In and Out of Darkness: Losing Vision, Gaining Insight

By Linda Goodspeed

Beautiful and moving story of going blind, and how the author picked up her life again, changed careers and traveled to Russia to adopt a child. Funny, moving and inspirational. Well written.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Linda Goodspeed
• Release date: Nov 17, 2012
• ISBN: 9781301216192

Linda Goodspeed

Linda Goodspeed is the author of three books. Her most recent, In and Out of Darkness: Losing Vision, Gaining Insight, is a memoir of going blind. Reviewer Sherry Hardy says In and Out of Darkness “should be on everyone's short list of vivid and yet inwardly honest 'life so far' stories.” Goodspeed’s other books include Pico, Vermont: 75th Anniversary Edition (2012), a history of one of America’s oldest ski resorts, and Redfield Proctor and the Division of Rutland (History Press, 2011), an historical novel about one of America’s leading business and political figures of the late 1800s. Linda Goodspeed graduated from the University of Vermont, and was one of the first femaile sports editors at a daily newspaper before losing her eyesight. She earned a master’s degree from Boston University and worked in health care journalism at Massachusetts General Hospital and at a health care nonprofit. In 1999, she adopted a two-year-old baby girl from Russia, one of the first, maybe only, single blind people to negotiate the international adoption process. Goodspeed, her daughter Masha, and their dog Ziggy live in Vermont. She is a widely published freelance writer, and also does public speaking. For more information about Linda Goodspeed, visit her website: http://lindagoodspeed.com/

Book preview

Preface

In and Out of Darkness is a personal memoir of losing one’s vision.

It is a story of loss and fear. According to surveys, blindness is people’s worst fear after terrorism and cancer. Terrorism and cancer will kill you. No one has ever died of blindness. Still, people fear blindness more than almost anything else.

I know. I went through it.

But even more than loss and fear, In and Out of Darkness is a story of love and faith, people and perseverance.

I grew up sighted. I had an eye disease since birth, but it really did not impact me other than having to wear glasses. And after I got contacts, even that little bit of self consciousness disappeared.

My childhood was unremarkable. It was the ’50s. Leave it to Beaver. Two-parent families, lots of siblings. Unlocked doors, playing outside, riding our bikes. I went to high school, college, played sports, drove a car, moved away from home and got a job.

For the time―1980, Ronald Reagan and the Cold War―my job was pretty remarkable. I was one of the first women sports editors at a daily newspaper, and I carved out a niche for myself that took me around the world and to the top of my chosen sports expertise: Downhill skiing.

But my life literally went downhill from there. In my late 20s and early 30s, the eye disease I had had since birth asserted itself and robbed me of my eyesight despite the best efforts of the best eye surgeons in the country. I was blind, out of work and in despair. That is the loss and fear, the In part. The Out of Darkness part came next.

Slowly, with the help of many people, I clawed my way back, reinventing myself, my career, my life. Digital technology came of age and opened up incredible, new opportunities for blind people. I met other blind professionals who mentored and opened doors for me. I moved away from home again, learned how to walk with a white cane, did a Master’s degree and got some fantastic jobs. I took up old pursuits like downhill skiing, traveled to Russia and started a family.

In and Out of Darkness is a story of all the uncertainties, challenges and blessings life throws at us. Sometimes difficult, sometimes funny, seldom a straight line. But never dull either. Life!

But most of all, In and Out of Darkness is a story of people. Helpful, kind, encouraging, fun-loving people and life-long friends.

The story is for the most part true within the subjective memories inherent in any memoir. Some of the names have been changed. Some characters are a composite representation of real people. Some events and times, slightly altered or rearranged. Otherwise, it all happened.

Some of the writing and stories in the book have appeared elsewhere, most notably my journey to Russia to adopt my daughter, as well as some of my ski and hospital experiences. Other excerpts and writing have appeared in blogs or other outlets.

Linda Goodspeed

November 2012

Contents

Preface

Detours

Try Sports

Sideways

Living the Dream

Maybe I’ll be Good at It

The Roads Not Taken

Embrace Insubordination

Take Over

False Pretenses

Why Don’t You Have Insurance?

Bobby D

If You Knew Suzy Like I Knew Suzy

Skiing in Vermont

What Page Are You On?

Sarajevo

Boston

Angels

Connections

Madonna

Square Feet

Going Digital

Man’s Greatest Hospital

Health Care For All

Faith

From Russia With Love

Adversity

New Beginning

The Rural Life

All Things Work for Good

About the Author

1 Try Sports

Why don’t you try sports? They’re always looking for people.

