Ten years ago, nearly to the day, I did the “Blind Man's Eyes” exercise for the first time. For my object to describe, I arbitrarily chose a remote control for a television set. I didn’t sketch out my description to test it, but I liked the short story that resulted, which I share with you here. (Yours doesn’t have to be this long or elaborate, but it gives you an idea of one way to do the exercise.)
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“Big Things Come in Small Packages”
by Judd M. Miller (December 1994)
Maria was five years old. What a precious thing she was, with her maroon dress, pinched in the waist by a matching maroon belt, a pillow of gorgeous, dark hair billowing out from a marvelous emerald green hat cocked on her head. She had the kind of soft, bouncy hair that you could run your fingers through for hours, like sand on a beach.
Her personality matched the vivacity of her appearance; she was energetic, cheerful, and insatiably, sometimes embarrassingly, curious.
Her blindness didn’t seem to bother her. But then, she’d never had the advantage of sight. Sadly, her mother Anna Rosa took the emotional burden upon herself, as if to bear it for the child still too innocent to understand it.
A sad woman, Anna Rosa couldn’t seem to forgive herself for bearing this crippled child, though she wouldn’t have ever said that.
At times I thought her despair was a form of self-punishment, though she confessed to trying to divine God’s reasoning for it. Was it a punishment? A grand but difficult lesson?
Whatever she thought it was, it had been my challenge to lift Anna Rosa out of her sadness and guilt, to see the beauty of the gift God had given her, the beauty so inspiringly manifested in the child herself.
I’ll never forget the day the two paid me an unannounced, but very special visit. They came to deliver a batch of cookies that little Maria had helped her mother bake especially for me.
“Father Ramón?” she inquired excitedly as I opened the door, her face craning upwards.
Anna Rosa stood next to her, dressed in black, a quiet smile on her face. Her hands held a small paper bag.
I squatted to Maria’s level, my face lost in the big grin. “Well, hello there, Maria! What brings your royal beauty to my humble doorstep?”
She giggled and leaped against me, hugging tightly. “We brought you a present!” she squealed.
“A present?” I marveled, looking up at Maria’s mother.
“Good afternoon, Father Ramón,” she said.
“Come in, come in!” I stood up and took Anna Rosa’s hand in a gentle greeting. “I like presents.”
Guiding them both in, Anna Rosa said, “I hope we’re not intruding.”
“Of course not! It’s always a pleasure to se my two favorite parishioners.”
“You say that of every parishioner.”
“What can I say? God blessed me,” I replied with a twinkle. “Come in, have a seat.” I lifted Maria onto one side of the sofa, then sat in the chair across from them.
“We made you something, Father,” Maria beamed.
“You did? Well, let’s see what it is.”
“Maria is very proud of this, Father Ramón,” Anna Rosa prefaced. “She helped her mother make them.”
“Just for you!” Maria exclaimed. She looked expectantly in her mother’s direction, her hand reaching halfway to the bag as if to prompt her.
Anna Rosa began unrolling the top of the bag. “They’re cinnamon cookies. I hope you like cinnamon.”
My reply was upstaged by Maria’s outburst. “I helped Mama knead the dough, and mix it, and put the cookies into shape, and put them on the tin, and put the sugar on top!”
“Wonderful! Shall we have some milk with our snack?”
“Yes!” she shouted, bouncing on the couch.
Anna Rosa smiled maternally at Maria and nodded a thank you to me.
I got up to get glasses, and the pitcher from the refrigerator. They were such delightful people, but Anna Rosa’s despair troubled me. It seemed strange that the child’s own joy and enthusiasm didn’t rub off on her, or at least console her to some degree. But Anna Rosa was too preoccupied with the handicap. Her daughter’s joy was to her the final, cruel joke played on an innocent, swindled child. I hoped and prayed desperately that God and I could move the well-meaning but hurting mother beyond that.
Anna Rosa and I exchanged small talk, while Maria fussed about herself, and rolled and played on the couch.
“What’s this?” Maria interrupted with a blurt, her hand clutching the TV’s remote control in the air.
“Put that down!” her mother whispered harshly. “Don’t touch the father’s things.”
“No, no, that’s all right,” I excused, pouring milk into the last glass. “That’s the remote control, Maria,” I explained as I returned the milk to the fridge. Managing all three glasses at once, I walked carefully back to the sofa.
“What’s a remote control?”
“A remote control? Why, it turns on the TV, and changes the channels, so you don’t have to get up.”
Maria’s face shifted to suspicion. “But doesn’t that make you lazy?”
I laughed. “I suppose some would think so.”
“How do you work it?” Her hand glided expertly over the piece to feel its shape, its properties, its material. Her hands caressed the ripples of buttons on top once she’d approved the smooth sides.
“Well, the uppermost right button is the power. That turns the TV on.”
Feeling carefully, she aimed the remote control at me and jabbed.
I couldn’t hide my smile. “You have to point it at the TV, which is to your...left.”
Her hand swung perfectly level, and she stabbed again.
The screen flickered on, and a newscaster pounded into the room, blaring a string of government statistics that were not at all worth the volume.
“Now, you want to turn it down. Lessee, the...” my own fingers tipped the remote control in my direction, “second button down is the volume control. That turns it up. The button below it turns it down. Up for up, and down for down.”
Her fingers bobbed along the buttons, and she pressed the volume button, her arm aiming sternly at the television.
The newscaster’s voice slipped down, then was gone. “Is the picture still there?” she tested, studying the prop in her hand like a seasoned investigator.
“Yes, the picture’s still there.”
