in a bar. Because the
weird thing about it is you can see right, So
like I'm seeing all kinds of stuff. You just don't
know what you can't see. So like I saw a
(06:10):
jukebox and I was sort of like a little tipsily, like.
Speaker 4 (06:13):
I'm going to put on guided by voices.
Speaker 2 (06:15):
And then I was like nothing in between me and
this jukebox, and like all you know, one hundred and
eighty pounds of me just like lunges towards the jukebox,
and I don't see like table full beers. Women on
date just ruined their date, felt really bad. And so
those kind of experiences accumulate to the point where it's
like a cane would have helped in all of those situations.
Speaker 1 (06:34):
So psychologically, what is it like to decide to use
a cane?
Speaker 2 (06:38):
Incredibly difficult the cane. As soon as you go anywhere
holding a long white cane, you are treated as a
blind person. And people don't treat blind people normally. No,
And another big difficult thing about the cane For somebody
with RP, you just feel like a fraud because on
the one hand, it's absolutely saving all the toddlers and
(07:01):
dogs and beers from being knocked over. On the other hand,
people see you look at your phone or like check
the don't walk sign flashing and they're like.
Speaker 4 (07:09):
What was this guy trying to do?
Speaker 2 (07:10):
Is he trying to like gain sympathy over here? And
you could just see it on their faces. It's like
all these weird looks.
Speaker 1 (07:15):
Because we're so binary, right, Like I see someone go
through the airport in the wheelchair and then pop up
and get on the flight or it feels like alive,
but there's a ring photally.
Speaker 4 (07:25):
Obviously of course.
Speaker 2 (07:26):
Yeah, I mean that the wheelchair is a good example.
It's the same thing, like, you know, just because somebody
can physically take steps, does that mean that they're doing
themselves a service? Are they going to be happier getting
through that airport walking? Like no, it's probably going to
be incredibly painful, But that doesn't make them a fraud
or a you know, like a lazy person. It's just
it's like another it's another way of inhabiting the world.
(07:47):
It is interesting though, the it's a common phenomenon, the
sort of disability doubters. You know, people are constantly calling
into question people like Stevie Wonder Truthers is all. There
is a whole horrible subreddit of people.
Speaker 4 (08:01):
Who think Stevie is faking his blindness.
Speaker 1 (08:03):
Why would Stevie Wonder be faking his blindness for this long?
Speaker 2 (08:07):
Of course he's not right, obviously, it's completely bogus. But
the evidence that they provide is bananas. My favorite one
is that somebody saw him in like a Best Buy
or something, buying a TV and they're like, why would
a blind guy be buying a TV? Like, well, maybe
because he like has a family and they want to
watch TV. And also blind people watch TV too, But anyway,
(08:27):
it's it's dispiriting in the extreme.
Speaker 1 (08:30):
I do think none of us not none of us me.
I don't know how to deal with blind people because
I lived on twenty third between ninth and tenth, which
is two blocks from Vision, which is the place that
has a lot of blind people living there in services,
and and so I'd constantly be at the crosswalk with
a blind person, yeah, not knowing if I should make
an offer to help or not. But I didn't know
(08:52):
what I was supposed to do.
Speaker 4 (08:53):
Yeah, I'll tell you offering is fine.
Speaker 1 (08:57):
Fine or good? There's a difference.
Speaker 4 (08:59):
I would say fine.
Speaker 2 (09:00):
I mean it's it's tough because you got to make
the judgment call and like if I was about to say,
if they seem like they need help, then you can offer,
and if not, just leave them alone. But like, the
general public's perception of what seeming like you need help
is for anybody with a disability is grossly, wildly inflated,
because basically, like being blind on a street corner equals
(09:20):
seems like they need help for most people, and the
reality is it's not, especially if you're on like that.