I paused, startled at the suggestion, my back to the speaker. I was walking slowly back toward the door I had just come in a few minutes before. My head was down, shoulders slumped. Dejected.

Sports? Did he really say sports?

I did not know if I was more surprised at the suggestion or the source. I turned to look at the man I had just left. The man who had so casually crushed my hopes and dreams.

Nah, we don’t need anyone, he growled, barely looking up at me.

He was short with curly, unkempt brown hair and round, John Lennon wire rim glasses. He wore a wrinkled flannel shirt, sleeves rolled up over his wrists. He was already back at work, typing with two fingers on an old manual typewriter, his face frowning in concentration.

Can I leave you my resume? I persisted. I knew I was grasping at straws. Just in case something opens up?

If you want, he said carelessly. Just put it on my desk.

He finally looked up, maybe realizing for the first time just how rude he was being. I’ll look at it later, he said.

I blinked back tears and busied myself getting my resume out. I laid it carefully on his desk. It was piled high with loose papers. I put the resume on top. He was already back frowning and typing.

I looked around the room for another source to the sports suggestion.

The pasty complexioned, dyed blonde receptionist with the red lips and fingernails was still looking through her magazine. Even when I had first come in the door and stood in front of her desk, she had not looked up.

I cleared my throat. Is the city editor here? I asked.

She glanced briefly at me and nodded her head toward the two-fingered typist I had just left. He’s over there. She went back to reading her magazine.

The only other person in sight was a tall thin man wearing a long sleeved white shirt in the opposite corner of the room. He was intently reading a newspaper spread over his desk and typewriter, absent mindedly stretching his arms up and down over his head as he read.

The room was large and complicated. Desks, typewriter stands and chairs haphazardly filled the space. There seemed to be no rhyme or reason to the arrangement. Some desks faced each other. A few were arranged in uneven rows.

The rude, wire-rimmed dude sat at a desk facing a wall, his back to the rest of the room. Stacks of papers and books were everywhere, mostly on the floor and piled precariously on desks.

Opposite the door on a head-high stand, a small black and white TV, sound turned down, was tuned to a pair of talking heads in suits. One of them flashed a big toothy smile, and I recognized President Jimmy Carter, who was in the midst of a tough reelection campaign.

Several file cabinets, drawers half pulled out, separated some of the desks and dotted the walls.

At the back of the room two desks next to a long low bookcase and newspaper rack jutted into the room, creating a tiny, three-sided, rectangular indent of an office on the other side of the make-shift wall. The other two walls of the space were lined with more file cabinets and shelves piled with messy stacks of manila newsprint, telephone books, reference guides, directories and fat, overflowing folders stuffed with newspaper clippings. A telephone kept ringing insistently from one of the desks. It finally stopped only to start up again almost immediately.

For the first time, I noticed a large, sloppily clad man in a T-shirt, shorts, sandals and dark socks, standing in an alcove in the wall near the TV stand. He grinned mischievously at me. He had a large stomach; thick, unruly hair that was thinning on top; and heavy, thick-framed glasses. Despite his casual attire, I judged he must be in his thirties.

Was he the one who suggested I try sports?

I opened my mouth to ask him what he meant, but all of a sudden, the big, kind-looking elf disappeared right in front of my eyes, his grin vanishing behind what I realized was a circular sliding door that slid completely around him, obscuring him from view.

I stood in the middle of the room, confused, pondering the messy stacks and desks. I looked at the frowning, wire-rimmed man who did not need anyone. He was still hunting and pecking. The blonde by the door had put down her magazine and was examining her fingernails. The man doing arm calisthenics in the corner was still absorbed in his newspaper. That darn phone kept ringing. The men in the suits on the tube were still lip synching. I looked longingly at the wall where the gentle giant had at least smiled at me.

Sports?

2 Sideways

I have always admired people who know what they want and go out and get it. Assertive. Confident. A nice straight line. No deviations. No compromises. The eyes on the prize sort.

Maybe the prize is a husband. Kids. Big house in the ’burbs. Becoming a doctor, professional athlete, millionaire, musician. Whatever. They know what they want and go out and attain it.

The only problem with the eyes-on-the-prize approach, at least for me, is that I never knew what prize I wanted.

Take writing. I never knew that is what I wanted to do. But, looking back, I can see now that writing is exactly what I was aiming for all along, even if I did not know it at the time.

