And I wondered how much courage it must have taken to be in that space alone with a child, and then how much courage it must have taken to be a blind person, bringing a new life for whom she was responsible, into the world. Nowadays, many woman with all their faculties intact fear to do so.
What fears must have come to her? Must she not have thought at times “this will never work”, or “what business do I have bringing this child to me?” or “how CAN this ever work out?”. Then I thought she must just be taking it one day at a time, and sometimes, sometimes, entire lifetimes can be lived one day at a time, and disaster never visits. No calamity comes calling. Everything that is feared stays outside the door, and leaves you in peace.
And then the man I assume is her husband came back. And he TOO had a cane. He had a smile on his face, and seemed confident. He said something to her, then something to the bagger, and then walked off tapping his cane, seemingly knowing exactly where he was going. The bagger followed him, and I assume he must have been the one pulling things off the shelf.
And I pondered the faith necessary for this blind couple to do something as simple as go to the grocery store with their baby. They can’t see anything. They depend solely on their ears, their canes, and the goodwill of those around them.
Amazing, to me, and it shamed me, honestly. What business do I have being such a coward? What soldier enters the field of battle assuming defeat? It is undignified. Unbecoming. It is, in a word, wrong.
So I started allowing myself positive thoughts.
I will try and post that in my next post, but thought I’d share in this vein an amazing story about Helen Keller. I will editorialize in advance that what tragedy does is FORCE A CHOICE. Left to our own devices, most of us will never delve too hard, or ponder too long, the mysteries, beauties, and terrors of life.
When we are confronted with existential difficulties, ones which challenge our very sense of self, and habitual mode of making our way through this world–of living–then we go up or down. For those who go up, they rise much higher than they otherwise may have. For those who go down, there always remains the possibility of going up, even if they fight this idea, and the people proposing it, tooth and nail with all the fury they possess.
Anyway, those who know me well realize I am a conservative hippy. My mind compels me to read history and economics and learn from them. My heart compels me to dream new ways of being. So why not Jean Houston?
Today is the 47th anniversary of the death of Helen Keller. As some of you know that as a child, I met Miss Keller. One day in our school in NYC, P.S. 6, our teacher informed us that we were going to meet Helen Keller, the great woman who had become deaf, blind, and mute before the age of two. In preparation for meeting Miss Keller, Miss O’Reilly read to us the powerful passage from Helen Keller’s autobiography that tells of how until she was six years old, Helen had no concepts whatsoever. There was little that could break through the imprisoned flesh to the potential mind within. Her teacher Annie Sullivan tried in vain to help her understand words through hand tappings. Finally, in desperation, Annie pulled Helen out to the ivy- covered pumphouse and held her hand under the water while she tapped out repeatedly into the other hand W-A-T-E-R, W-A-T-E-R, W-A-T-E-R.
Helen writes that her whole body became still. Suddenly she understood what Annie was communicating to her. That word water broke into her sealed mind like the sun into a frozen winter world. It was her mental awakening, and she learned the names for thirty things by the end of that day. Before that supreme event there had been little in her life but body functions and rage. Helen Keller, of course had gone on to become the great educator, champion of the disabled and disadvantaged, and friend and inspiration to so many people the world over.
After this preparation, Miss O’Reilly took us to the Cosmopolitan Club in the east 60’s where Miss Keller would be meeting us. Miss Keller was led out by her associate and companion, Polly Thompson. She was in her late sixties at the time, a large handsome women, quite tall, I remember, and utterly radiant. Her eyes saw nothing and yet were seeing everything. Her smile was a beneficence welcoming the world. I had never seen anybody so full of presence and joy in my life, even though I had been exposed throughout childhood to professional comedians who were always laughing. Helen Keller’s joy was of another order entirely.
When she began to speak, I heard the voice of a prophet, a pythoness, whose strange inflections and pronunciations were those of someone who had never heard speech. After she had finished, I was so deeply moved that I knew I had to speak to her. Mind you, I didn’t know what I wanted to say, but I knew I had to speak to her nonetheless. When Miss Thompson asked if anyone had a question, my classmates squirmed and looked sheepishly at each other. But I found myself raising my hand and going up to her. Miss Keller placed her entire hand on my face in order to read my question. Her fingers read my expression, while the center of her palm read my lips. Still I did not know what I was going to ask. Her hand did not move from my face. Finally I blurted out what was in my heart, “Why are you so happy?”
She laughed and laughed, laughter rising from another dimension of sound–the laughter of a sequoia or of a whale.
“My child,” she said, her voice wandering between octaves. “It is because I live my life each day as if it were my last. And life in all its moments is so full of glory.” [emphasis mine]
As her hand lingered on my face for a moment, I felt as if I were lifted into her radiance and that some kind of charge passed between us. When, years later, I lay on my back looking up at the ceiling of the Sistine Chapel, I understood the nature of that charge. For there on the ceiling was the famous painting by Michaelangelo of God reaching out his hand to touch the outstretched hand of Adam. In my case it had been the touch of the blind goddess to the little Eve.
Helen Keller was a Socialist, Big S, and quite open about it. I will say that I may have been in that era too. There manifestly WERE many, many horrible abuses, of the sort we see today in China. You had a rich power elite whose sole concern was profit, and they worked people like slaves and cared not at all when they died or were permanently harmed.
Back then, it was not yet obvious that the French Revolution was not a one-off. It was not yet obvious that nothing good can be built from a foundation which rejects “bourgeois” virtue, common decency, and all ties with the past.