They live there, right, they probably have walked that, done
that crossing a dozen times. Imagine you, right, you're on
your way to work, You're on West twenty third Street,
and somebody says to you, like that's the Empire State Building,
you know, and you're like fuck you, Like I live
in New York, Like I don't need you know. It's
(09:41):
that level of like oh, little child, like is your
mommy somewhere else?
Speaker 4 (09:45):
And it's it's infuriating.
Speaker 1 (09:47):
Also, I think from what I remember, the blind people
were moving at a slightly different pace than me, slower,
and so that's when I get confused about whether someone
wanted help, because I want everyone to be moving at
the same pace as me.
Speaker 2 (09:59):
Right, Yeah, I mean, this is like the kind of
I think you're touching on like a kind of core
idea in disability, which is like it makes people uncomfortable
when the norm are challenged a little bit, and any
disability challenges norms, you know. Nowadays, with my cane, I've
had this experience numerous times recently where I'll be in
a restaurant trying to find the bathroom, and I'll end
(10:19):
up in a weird little alcove where like there's a
pair of people on a date, you know, and I'm
suddenly like at their table as though I'm a waiter,
but instead I'm just like random blind dude. But the
more I do it, the more I'm like, that's just
like my way of finding the bathroom is I might
end up in a couple of cul de sacs, but
like I don't need anybody to grab my elbow and
take me there. I just realize, oh, I veered too
far to the left. I'm going to zoop around to
(10:40):
the right and look at that I'm at the bathroom.
And to me, more and more, I'm like, that is
a blind way of finding the bathroom in a dark restaurant,
and I'm comfortable with that. But I think the thing
that I would like you to appreciate is basically that
like that wasn't being lost. I don't need to be
embarrassed about that. You don't need to be embarrassed about that.
That's just like how I do it right.
Speaker 1 (11:02):
It's almost like dealing with a different culture that you
don't You don't impose your culture on the Japanese when
you go.
Speaker 2 (11:09):
It's not almost like it it is. I mean, disability
culture is a different culture.
Speaker 4 (11:12):
Absolutely.
Speaker 1 (11:14):
Okay, So you knew your condition was going to get worse,
So how did you decide to prepare for that?
Speaker 2 (11:19):
I think, like most people with RP, I postponed it
for as long as I possibly could, until I was
in this situation where I'm like, Okay, things are getting
more and more dangerous. And the most important thing that
I did, and that any person who's going through what
I was going through can do, is to get blindness skills.
(11:39):
And I'd started to get some blindness skills from my
local sort of state Commission for the Blind, where a
rail instructor came to my house, and there was a
cane instructor, there was a guy who showed me sort
of techniques of daily living. But all of those people
were cited, and I had been doing more and more
research and realizing that there were other ways of learning
(12:00):
how to be blind out there that were in fact
quite different from what I was getting from the State Commission.
And so finally, after a while, I decided I would
go to the Colorado Center for the Blind, which is
one of the National Federation of the Blind's three residential
training centers. And normally the stay is nine months. Because
I had a young son and you know, a lot
(12:22):
of other things going on, I didn't feel like I
could go for nine months, but they let me go
for two weeks, and then I ended up going back
like a year later for another two weeks. And so
I think everything I say about it should have that
asterisk next to it that, like, the real training is
a full nine months.
Speaker 1 (12:36):
And what are the politics of this organization, because I
know in the blind community there's different philosophies.
Speaker 4 (12:42):
Yeah.
Speaker 2 (12:42):
So the National Federation of the Blind was founded in
nineteen forty and they really are the first instance in
the US of an organization by the blind for the blind. Like,
there is a really really strong history in the history
of blindness of cited people with exceedingly low expectations for
what blind people are capable of teaching them the bare
minimum and basically like feeding them into lives of smallness
(13:06):
with good intentions, but they have failed to give people
real independence. Is the NFB's contingent. I think if you
look at the history of blindness, there's example after example
of the failure of cited people to imagine a rich, full, successful, independent,
joyful blind life. And you really see that in the
outcomes of the seventy percent unemployment rate for one.
