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