[stylist] feedback/critique request - thanks

[Chris Kuell]

Thanks to those who took the time to read and comment on my essay. Atty, 
your input was especially appreciated, as you gave some excellent, concrete 
suggestions. In my original draft, which was about 1400 words, I wrote --as 
if God herself reached down from heaven-- but in an attempt to cut any 
extraneous words, the pronoun got the axe.

   Robert, there is indeed a famous range in Northern Arizona known as the 
Coital Mountains, with one high plateau known as Mounting peak. It's 
believed that 69% of all native Arizonians were conceived there. I begged my 
wife to check it out while we were there, but instead she turned on the air 
conditioner and drove 50 miles to the West of it.

I appreciate your thoughts and comments on the essay. While I've written 
perhaps two dozen essays and a complete novel about blindness and the 
abilities of blind people, this isn't one of them. While I'll never write 
about 'poor blind me', and I am fully aware of the misconceptions held by 
the sighted world, when a sighted person is going through the process of 
losing their sight, it can be a devastating ordeal. It's something that a 
congenitally blind person can imagine, but can't relate to, just as a 
sighted person can imagine what blindness is like, but they can't really 
relate unless they've lived it.

This was a travel essay, so I needed to cover what we saw and experienced 
while visiting Arizona on that trip. The most important part, and what I 
found difficult to put into words, was that deer showing up just as I was 
about to leave, and was feeling very sad inside. To me, that der magically 
being there was like a sign from God, or the universe, that everything was 
going to be okay. I can't find the words to say why I felt that way, but 
there, at that time, that's what I felt.

And that's the important part of the essay. I've covered independent travel 
in other essays, including one called 'I Think I Cane' which got me $250 in 
a national contest a few years back. I've since gone back to Arizona twice 
as a blind person, where I've hiked, visited Tombstone and Rawhide and the 
Biodome, and even poked a sleeping rattlesnake with my cane (from the safety 
of a car--it was sleeping on the blacktopped street). But this essay was 
about a fun trip with my family, and that deer.

chris