Speaker 1 (13:30):
Oh wow, Okay, so this is a slightly more libertarian take,
is that it is that we can teach ourselves to
do anything.
Speaker 4 (13:37):
Yeah.
Speaker 2 (13:38):
So everyone who works at the NFB training centers is
blind with very few exceptions. And they have a former
YMCA that they bought in Littleton, which is one of
the like cities within Denver. You know, it's like got
the same footprint of the YMCA, but it's just wild
because it's a completely blind space. Like the receptionist is
blind and you walk in and she's like, who's that
(13:58):
you know, and then you kind of engage with her.
And there's a braille typewriter right there that every time
you come in or go out, you sign her out.
It was an incredible experience for me arriving there, because,
you know, as somebody who had felt so isolated in
my experience of blindness and even curious if I counted
as blind, suddenly I was deeply immersed and included.
Speaker 4 (14:17):
And it felt really good.
Speaker 2 (14:18):
The thing I should say is that all of the
training there, you're wearing sleep shades unless you have a
no from your doctor that says you have no light perception,
which is really only like fifteen percent of blind people
have no light perception at all.
Speaker 1 (14:29):
Everybody just being like one of those masks that you get, like.
Speaker 2 (14:32):
I always associate them with like fancy people on airplanes
or a sleep mask.
Speaker 1 (14:36):
So you put these on the whole time you're.
Speaker 2 (14:38):
There to eight to four pm Monday through Friday. You
are occluded and you get in trouble if you take
them off, although everybody's blind, so how are they really
going to know you took it off?
Speaker 1 (14:49):
But yeah, So what's a typical day of blindness training?
Speaker 2 (14:52):
Like, so typical day at the Colorado Center is you
wake up at the apartments and everybody gathers at the
bus stop and it's wild because like it's just a
regular city bus, but like there's that one stop that
every morning at seven forty one, like two dozen blind
people just like storm it and it's just like this
fun like blind bus, you know, and then everybody gets
off at the Littleton station and then it's like school.
(15:15):
You know, it's like college a little bit where there's
like blocks of classes and you might have like braille
and home management in the morning and then long travel
in the afternoon.
Speaker 1 (15:23):
Is it like college or summer camp? Like do people
make friends or people hooking up? What's it like?
Speaker 2 (15:29):
It is a little bit of a Hogwarts for blind people,
I would say, And there you know, they've got roommates
and that the weekends people are grilling and drinking and
it's a whole scene.
Speaker 1 (15:39):
Do you think anyone was hitting on you?
Speaker 4 (15:43):
No, I don't think so.
Speaker 2 (15:45):
I mean I think people knew that I was married,
although that hasn't stopped plenty of folks there from hooking up,
because you do, like they leave their sighted spouses behind
at home and then they're there and that feeling I
was describing of sort of being suddenly like among peers
is really intoxicating. But I love my wife dearly. I
was not any risk of making out with any blind people.
Speaker 1 (16:04):
Yeah, but I imagine if that happens at teachers conventions
where it's just like, oh, you're a teacher too, totally
imagine this is much more intense. So what do you
have to do to finally graduate from this place?
Speaker 2 (16:16):
Yeah, So, like there's final tests in all of the subjects.
So like the cooking final test is you have to
cook a meal for the entire center, which is like
sixty people, and you do all the shopping undersleep shades.
Speaker 1 (16:26):
So cited people your age can't do that.
Speaker 2 (16:29):
I mean if they had nine months to work their
way up to it, they could. What'd you make a
kale salad and a red lentil soup? And I made
it for I think like six people in my apartment.
And then there's like, you know, in the tech class,
you have to like format Microsoft word documents properly. But
then the big famous thing that everybody talks about, and
it's mind boggling even to blind people, is they drive
(16:55):
you around under sleep shades in circles around Denver. You
have no idea where you are, you know, so some
people who are super advanced, they'll drop them off like
three cities over on the top of a parking garage,
which is a very confusing place for a blind. Parking
lots in general.