I worked on my high school newspaper, then my college paper. I liked reading. I always gravitated toward courses and classes that required lots of reading and writing, as opposed to my older brother, who never seemed to have any papers to write. Or, if he did, had a bevy of girl friends willing to help him out.

I liked writing papers, would, in fact, rather write a paper than take a test. I always over-thought tests. This answer seems too obvious. It must be a trick question. Hmmm, this sounds like it’s true. But, if you think about it another way, it could be false.

Writing suits my personality. Quiet, introverted, bit of a loner. Maybe even a little Asperger-ish. I do not like a lot of noise or commotion or other sensory stimulation.

My daughter is just the opposite, very tactile, sensory oriented. She loves hugging, holding hands, perfume, body sprays, scented candles. She will spend hours smelling every scent, picking just the right one. Smells sometimes overwhelm me. Everything I buy is unscented.

I do not like a lot of outside stimulation or distractions. I prefer to work quietly by myself behind closed doors. I hate meetings. I get impatient when others wander off task or topic. All I can think of is how much I could be getting done back at my desk.

I have always been more of a student or observer of history and events than an agent of change. I remember being in meeting after meeting at Health Care For All, the nonprofit consumer advocacy organization I worked for in Boston. How those advocates love to meet! Love process! I wondered how people could talk so much. Opine so much. Discuss, and discuss, and discuss. They could talk a topic to death. I usually covered up my lack of opinions by volunteering to take notes.

Where do they get all these ideas? I wondered as I typed.

Ideas are something I have never had a lot of. Probably why I consider myself more of a blue collar, working-on-assignment kind of writer. I would love to be a novelist, but I never had any ideas. Never had that much talent either.

Fortunately, as a blue collar writer, I was able to maximize what talent I did have. I never waited for the proverbial inspiration to strike. If I did, I would still be waiting. For me, turning on my computer and sitting down at my desk is my inspiration. Every morning I punched the keyboard time clock, punching out every afternoon, or sometimes evening, when I shut down my computer. For me, a deadline was my inspiration. Discipline, my middle name.

For 17 years when I lived in Boston, I ate two slices of Kraft cheese singles between two slices of plain white bread, washed down with a glass of cold water, every day for lunch. Of course, I occasionally went out for lunch, or, even more rarely, brought a leftover from dinner the night before. But for 17 years, that cheese sandwich and glass of water was my power lunch.

I like routine. I do not know if that cheese sandwich was more discipline or just a routine I did not have to think about. Get up in the morning. Stretch. Drink two cups of black coffee. Make a cheese sandwich. Two slices of bread. Two slices of cheese. Get dressed. Make my bed. Go to work.

Every night after dinner, I worked on my computer. Through my whole writing career, I have always supplemented my never-high-paying fulltime day job with freelance writing. Since the day job took up my days, the only time I could do the freelancing was at night.

And so, every evening after dinner, I sat down at my computer. Now that takes discipline. Of course, just like lunch, I occasionally left my daily regimen. I went out at night, watched a television show, luxuriated in a steaming hot bath. But working after dinner, at least three or four nights a week, was my routine.

The worst part about working day and night was my total cluelessness about pop culture. I was never watching the latest hit television shows, movies, comedy routines. Never reading the latest entertainment gossip. I did not listen to the latest music. Did not know about the secret lives of teenagers, movie stars and celebrities. Was totally clueless about fashion, styles, trends.

Some of this ignorance has to do with my blindness. From about the age of twenty-five, I started losing my eyesight to glaucoma, a condition I was diagnosed with when I was eight. It did not affect me as a child, adolescent or young adult. But then I turned twenty-five and all hell broke lose.

Sighted people can pick up so much information about others and their environment visually, subconsciously, without even trying. Blind people do not have this luxury. One whole sense, the most important sense, is cut off.

For the longest time I did not know that Nicole Brown Simpson, OJ’s wife, was white. I could not understand the interest in this story, the 24/7 news coverage. Yes, he was a celebrity. Yes, she was beautiful. Yes, it was a sensational murder. But there are plenty of beautiful, famous people and sensational murders without that kind of interest and coverage. What I did not know about the story was the race factor. The news reports and articles about the murder never mentioned that Nicole was white. The photos, of course, showed that she was. But I never saw those.

While I blame my round-the-clock work schedule and diminishing eyesight for my pop culture ignorance, I also realize it has something to do with DNA.

Take my daughter, Masha, for example. I am always amazed at her sense of style. She knows how to wear a scarf, put colors together, fix her hair. She knows all the latest products, designers, trends and fashions. She reads reviews, would rather spend an afternoon in a perfume shop than watch a movie.

