Blind leading the blind(folded) in downtown D.C.

Good morning, DMV! It’s Wednesday, Oct. 7.

I get so many ideas for what to write from readers. One of you this summer emailed me to suggest I reach out to the Columbia Lighthouse for the Blind (CLB) advocacy organization and write about National White Cane Awareness Day, which is Oct. 15 and “celebrates the right of blind people to move freely and independently with cane or guide dog.”

So I contacted CLB and late last month ended up going on an unusual walk in downtown D.C. I think it was about two blocks, from a building on K Street NW to the Farragut North Metro station. But it took me more than half an hour … because I was blindfolded and using a white cane to tap my way there.

As the reader who suggested this idea to me pointed out, it was “a genuine experience of walking/experiencing what Washington’s blind and low-vision community go through everyday.”

Antonio Williams, a certified orientation and mobility specialist for CLB, is himself blind and uses a cane to get around. He coached me through how to do it.

It was almost literally the blind leading the blind, though that phrase now has a different meaning for me. I trusted Antonio completely.

I met Antonio and Jocelyn Hunter, CLB’s director of community advocacy and engagement, at an office building on K Street NW, where CLB is located. We spoke at length before my blindfolded walk. Jocelyn, who has low vision and is legally blind, talked me through the sensitivity training that CLB offers — an etiquette class of sorts laying out what visual impairment means and how to meet, greet and, for example, dine with someone who is blind.

Then I spoke with Antonio, who is from Georgia. He told me he was born sighted. One morning in 1998, when he was 17, he woke up with blurry vision. He says a “pseudotumor” had damaged his optic nerve, causing vision loss. He has light perception and can see some color, but he can’t see people’s faces or read print.

“I was in denial for a long time. I wasn’t accepting it. I wasn’t using a cane. I was walking into things, bumping into things,” he told me. “It was literally dangerous because I would get hurt.”

At first, he knew no one else who was blind. One of his first jobs was with Georgia Industries for the Blind — assembling and gluing together 520 folders a day for minimum wage. Eventually, he met other people with visual impairment: “I met doctors, writers, professionals, and I knew I could do more.”

Ten years after losing his eyesight, he went into a nine-month training program in Denver, Colorado, where he was blindfolded (to block any vision that he did have) and taught how to get around. He said during his training, he had to walk through snow and ice. He would be dropped off somewhere and had to figure out how to get home.

He has since worked with blind people and training centers in Mississippi, Louisiana and Baltimore.

He joined CLB a year ago and coaches clients how to navigate their homes, environments and the DMV. He helped a student at Georgetown University figure out how to get to and around Union Station so that he could take a train home to New York City for the holidays. He met up with a woman who recently moved to D.C. to map out the best walking route for her to pick her daughter up from school.

I had so many questions. Antonio patiently answered. He’s a pro.

Then, we launched my blindfolded walk. Sitting in a chair, I covered my eyes. He let me sit a while and get situated, feel comfortable. Then we made our way out of the basement conference room where we’d been talking. He taught me how to tap the cane in an arc — left-right-left-right — and walk with it. He taught me to listen for open spaces, such as a hallway. We took an elevator up to the lobby then exited the building.

Jocelyn joined us and took photos. She chimed in now and then to congratulate me on my feats. With Antonio at my side, speaking to me the entire time, I successfully crossed two intersections.

We arrived at the Farragut North Metro station, where he coached me how to use the cane to feel the steps of the escalator and step on.

During that half-hour stroll with Antonio, I understood better the challenges of people who are visually impaired. Every single passing car sounded frightening. Unable to see approaching pedestrians, hearing their voices come toward me made me uneasy. Getting on the escalator felt like a near-impossible task.

Antonio’s deep voice calmed me and gave me confidence. He made it all seem easy.

I felt a huge rush of emotion after the escalator, then decided I was ready to return to the sighted world. After more congratulations from Antonio and Jocelyn, I took off my blindfold. We wrapped up our meeting. Jocelyn said goodbye. Antonio and I continued through the turnstiles to catch the Metro.

We sat together on the train. I thanked him profusely. And I didn’t say it out loud, but I swelled with pride for him at all he had overcome and accomplished.

Also, I felt strangely (irrationally?) guilty that I could so easily leave the world of blindness. Guilty that I felt elated over navigating D.C. while blindfolded. I worried I was making light of his disability and treating it as a game.

I got off at my station and bid Antonio farewell.

I imagine the coaching session was all in a day’s work for him. But for me, this blindfolded walk with the white cane quite radically shifted my perspective.

Dear readers: I consider my Daily Dose a community gratitude journal. It’s free, though I rely on your support to keep it going. Please consider supporting my work with a monthly or yearly donation to help make this project sustainable. Thank you!

Another winner of a day, says Capital Weather: A crisp start, but our weather doesn’t get much better. Sunshine, light breezes and highs above 70. Read the full forecast here.

Also, as my daughter left to catch her school bus about 6:35 a.m. yesterday, she called out to me and my husband to come see the moon — a lovely crescent with a bright planet above. I didn’t know which planet but thankfully can count on Capital Weather to clue me in …

Karen Smith Hupp, of La Plata, Maryland, sent in this photo of lights — from a boat, from a bridge — reflecting across the water in Southwest D.C.

“My daughter and I had been at the Anthem after Sara Bareilles’ Good Grief concert Sunday, Sept. 13, and were walking back from enjoying an olive oil and sea salt gelato,” Karen wrote in her submission.

“We stopped along the Wharf, marveling at the lights mirrored along the Washington Channel.”

Share your photos of fall life in the DMV here.

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