Speaker 1 (17:10):
If you're cited, I can never find my car. It's
parking lots are mazes. They're hard.
Speaker 4 (17:15):
Yeah, it's nuts.
Speaker 2 (17:17):
But regardless, everybody to graduate has to do some version
of this test, which is called the independent drop. They
let you off and then they say, okay, find your
way back.
Speaker 1 (17:25):
Okay, So what are the rules?
Speaker 2 (17:26):
Rules are no smartphone, You can only ask one person
one question.
Speaker 1 (17:31):
You can only you can ask one person one question.
That's crazy. I don't think you take most people without
his cell phone and drop them somewhere and hope they
would get back with all the sight in the world. Yeah,
had you heard like horror stories about the drop that
scared you?
Speaker 4 (17:46):
Yeah, for sure.
Speaker 2 (17:47):
I heard an account by a blind historian named Zachary
Shore who talked about the first time he did it.
And this is a good strategy I've found, but a
can backfire, as he discovered where he just sort of
heard a busy street and at a certain point of
your loss, like kind of picking a direction of just
going with it sort of makes sense, and you're like,
I'm going to find something that will be helpful, and
(18:08):
so he just sort of upburnly did that for a
really long time, and then a car pulled over next
to himhich're going to have to be a cop car
and they said, my friend, you're about to walk onto
the highway, and he jumped in the cop car and
they took him back to the center, you know, to
give you a sense of the intensity of these of
these training centers.
Speaker 4 (18:24):
You know.
Speaker 2 (18:24):
When he got back, the director was like, you failed
this time. We're going to make you do it again.
We're going to give you even harder drop next time,
and then next time you're going to do it, and
then lo and behold, next time he did it.
Speaker 1 (18:34):
When we come back, Andrew will be dropped off in
the middle of nowhere. But first our advertisers are going
do we even have advertisers? I've never listened to this podcast.
So you've been doing all of this training and it's
(18:54):
leading up to this big final test, your independent drop.
How does that go down?
Speaker 2 (19:01):
So there's a big morning meeting where everybody takes rold
call and then one of the travel teachers is like
an Todays for Andrew's independent drop, and everybody is like,
h everybody's cheering and razzing me, and you know there's like, oh,
I guess we'll say goodbye to him now because you'll
never see him again, like that kind of stuff.
Speaker 1 (19:19):
WHOA, Okay, Yeah, so you head out on your independent
drop and you've got those sleep shades on, and they
put you in a van and drive you around in
circles until they finally drop you off somewhere in Denver.
Speaker 4 (19:32):
Yeah.
Speaker 2 (19:32):
So I get in the van. The one of the
only sighted employees at the place, Josie, is driving me.
She seems more nervous than I am. I think she's
very unhappy about the like only one month in support
independent drop thing. And then she finally drops me off
and I get out, and I'm being very careful because
the thing is like when you're sighted and you get
(19:54):
confused or turned around. I think instinctually we all do
this where you kind of like do three sixty turn
your feet all the way around and the site keeps
you oriented right. But if you're blind, that is a
very bad idea because every one of those turns is
a chance that you're just gonna mess up which direction
you are right, not whole map. It was almost like
I landed from the van, was like a lunar lander,
(20:14):
you know, and I just like had planted my feet
on this new planet a little bit, and I was
like every step felt important in that first moment. I remember,
like on that sidewalk, so I felt with my cane
and I felt the grass line, and I found that
the curb. I felt the son on my face. It
was like, you know, eight thirty in the morning. So
I was like, okay, I'm facing east. And the thing
(20:35):
everybody tells you is find a bus. And there're one
question for one person smart money is you asked the
bus driver where how do I get to Littleton Downtown station?
Because at that point everybody knows backwards and forwards getting
from downtown Littleton station to the center. And so then
the sort of corollary is, if you want to find
(20:58):
a bus, you want to find a busy street, right,
So every pretty much everybody is the same thing I did,
which is you listen and you listen for where that
busier street is. And so I knew I was east.
