Blindsided

We’ve been rehearsing for a play called En la ardiente oscuridad. I translated it into English this summer, and have been pretty happy with the translation except for the title. The word “ardiente” in Spanish has overtones of light, of rage, of smoldering, and I can’t seem to find an English word that quite works. I toyed with titles like “Rage in the Darkness Burning,” but they seemed too forced. Though the meaning is specific, the Spanish is fairly direct and prosaic. It is just one of the ways I often feel trapped between the two languages through which I live. But, that’s another blog. We are calling the play In the Burning Darkness. It takes place in a school for the blind, and it has made me think a lot about blindness.
Try doing the following things blindfolded:
Eat dinner.
Go to the bathroom (Yes, go there physically, then do what you need to do.)
Brush your teeth.
Change your bed.
Go to the corner store and buy milk.
Pick out what clothes you are going to wear today.
And all of that is just the beginning...
As a prop for the play, we needed one of those blind-person white canes. This was harder to come by than you might think. A few weeks ago, I went to a pharmacy and asked. They directed me to another larger pharmacy. They said no pharmacy has things like that, and told me to go to a place that specializes in orthopedics. So, I did. They sent to me a bigger place that specializes in orthopedics (are you noticing a pattern here?), and, of course, the bigger shop said that no orthopedic store carried things like that, so I had to go to one of the ONCE offices. ONCE is the government sponsored association for the blind in Spain. I finally got a cane there for twenty euros. But before I did, this happened.
I was in between orthopedic shops, and was walking up Gran Via with a friend of mine. We were crossing a major street near Plaza España when I noticed a young blind woman crossing the same street, but in the opposite direction. And she had one of the coveted canes. My friend, joking, whispered in my ear “Grab it! What is she going to do?” I laughed, and imagined what might happen. She could scream. Other people could jump me, but downtown in Madrid, who is going to get involved? Maybe they would for a blind girl. Maybe they wouldn’t. And once I got away, it wasn’t like she was going to describe me to a police sketch artist. In that moment, I realized that blindness is more than a lack of vision.
It is lack of power. It is dependence.
The irony is that, in a large part, the play we are doing makes the same point. I guess sometimes we have to live what we read in a book to really understand it. I would take my hat off to the blind people reading this, but of course, there aren’t any. Perhaps someone is reading it to them. Perhaps there is a text to voice program that some blind people use to read insignificant blogs on the internet. If so, I just want to say that I am beginning to recognize the battle you fight, and I respect it.
Peace.

THE PENELOPEID

The Penelopeid
Is a poem you will never read.

There is no sacred text

Upon which the words of the singer

Were carefully scratched.

Because there are no words

For the story that must be told.

A good plot,

Aristotle tells us,

Consists of goals, complications,

Revelation and suffering.

The order must be careful,

Deliberate.

Designed.

Patterned.

Who would read the tale?

This island is small.


And this hall smaller.

Large enough to hold so many strong hands,

Manly loins, hungry mouths.

Large enough to hold the dreams

Of a boy who becomes a man

In the shadow of his mother’s fear.

Large enough for twenty empty years.


What hero is this?

Who sits and warps and wefts

Wrapped in shadow against the sun’s heat

Only to steal back in the silvery splinters

Of moonlight to unravel her threads and tears.



What hero is this?

Who’s only strength lies in a dream

She never had.

Who cannot hold her lover true

And is glad to have him from whosoever’s bed

He’s warmed these thousands of salty nights?

What hero is this?

Indeed.

None for your tales of Phaikians and affected sobs.

None for your sirens and witches and nymphs.

Harlots all.

None for your Cyclops and Scyllas sprinkled like

Pepper between years in lusty silken sheets.

My deeds lie in the careful maze

Woven into my father’s shroud. Him

I will not deny.

My deeds lie in my son’s

Sure step and careful strength.

(The bow was as easily his, you see.)

My deeds are done

In flesh and bone

More vital than any song.

My tale lies there

For those who have eyes to see

And a heart

To hear.

6 november 2005