Dialogue in the Dark

Today Darius and I went to "Dialogue in the Dark" at the Exhibition Center in Atlantic Station. It was such an cool experience. But before I write anything else, if you plan on visiting "Dialogue" and if you do not want to know what to expect during the tour, you might not want to read the rest of this post.

So the way it works is you walk into a room were the lights slowly get darker and darker until it's pitch black. You are given a stick to use to prevent you from walking into things which, in my case, did not help a lot, but, still, you get the point. You are lead through a series of settings by a blind guide that include a city, a grocery store, a park, a cafe, and you even board a boat! The entire tour is about an hour long and I never truly got used to following my tour guide's voice or finding my way by tapping my cane.

At times, the process of making my way through the tour was very frustrating and I felt a bit helpless and kind of dumb to tell you the truth. I mean, I could hear my guide say, "Follow my voice" and I kept thinking, "Where the H is your voice!?!". It definitely takes more than an hour for your others senses to compensate.

I was surprised by some of my behavior during the experience. For one, I could not bring myself to just close my eyes. Even though I could not see a thing and I could feel my eyes straining as I tried to look around, I felt even MORE blind when I closed them! I was also surprised to find how small everything felt. I guess to think of anything as being bigger than me was overwhelming and I kept trying to duck into hallways even though after feeling the wall, I could not even come close to touching the top even on my tippy toes.

Another thing that was cool about the experience was how everyone in the group let go of a lot of their social boundaries. We were all standing so close to each other and I felt people besides Darius touching me to try to follow me. Everyone felt comfortable relying on each other for help. I thought that was really cool. But, above everything else, I think the coolest thing about "Dialogue in the Dark" is that the blind guides have the opportunity to orientate others into something unfamiliar instead of the opposite. I am sure it is very empowering for them to not only have this leadership opportunity, but to have the chance to share their "view" of the world for once.

At the end of the tour, we sat down in the cafe and had a Q&A session with our guide. I got to ask him a few questions I have always wondered about blind people: Do they value travel as much as the sighted world does? Are there "blind-friendly" cities? And, the million dollar question, If you could, would you undergo a procedure they could give you sight? Through his answers, he reminded me that there is more to travel than just what you can see. You can taste, hear, and feel culture just as much as you can see it. He told me Atlanta was fairly "blind friendly" and, lastly, he remains undecided as to whether or not he would want gain the ability to see. At first I was surprised, but then I realized that to gain sight for the first time in your life at 25 years old would be just as jarring as losing your sight at that same point in your life. It would entail re-learning everything you do. You would have to re-meet everyone you know. You would have to learn your way around just as a sighted person who became blind would. But what his undecided answer says to me more than anything else, is people become comfortable in their lives, abilities, and states of being. And whether or not a change in a person's life would be considered socially "positive", the unfamiliar will inevitably remain intimidating, scary, and even unappealing.

I really valued my experience today and remain astounded that such small changes in our bodies have the ability to create such immeasurable obstacles in our lives.