It sounded quiet to the east. I kind of heard
something behind me, some traffic, like distant traffic, and so
I turned around and I started walking west. Twenty seconds later,
(21:18):
I'm at a corner and I can feel the corner
right with my cane, and then I have a decision,
Am I going to go north or south?
Speaker 4 (21:25):
Right?
Speaker 2 (21:26):
And I heard more traffic to the north, so I
took a left.
Speaker 1 (21:30):
But this is incredible, Like before you did this, would
you have had a sense in your head at all
times of which way's north, south, east and west?
Speaker 4 (21:37):
Never?
Speaker 2 (21:37):
And And honestly, like it's been a couple of months
since I did this, and of its atrophied, like because
I haven't worn sleep shades that much and I haven't
practiced this, and it's I feel bad. I feel like
I haven't been going to the gym, you know.
Speaker 1 (21:48):
But Okay, so you're at this corner and you're listening
for traffic and walking in that direction.
Speaker 2 (21:53):
Yeah, and it's just interesting like what I am picking up,
not just in terms of orientation, but just you know,
I also just have like a curiosity about where I am,
and like my cane hits a what really feels to
me like a piece of ply that's on the front
of a building, and that that to me signals like
a kind of a run down situation.
Speaker 4 (22:13):
You know, like why is I like plywood?
Speaker 2 (22:14):
And then like a dog starts barking behind the plywood,
and I was like, oh, that's interesting, Like is this
like a residence or something, you know.
Speaker 1 (22:21):
And you're scary.
Speaker 4 (22:23):
Uh.
Speaker 2 (22:24):
I was a little scared, not of the dog, but
just of like, you know, bothering somebody or you know,
like because I didn't know exactly where I was, so
it was like I had accidentally wandered to somebody. I
didn't think I was in somebody's yard, but it was definitely.
I was overwhelmed, and especially in those first minutes, like
extra overwhelmed. So, like, one thing that's really difficult while
doing blind cane travel is driveways just mess me up
(22:47):
because you'll be walking and you know, there's like the
concrete of the sidewalk and it gives way to the
asphalt of a driveway, but the roads are asphalt too,
and so that change in texture. Sometimes it's ambiguous, like
is this a am I at a corner? Or is
I just like crossing and there's like a supermarket there,
you know, And I felt one of those and I
was like, uh, I kind of feel like this is
(23:08):
a but I'm not sure. And because it was like
my first time alone, and like I was being very
meticulous about it. And then suddenly I heard a guy
had pulled his car. He had like slowed his truck,
and he's like, you lose something, buddy, because I think
I just looked like I had like dropped my keys
or something. And I was like, no, I'm just just exploring,
and he was like all right, you know, and he
(23:29):
like kept.
Speaker 1 (23:29):
Going just to exploring always a good answer.
Speaker 2 (23:32):
Yeah, that's my new stock answer. But I mustered the courage.
I crossed the driveway, made it to another corner, and
then from there then I finally made it to what
was clearly a busy artery. And then I had another decision.
You know, am I going to go left or right?
And I kind of felt like going with the flow
of traffic made sense. So I just went with the
(23:53):
flow of traffic, crossed a number of streets, and then
I finally got to another intersection that was clearly like
an even bigger artery, and I was like, Okay, this
has got to be where the bus is. That was
the first time I was actually scared, because it was
I stood there for a really long time listening because
this is what I've been trained to do, is like
you listen to the traffic pattern. If you stand there
long enough and you pay enough attention, you can figure
it out. You're like, Okay, I can clearly hear that
(24:13):
there's four lanes here, you know, two going one direction
to going the other, because I heard a car, you know,
go close. But also about like what there is there
an arrow?
Speaker 4 (24:22):
You know? When are the left turners coming?
Speaker 1 (24:24):
Oh?
Speaker 4 (24:24):
Right?
Speaker 2 (24:25):
And so it's a lot of thinking about the timing.
