Snail Mail
I’m amazed by how much spam is in my mailbox. Without the distraction of new emails arriving, I figured it was time to tidy things up —- digitally and physically.
I’m up in my room, scanning old documents and files on my computer. I’m cleaning my hard drive out more thoroughly than I have in ages. A pile of journalistic invitations sits on my bed, and a few items to review are also scattered across my comforter —- books, movies, and technology. Invitations to events and games are stacked up, though I don’t even know who the Chicago Bulls are. Each letter is in small type, and I don’t have my scanner to read them all. For the moment, the letters linger on my bed, reminding me of a pool of money I’d love to lie in. I feel satisfied that I was able to carry this giant stack of envelopes, letters, and other packages up from the mailroom using just one armpit.
About that. This morning, I realized I hadn’t even bothered to check my snail mail all month. Without emails, I’ve been so busy with other things and writing pieces to be published in November that I completely forgot about my physical mailbox.
Before I go downstairs, I feel a braille calendar to see how many days I have left offline. Two days left. Then I can go back to using internet radio and sending party-hat smiley faces through instant messenger. I dance a jig in the shower, rocking out to the song “Twinkle, Twinkle, Little Star.” I forget some of the lyrics as I’m fixing my hair. I begin to wonder if I should take up a hobby like art or painting. Or maybe I could study to become a blind pilot. I’m not sure what’s made me so happy today, but I think it has something to do with Green Day playing on the radio. Also, I’ve finally figured out how to make my new landline phone work, though it doesn’t have a phonebook or any nifty features, like Google Voice. In a few days, I’ll be sure to connect my landline with Google Voice.
I burst out of my apartment with renewed vigor, as if I’ve found the husband of my dreams and am off to tell the masses. My strut draws other blind people’s attention as I walk past. I’m sure it has nothing to do with my Darth Vader deodorant that smells like watermelon. People turn and tap their canes confusingly as I whoosh past. The spring in my step is also noticeable to the sighted staff in the area.
“Are you getting married?” one jokes.
“You bet!” I boast, causing even more community members to throw me worried glances. “In a few days, I’ll be online again! I’ll have Spotify back. I’ll have Pandora back. I’ll have Facebook back. I’ll have Netflix back.”
A few elders shake their heads in bewilderment. They whisper as if I can’t hear them: “You know? I’m beginning to think the internet is like public school education. There’s so much of it; people just don’t have a clue what to do when it’s gone.”
I don’t have time to reply. The talking elevator whisks me down to the lobby. I make my way into the mailroom and approach my box. I expect to see and feel a lot of things. I expect to feel a small bulge in the box from everything stuffed inside. I expect to see the door come off its hinges, buckling under all the strain. When I stick my key into the keyhole, I imagine my mailbox popping open. Papers assault me as I’m laid low by a flurry of white envelopes, packages, and yellow envelopes stuffed with telemarketer ads, asking if I want to use AT&T. A smothering array of ads for food and colleges I didn’t even apply to follow in their wake.
As I open my mailbox, the reality isn’t so dramatic. Papers and a few envelopes leap out onto the floor. I have to take my mail bit by bit because it’s completely stacked. The pile of mail is so huge that I divide it into smaller piles on the floor before scooping the bundle up, to other residents’ astonishment. The bundle feels like a stack of textbooks. It’s so big that I can’t even use my cane; I have to leave it in the mailroom. I’m sure the other residents who can see are wondering what in the world I could have ordered to make such a huge mountain of mail.
As I trudge out of the mailroom, I debate with myself. I could take everything up to my apartment, where I could scan each envelope, achieving the independence that blindness groups cheer for even if it means having to scan the envelopes more than once and even though my scanner can’t read checks or envelopes, so I won’t even know who’s sent me what. Alternatively, I could be less independent —- which would get some blind people tsking. I could have the front desk receptionist quickly open the mail and skim out every piece of junk.
The choice is mine. Independence, even if it means scanning the same item multiple times, versus conforming to the stereotype that blind people can’t even read their own mail. I could finish the task quicker (and get a glimpse of the handsome receptionist) if I chose the second option. For me, the choice is easy. I march off to the receptionist’s desk.
He greets me with a smile, though he looks tired. “And good morning, Sir Robert. How are we doing today?”
I heave the stack of mail onto the desk. A few envelopes from the top of the stack bounce across the divider. I grin at the receptionist as I gleefully announce to the entire lobby, “I have a lot of mail!”
“Yes. Yes, Mr. Kingett, I —- uh. I see,” His voice creeps over the wall of papers and envelopes. “Do you need some assistance glancing over these? You know, snail mail is very important. You can’t let it go to waste.”
“Oh, I know,” I reply to the stack that blocks his face. “I just didn’t get around to it yet.”
“Uh-huh,” he mutters. A hand reaches up to the top of the pile. “Shall we get started?”
“I’m all ears!”
Sure enough, my mailbox has been flooded with many ads, including some from pilot schools. Some ask if I want to go on vacation, but only after completing a survey. Some come from more schools that make no sense to me, like a driving school. There are a few checks and many large envelopes, which I assume hold magazines about talking books and news about being blind in Illinois. There’s an invitation to a Cubs game that’s already passed. It includes free tickets since I am a journalist. Soon, the trash can by the desk topples over with the weight of the mail it’s been fed.
The receptionist’s assistance doesn’t bother me at all. I guess I have a different way of thinking. I’ve been legally blind my whole life. I attended a school for the blind, and that experience taught me a very important lesson that many other blind people forget: I’m blind. I adapt any way that I know how. I don’t have a choice. I don’t want to have a choice.
I don’t want full sight simply because I wouldn’t have any idea how to live. Some people believe schools for the blind provide a kind of cushion before one deals with the big, bad sighted world. My school had the opposite effect on me. Having always been legally blind, I’ve learned a different kind of mindset. I knew that, when I left the school, I’d have to learn to adapt to the real world. I’d need to actively work through scenarios to find solutions to whatever my disabilities prevented —- even if it meant having sighted people tell me the exact information I needed.
This experience has made me a better problem-solver. If I weren’t disabled, I wouldn’t be as resourceful, and I wouldn’t know how to even try to be resourceful. I’m ready to adapt or figure out how to adapt because I’ve learned I need to do this every day to survive. I consider this trait an advantage.
I’m a little peeved, however, when people tell me someone isn’t independent simply because sighted people read their mail or handle certain aspects of their lives on their behalf. A blind or visually impaired person who asks for this information or service, such as someone in supportive living, makes their own choices. The disabled person who consciously decides to ask a non-disabled person to relay information or perform an action is no less independent than others because of this assistance. They request it; therefore, they are adapting.
I know many blind people who haven’t learned how to do so yet. They wear their inability to ask for help like a badge. They’re content to wander the streets if they get lost and wait for people to tell them what to do, what technology to use, and what job to get even though they’re capable of handling these things themselves. That’s not independence.
Independence is in the mind, and everyone on Earth needs help with something. It’s up to the individual to ask for what’s needed or wanted.
If people feel empowered to make the choices that shape their daily lives and advocate for their other needs, then they are independent.