It Makes Sense

I am in awe of my experience with blindness. I’m not saying I wouldn’t jump at the chance to get my vision back, but honestly it is interesting to me to think about the way I experienced the world when I had sight verses now when I am blind. Just thinking about the human body and how it compensates, I remember going to a lecture where the speaker said that the visual cortex is a very large part of the brain. But when a person goes blind the brain switches gears and sends more signals to the other parts of the brain which control the other senses, so they get more nutrients and blood flow and they grow larger and larger while the visual cortex actually shrinks.

It’s springtime now, and today I was on my early morning walk around the Avenues. My guide dog leads me and takes the stress out of navigating through the neighborhood so I am able to daydream and notice what my other senses are picking up. We set out at 6:30 am, and at that time there are so many birds singing. It is so loud and beautiful that it makes me imagine that I am in a rain forest. I even hear a wood pecker nearby. I start to smell fragrant flowers that are so sweet and the scent is so potent I think I must be walking through a flower shop. I want to bottle it and use it for perfume. This particular morning a very unexpected scent hits my nose, and I could tell my dog was keen to it too. The most sensational aroma of fried chicken permeated this section of the block. How strange! At this hour of the morning? Really! I don’t know who was drooling more, me or my dog!

I used to go on many walks when I was sighted, but I don’t remember experiencing any of the things that caught my interest this morning on our fabulous walk through the Avenues!