So I just stood there for probably ten minutes just
listening studying this intersection.
Speaker 1 (24:33):
This sounds exhausting, Like that's all I'd be paying attention to.
There's no room for like thinking about other stuff while
you're walking around.
Speaker 2 (24:40):
Oh my god, that can't be overstated how exhausting it is.
I would come back from one of these training sessions
and I would feel like I had just taken the
l SAT like eleven times, Like my brain is just
toothpaste in my head because the cognitive load is really, really.
Speaker 4 (24:52):
Really heavy.
Speaker 1 (24:54):
And did you take the al sets?
Speaker 4 (24:55):
Never taken the alset? Never will?
Speaker 1 (24:56):
That was a weird that's a weird fear you have,
that's a specific.
Speaker 4 (24:59):
Well I don't know. It seems hard.
Speaker 1 (25:01):
It does sound hard. Yeah, maybe this is my insecurities.
You sound like you're walking around curious and somewhat confident.
I feel like i'd be an panic and feel alone
and I'm not seeing other people. It just sounds claustrophobic.
Speaker 4 (25:17):
I mean it's a journey, you know.
Speaker 2 (25:19):
I think I felt that way, and I'm sure that
I will continue to feel that way, you know, as
I become more blind and hit more obstacles. But I
think the reality of that training is they work you
up to it, you know. So like the beginning of
that claustrophobia feeling is like you're just sitting there in
a room with a bunch of other.
Speaker 4 (25:37):
Blind people, and like you in that you have.
Speaker 2 (25:39):
Hours to just like absorb it and like get from
the chair to the locker where your lunch is, you know,
and then back to a different chair, and like that
experience really shakes some.
Speaker 4 (25:50):
Of the mystery off of it.
Speaker 2 (25:52):
And so by the time you're standing on that busy intersection,
a lot of that fear and claustrophobia it's still there.
Like I'm not going to lie to you and be
like everybody is cool with it. But like you're at
the level where I mean it's like kind of like
anything right, Like I feel like you could pick any
accomplishment at random, and it's like when you're at the
beginning of the journey, you're like, there's no way I'm
going to jump out of that plane, write that book,
(26:13):
you know, like marry that woman whatever, you know, but
like you get there, right, Marry that woman was maybe
a mirrored one, the best one.
Speaker 1 (26:22):
Okay. So you're at the intersection for possibly ten minutes.
Speaker 2 (26:27):
And so this guy comes out and he's like, yeah,
I'm like an electrician working on this hospital. I was like,
oh hospital, there no idea there was a hospital. And
he was like I just I saw you standing here
for a really long time, like are you lost? And
then this was like the one time I like kind
of cheated where I was like, oh, no, I'm not lost,
I'm just looking for a bus stop. And you know
that does not count as my one question right smart
(26:48):
but no, no, but it was totally cheating. But he
was like, oh, hang on, and he like looked at
his phone, and I could have then been like no, no,
you mustn't look at your phone, and he was like, oh, yeah,
just like if you cross the street here, there's a
bus stop like halfway up that block.
Speaker 1 (27:01):
And I was like, you were fantastic.
Speaker 2 (27:02):
Though, yeah, and I would have found it anyway. But
it was very relieving to know that I was on
the right track. But he like, it was like he
was leaving me to die. He was like, I was like,
I'm good, thank you, like I got it from here,
and he was like are you sure, like and I
was like, hey, I'm like, this is the training I'm doing, and.
Speaker 4 (27:21):
He was like, okay, you know, be well.
Speaker 2 (27:23):
But it was clearly he was just like I just
am leaving this guy to his death, and it was
It kind of made me laugh. But he also smelled
like overwhelmingly of weed and body odor, which was interesting.
It's a fallacy that blind people smell better or hear
better than cited people. But when that's all you are
relying on for like your impression of the world, like
(27:44):
these things they have a bigger impact, you know, like
you're you're more attuned to them.
