adventure – Opportunity Unleashed

Going to the Park as a Blind Mama

The first time I took my daughter to the park was intimidating. I knew she was big enough to start going in the swing, but it wasn’t her I was nervous about. I wasn’t terribly comfortable with the layout of the playground. What if I couldn’t find the baby swings? Would other parents be grabbing me and dragging me around the place if they saw me trying to get oriented? What if all the baby swings were taken? How would I know and wouldn’t it be really awkward if I just stood there close by, listening to determine whether they were occupied? What if the other parents talked to me? Or, what if none of the other parents wanted to talk to me? What if all the children were attracted to Prim and she couldn’t do her job because she was being distracted?

I know it sounds dramatic, but my heart was racing along with my thoughts as I directed Prim to the gate of the playground and we made our way toward where I thought the swing set would be. As I suspected, parents did immediately notice me and offered help, but it wasn’t in the sort of aggressive way I was expecting. They just greeted me kindly and offered help if I needed it. I had an immediate sense of simultaneous panic and relief, something like, “Oh no! They are talking to me!”, while at once thinking, “Oh thank the Lord, they are talking to me”

One dad let me know that he and his child were using the swing closest to me, but that there was one available right next to them. I was endlessly thankful he had chosen merely to give me useful information about the location of an available swing, rather than seeing me close by and rushing to move himself and his child out of the way, which sometimes happens and always makes me feel terrible. We struck up a friendly conversation for a minute while we pushed our little ones in the swings side by side, and I started to breath. This going to the park thing wasn’t so bad after all.

Every time I have gone since, it has gotten easier and easier, and today was down right delightful. Little Miss thoroughly enjoyed her time in the swing, then walked and crawled about, happily observing the other children at their play, climbing the steps of the jungle gym, and obliging me as I put her on the slide a few times. One mother admired my daughter, remarking, “She’s gorgeous.” and we had a casual back and forth about our little girls, while two other mothers recognized me from a mums and tots group we have taken part in and we chatted amiably the whole time.

Once a cause for anxiety, trips to the park are becoming more and more a blessing, and the glimpse of possible friendships developing from it is an even more unexpected bonus. Add to that Prim’s great work taking me right to the gate of the playground, and then the baby swings, and the incredible weather… and I’m just feeling really thankful for trips to the park with my two sweet girlies.

April Showers

This is a story I wrote down a year ago that I never got the chance to post. I figured since it’s April again, it would be an appropriate springy thing to share.

I can’t drive, and I don’t have buckets of money to pay for Lyfts everywhere I go, so generally whatever the weather is, my guide dog and I are out in it, getting where we need to go. That is why, one April Saturday, Prim and I ventured out into the pouring rain to head to a friend’s recital at my old university. Neither of us were excessively pleased about the damp; I shivered, and Prim did her best to avoid puddles as we set out on the mile walk.

We were standing at a street corner waiting for the light to change. I was listening to the traffic on my right to know when it was safe to cross when, suddenly, a car approached quickly from my left and a massive wave of water struck us. I squeaked and leapt back, shocked by the cold and completely soaked waist down. Prim shook it off and we stepped back up to the curb to wait once more.

Not thirty seconds later, a truck came barreling through the intersection. Before I could react, I was engulfed from head to toe in a six foot high tsunami of street water. The frigid liquid left me breathless, and poor Prim was completely disgruntled. I laughed ruefully and turned to go home, blinking away the water dripping into my eyes. There was absolutely no way I could walk into a recital looking like I’d just fallen into a pool.

“Ma’am!” a voice called from a car at the gas station behind me. I paused, glancing in his direction.

“Ma’am do you need help? I have a towel.” He approached and pushed a towel into my hands.

“Thank you.” I said, surprised. I took the towel and mopped my face. I was just going to believe it was a clean towel, and not something this friendly samaritan had just used to clean greasy hands after working on his engine or something. I vainly tried to dry my clothes with the towel too, but only semi-successfully. I was at least grateful to have dry face and arms. As per my request, the man kindly helped me across the street. I’ve probably asked someone to do that a grand total of two or three times in my life. Contrary to popular belief, I don’t normally need help to cross the street, dog or no dog, but I was not in the mood to be hit by yet a third surge of rainwater.

Upon reaching the other side of the street, I expressed my appreciation to my benefactor, then was promptly dragged by my indignant dog to the nearest door. I was planning on walking the rest of the way to the recital, but clearly Prim had other ideas, and she wasn’t afraid to tell me. She absolutely refused to leave the shelter of the overhang in front of the business. I was trying to reason with her when another voice called from a car in the street.

“Shea!”

It was a friend from college. He offered a ride to our destination, and Prim and I gladly accepted. We arrived just in time for the performance. I sat through the whole thing shaking in my soaked clothes, and winced at the strong smell of wet dog radiating from my poor unhappy pup, but man am I glad we made it, and honestly, it was kind of an exhilarating experience. Who says Nashville doesn’t have a good waterpark?

A Safety-Conscious Canine

A little story I wrote for a blog I contributed to. The blog is no longer running so I decided to republish it here. Enjoy.

Prim has consistently been rather stubborn about going to church. When I asked my trainer about it, she suggested that perhaps Prim simply wasn’t religious. I laughed at that, but it wasn’t a sufficient explanation, especially when I realized that Prim was somewhat unwilling to walk the route from church, as well as to church. Today I figured out why.

Our walk to church includes traversing several sets of steps, the top level of a parking garage, and a long, side-walkless driveway, one that is consistently populated by church-goers’ vehicles leaving and entering our parking lot. Because there is no sidewalk, we are forced to stick as close as we can to the edge of the road. Prim is trained to do this. It’s a technique called “shore-lining”, but she is still not satisfied. She often stops in the parking lot or veers to the grass when she sees an idoling car, as I think she recognizes it as a threat. Well, one day on our way out of church, Prim decided to take matters into her own paws. Despite my direction to walk straight, across the parking lot and along the driveway, Prim insisted upon turning left. Curious, I trusted her and followed.

“Let’s go home.”

I said, hopefully, even though I didn’t actually know whether we could get back to our appartment this way. She led me along a brief strip of parkinglot, then pulled me strongly to the right to step onto a sidewalk. I couldn’t help but laugh. We stuck to the sidewalk, made a right, then walked another good distance, until Prim pulled right again and I recognized the slant of our leasing office parking lot beneath my feet, and a minute later reached out to feel the gate that would take us into our complex.

We had never walked that route before, but somehow Prim knew we could get home that way, and knew it was safer with side walks. She won’t let us walk any other way now. I love my safety conscious canine.