[nabs-l] The Importance Of Independent Travel

[Carly Mihalakis]

Good morning,

Personally, I like to think of it as interdependent travel, recruting 
your fellow man, and sort of directing him where you need to go. 
Admittedly, this means of travel found me after becoming injured such 
that I was unable to keep track of direction and what they call rout 
reversal, became for me no more than a pipe dream.

In my experience, however, if you just let go of this idea that to 
prove to Ol'Sighty of  blindness' being  what is it, little more than 
a mere inconvenience, everyone must be some kind of super blink whom, 
by simply waving his long, white cane can travel any course, under 
any circumstances in pitch ocular darkness. Sure, this social 
construct is certainly possible to live within and many people do it, 
but not everybody is super Federationist blink!

After all, interpersonal contact, I believe, is more of a palpable, 
alternative to demonstrating to Ol'Sighty things of which most of us 
are capable, that Ol'Sighty might remember. I'm fond of iterating 
that Ol'Sighty cares not about the means to which the blink reaches 
the same ends, noticing only that, eventually he gets there. So, if 
it becomes a matter of walking through an airport, say, to 
demonstrate to Ol'Sighty ways in which most blinks can, and do 
advocate for themselves, it may be a plausible course of action to 
grab Ol'Sighty from one of the hoards that are invariably around and, 
placing your hand on his shoulder, tell him where you need to be and 
see if he can help you. Of course, should he be in a hurry you can 
find someone else, but wait for an indication of said sighted person 
being unable to help. It is in this way you can actually have a 
conversation with a sighted person, maybe even exchange names?
Agreed, the super blink means of seamlessly gliding through a crowd 
is intimidating, and not exactly if I may say so myself, realistic of 
every blink. Let that go! Probably, you are not a super blink, at 
least by their rigid standards.
for today, Car
408-209-3239
   :52 AM 7/16/2014, Roanna Bacchus via nabs-l wrote:
>Dear Students,
>
>I'd like to discuss another topic with all of you.  On Monday I had 
>a conversation with my mobility instructor during my training 
>session at UCF.  We were talking about the importance of traveling 
>independently as blind individuals.  I got very emotional while we 
>were having this conversation and began to cry.  Because I've never 
>traveled independently in the community, I lack the experience of 
>traveling on my own.  Can each of you tell me your stories about 
>inarependent travel? Hope to hear from you soon.
>
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