Speaker 1 (27:47):
You know, it's not a fallacy that everyone in Denver
smells like body odor and weed.
Speaker 2 (27:54):
Yeah, indeed, you got me there. Anyway, I finally muster
the courage. I've like studied this intersection more than any
person other than the person who designed it has and
I cross I make it either side. My heart is
like in my.
Speaker 1 (28:09):
Yeah, you're sweating. Your heart's beating.
Speaker 4 (28:12):
That was definitely a pulse pounder moment. Yeah, but I
did it.
Speaker 2 (28:16):
And then I find a bench and I'm like, oh,
this could be a bus stop because it's a bench.
And then like I I kind of like inadvertently lift
my cane up a little higher and it hits this
like very hollow sounding roof that I didn't know was there,
and I was like, oh, like bench underneath a shelter, Like,
what on earth is that in the United States other than.
Speaker 4 (28:33):
A bus shelter.
Speaker 1 (28:33):
How long have you been out at this point?
Speaker 2 (28:35):
Not that long, probably like an hour. I've made it
like a quarter of a mile probably, and then the
bus arrives and then I'm like, here we go. One
question one person. And I asked the bus driver and
he's like, you know, in true bus driver form, it's like, oh, yeah,
just ride this bus to the end of the line
and then you'll be at like a light rail station.
And then once you get to that light rail station,
(28:56):
it's only like two stops to the downtown Littleton station,
and so I like, I sit there and by that
point I'm feeling very pleased with myself, Like getting on
the bus is like a major milestone. And then when
we got to the end of the line, the driver
offered to walk me to the station and like to
the to the train, but I was like, no, no, that's
that's going too far. I'm you know, I'm doing the
independent drop here like I'm good. But I did allow
(29:18):
him to be like, there's stairs right there, you know,
and you go up them across a bridge, and so
I made it, and that was weird. The light rail
station in sinteresting, you know, like I go up these
concrete stairs and there's like a brief moment of panic
where I was like, did I just like walk up
onto like a tiny concrete tower that I'm about to
fall off of.
Speaker 1 (29:35):
It's from watching mister McGoo as a kid.
Speaker 4 (29:37):
Yeah, right, yeah.
Speaker 2 (29:39):
But then of course, like good old Caine, you know,
gave me evidence of what was actually going on. I
found the pedestrian bridge over the highway to the light
rail station, and by that point I had been in
like I've been in Denver light rail stations like a
dozen times or more, and they're all set laid out,
you know, roughly the same right. I've been trained how
to find where the doors open, and so like I
(30:00):
felt for the tactile dots, and as I was doing that,
there was somebody wearing headphones and so they didn't hear
me coming, and I scared the crap out of them
because I like passed like very close to the and
I think just like all of a sudden, they were like, oh,
there's a guy right there, which kind of cracked me up,
just because like it was funny like that I was
scaring other people instead of other people scaring me.
Speaker 1 (30:16):
That thing, I must have it all the time now
that everyone's staring at.
Speaker 4 (30:18):
Their phones, Oh totally.
Speaker 2 (30:20):
Yeah, it's really annoying also just as a pedestrian because
they're like staring at their phones as they're walking, and
then you're like you're the blind one like bumping into me,
an asshole. So then I get on there and then
I'm like feeling extremely confident because like I hear that
it's like the right train, and I've been on this
train and I know it's going and I know it's
two stops and then people start talking to me on
the train.
Speaker 4 (30:39):
And when somebody starts being like.
Speaker 2 (30:41):
Sir, there is a chair immediately to your left, and
I was just like, buddy, I am, and I'm like
kind of like riffing. I'm like in such a good mood.
I was just like, buddy, like I'm good standing. And
then I its like dorky, but I was like holding
onto the you know, the strap, and I was like, oh,
I'm just like one of those like I'm like a
nineteen thirties commuter. Buddy like look at me like I'm
a snowboarder, like raight, you know. And they were like, oh,
(31:01):
this guy's feeling his oats. But at that point, I
was just like singing in my head because I really
know where to go. And as I get closer to
the center, you know, I start to hear canes and
I'm like, oh, like here we are. We're getting closer.