Isn’t this fun? she asked me, sampling scents. I had to admit it was.

She was 14 when she told me she needed a Coach bag.

What’s a Coach bag? I asked.

She explained, dropping a few more name brands, prices, styles, signature collections, colors and other terminology I did not understand.

How do you know all this? I asked her.

Obviously, she did not get her style sense from me. She is Russian. I adopted her when she was two years old. Even with little eyesight, I could tell when we traveled to Russia to pick her up that Russian women are very style conscious. Fur coats, heels, perfume, makeup, thick beautiful hair.

Fortunately, nature trumped nurture in Masha’s case. At first, I used to think I was in way over my head with her. Now, I realize, to paraphrase Martina MacBride, the truth is plain to see; Masha was sent to rescue my wardrobe.

Back to writing:

After I got home from Russia with Masha in 1999, I pushed back the start time for my evening freelance job to 8:30 or 9 p.m. after I put her to bed. I worked until 11 p.m.

For lunch, I continued eating my cheese sandwich. I kept to this routine for 17 years. It sounds boring, but routine can actually be freeing: Freeing you up to enjoy the big things in life: weekends, Sunday afternoons, holidays, vacations.

The Sunday afternoon Masha, then 3, and I packed a picnic lunch and sat on a blanket on the grass on the Esplanade next to the Charles River, eating, talking, exclaiming over the ducks, watching in awe as a monarch butterfly landed next to her, and afterward playing on the playground nearby was worth a thousand nights working on my computer.

So what if I did not know who Brad Pitt was or Angelina somebody or other. I knew all about the Little Mermaid, Bambi and Clifford, the Big Red Dog.

Besides discipline and routine, I am also a good multi-tasker, another handy skill for a writer, especially the blue collar kind of writer like me. I can juggle many different tasks, assignments, deadlines, information, interviews, facts, all at the same time. I can make a dozen phone calls on four different articles and switch easily between them, never missing a beat.

The corollaries to multi-tasking are prioritizing and time management: Setting realistic goals. In my entire professional career, I have never missed a deadline, even when I have had several at once. This is a source of great pride to me. I have even filed from hospital beds.

Once, driving back from an assignment, I was involved in a car accident. I was taken by ambulance to the hospital where I filed my story later that night.

When I was in Sarajevo in the former Yugoslavia in 1984, covering the Winter Olympics for the Rutland Herald newspaper, I fell and suffered a hairline fracture of my pelvis. I spent the first few days of the games in the hospital, but managed to interview athletes and coaches over the telephone and file a story every day.

After I got out of the hospital, I went to events on crutches. On the last day of the games, I traveled to Mt. Bjelasnica for the men’s slalom event where I watched twin brothers Phil and Steve Mahre finish 1-2 for the U.S. I joined an excited throng of reporters to interview them, and then caught the press bus back to downtown Sarajevo. When I limped into the press center to file my last story from the Games, the other U.S. reporters―there were only a handful of us because the total allotment of press credentials issued was so small―stood up and clapped for me. I was embarrassed. I sat down at my desk and started typing my story.

In 1980, when I was still paid by the hour at the Rutland Herald, I worked the night before I had to check into the Massachusetts Eye and Ear Infirmary in Boston for double eye surgery the next day.

I did not have any health insurance at the time, and was desperate for money. I knew I would not be able to work for several months―if, indeed, I could ever work again―after the operations so I worked every hour I could beforehand. I worked nine hours that night, and made about $75.

What I lacked in writing talent, I more than made up for in sheer determination, discipline, time management and multi-tasking.

As you can see, writing is a good fit for me, even if I did not know it, or even plan it that way. I am just one of those lucky few who accidentally stumble into the career they were meant to do.

Speaking of stumbling, the other problem, at least for me, and I suspect for many others, with the straight line, eyes-on-the-prize approach, is the curve ball. You are going along, motoring forward if not always smoothly, at least fairly straight ahead, finish line in sight, when all of a sudden the road drops off precipitously, or unexpectedly dissolves into a bike path or swamp or some kind of overgrown jungle path, danger and flesh-eating carnivores all around.

Blindness was my pothole. Not that I was motoring along any too smoothly. But at least I was driving, and had found my niche in life. All of a sudden I hit a humongous bump and got thrown into the back seat. So much for driving.

Instead of the straight line, I have come to admire the zig zag approach to life. Swerving around bumps and potholes,