And then actually Charles, my travel instructor, he's out with
another student, but like he kind of comes back and
I hear him under his breath.
Speaker 4 (31:19):
It's like, great job, dude, great job.
Speaker 2 (31:21):
He's really proud of me and made me feel great.
And then yeah, I got back, and then there's a
tradition when you get back, you know, you check back
in and you tell the receptionist that you're there, and
then they announce it over the intercom.
Speaker 4 (31:31):
You know, they're like, Andrew just got back from his
independent job.
Speaker 2 (31:33):
And then I hear like, you know, all in the
Braille classroom in the kitchen, everybody's like oooh you know
what I feel like, Oh, it was.
Speaker 4 (31:40):
It was incredible.
Speaker 2 (31:41):
I mean, I'm like getting I'm getting the chills again
right now just telling.
Speaker 4 (31:45):
You about it.
Speaker 2 (31:46):
You know, the fears that I have about becoming blind,
the real like intense anxiety about like, am I just
going to be like the guy who goes into his
mom's basement and just like can't do anything anymore? When
this happens, it just undermines the hell out of that
because it's like, yeah, it's going to be hard and
exhausting and like triple l sat every day if I
am going to places I've never been, but also like
(32:08):
it's one hundred percent doable. If like my vision we're
going to completely go out tomorrow, it would be heinous,
and I would like accelerate all of the stuff I'm
trying to do. But also like I would continue pitching
stories for magazines, and I would continue like going to
people's weddings and like checking out new restaurants, and like,
it just gave me that confidence. So like, my life
does not have to end by any stretch with the
(32:29):
loss of sight.
Speaker 1 (32:31):
The oddest thing might be that you seem less afraid
of going blind than you are of the elsats.
Speaker 2 (32:37):
Oh yeah, I really don't want to take the l
s terry times. She seems I just don't have a
legal mind.
Speaker 1 (32:43):
Andrew Leland, you wrote the new book The Country of
the Blind, a memoir at the end of site, and
also this article in The New Yorker, how to be Blind.
It's the story of the week, and you've made me
a better person.
Speaker 2 (32:57):
Hey, I hope that's true, Joel. Thanks, I really enjoyed
talking to you.
Speaker 1 (33:01):
Me too well. I learned so much from talking to Andrew.
My main takeaway is never grab anyone by the elbow.
Does anyone ever enjoy that? I mean, even if you're
paying at Dominatrix, if she grabs you by the elbow,
you're not coming back for a second session. I mean,
(33:21):
you can yank someone by the hair, but don't touch
their elbows like you're some kind of schoolmaster in Little
House on the Prairie. Leave people a little dignity.
Speaker 3 (33:33):
At the end of the show, what's next for joel Stein?
Maybe you'll take a napper bok around online.
Speaker 1 (33:40):
Our show today was produced by Kate mccauliffe and Nishavenko.
It was edited by Lydia Jan Kott. Our engineer is
Amanda kay Wang and our executive producer is Catherine Shira Dahl.
And our theme song was written and performed by Jonathan
Colton and a special thanks to my voice coach Vicky
Merrick and my consulting producer Laurence Alasnik. To find more
(34:03):
Pushkin podcasts, listen on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or
wherever you listen to your podcasts. I'm Joel Stein, and
this is the story of the week. Who are the
attractive Like? Who are the blind?
Speaker 4 (34:17):
Sex symbols in pop culture?
Speaker 1 (34:20):
Yeah?
Speaker 4 (34:21):
I mean probably me.
Speaker 1 (34:22):
I would say, I think I think you're up there.
Maybe Mary from Little House in the.
Speaker 2 (34:26):
Prairie All right now, isn't she like eleven?
Speaker 4 (34:30):
Not?
Speaker 1 (34:30):
By the end of the show,
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