She turned the volume back up. “What good is the picture without the sound?”
Of course to her, the picture was no good without the sound.
“Well, if you get a phone call or something, it’s nice to turn it down temporarily so you can concentrate. Or if you don’t like listening to commercials, you can turn down the volume until your program returns.”
Maria harumphed. She stared at the remote with her empty but beautiful brown eyes, fingering the slim box as she considered what I said.
“I don’t like it,” she decided, slapping the remote back on the end table. “It makes people lazy. If you want to turn on the TV, get up and turn it on. And watch it till you’re finished. Then turn it off.”
“Maria,” Anna Rosa hushed. “Don’t be impolite.”
“Please, please,” I interjected to the mother. “Let her speak her mind. If she doesn’t have her sight, allow her her voice. Well, Maria, I think it can make people lazy. But I think the TV itself is more dangerous than the device used to turn it on.”
“If you can’t turn it on,” she countered, “it can’t be used at all.”
Smart one, she was! Maria demonstrated every day that the good Lord had more than made up for her lack of sight in other ways, something I had long tried to teach her mother.
“Fair enough,” I answered Maria. “But as for the remote itself, it can do much more than turn the TV on and change the volume. You can change the channels, but even more, you can program your favorite channels, and you can adjust the picture however you like.”
Maria harumphed again, uninterested in what you could do with the picture. “Can’t you do that with the TV? Change the channels?”
“Yes, but with a remote you can go to them instantly. You don’t have to flip through them all, and listen for your channel. Here, pick up the remote.”
She groped over the couch arm, then clutched it. I liked to make her do as much as possible for herself. Because she was blind didn’t mean she was helpless.
“Now, the fourth button on the left side is number one. To the right is number two, and to the right of that is number three. Go back below number one, and that’s four. Across, and back below again.” Her forefinger traced my directions. “What’s your favorite channel, Maria?”
“Fourteen. They have Está mi Casa!”
I knew that to be a popular children’s show with puppets and songs, aired in the afternoons. In fact, right about now.
“Then push one and four, Maria.”
She did, and the image popped. On the screen, a puppet and an actor were singing a song, interrupted by cartoons of balloons with the words uno, dos, and tres inside them.
Maria’s face lit up at the song, and she started singing along, her head tossing back and forth as she looked in my direction. “I know this song! The show is on now!”
I smiled and watched her enjoying it, singing and bouncing on the couch.
I could see Anna Rosa getting uncomfortable, conscious of wasting my time. But I smiled to her, and began rocking my own head to the little melody, looking back at Maria. The little girl gasped for breath between phrases, singing and slapping the remote in her lap.
I looked back at Maria’s mother. “Do you know this one?”
Her face only flickered her annoyance. “All too well, Father. She knows how to count far above ten, but she loves this song. She always turns up the TV, and she sings and dances in front of it.”
I smiled again and cocked my ear to the song, listening for that special voice that spoke to Maria. It was a simple, repetitious melody, but light and uplifting. It seemed to open up the soul to all the possibility in the world, all its magic and mystery.
Maria was exploring a world we would never see. She charted waters we couldn’t fathom, and her experiences and exploration were so uniquely her own that we almost spoke from different worlds.
What courage that took. To see a world that no one else sees because your senses are oriented so differently; to build a bridge of communication with people who have such a different point of reference, one they don’t even account for because it’s so natural; to grow up with everyone suffocating you because they feel you lack a fundamental ability, one they’re afraid you can not survive without...
No wonder this song made her feel free, feel inspired. It was the musical sunshine in her day, the life-sustaining rays that bathed down to warm her, comfort her, uplift and inspire her. Reflecting off the bobbing waters she charted, it turned the dark, frightening sea into an exciting, tantalizing journey through life and love.
Her voice, still squeaky with age, moved with a passion and potential unrivaled by any I’d heard. She may not have had the eye for pictures, but she had an extraordinary ear for music. God gave her a precious gift in that little song, and I had no doubt she would return the favor with the majesty of her own music someday.
We seeing people are too distracted by our sights to hear the landscape of music. The way it dips along the valley, only to scramble back to its crescendo, trumpets darting in and out of the catacomb of piano chords as they hop and skip across the heart in an endless celebration of beauty and self-discovery.
I hoped that Maria could teach me what she heard just as I taught her what I saw. And I was eager to hear the magic she would create with her special, musical soul.
Her question jolted me from my reverie. But I had missed it. “I’m sorry, sweetheart. What did you say?”
“Do you like the cookies?” she repeated, clicking off the TV.
“Ah!” I exclaimed, holding the prize in the air. “Exquisite! God gave you a special knack for the culinary arts.”
She giggled. “What’s that mean?”
Anna Rosa answered for me, picking up Maria’s empty milk glass and setting it on the endtable next to her own. “It means you’re a good cook.”
“Thank you, Father! Mama, can we cook Father Ramón a custard tomorrow?”
Anna Rosa chuckled. “Let’s give him time to digest the cookies, first. And maybe when you get some more practice, we can try a custard for Father Ramón.”
“Ok!”
“Thank you for spending time with us, Father,” Anna Rosa said, gathering her things.
“Oh no, the gratitude is mine. You have been only too kind to bless me with your visit and these delectable pastries!”
Anna Rosa and Maria made their way to the door.
“Thank you, Father!” Maria said, her arms outstretched.
I picked her up and hugged her tight. “Thank you, precious. You come see me whenever you like.”
“I will!” she promised.
“Thank you again, Father,” Anna Rosa said holding out her hand as I set Maria down.
“She loves you dearly. You make her feel very special.”
“Oh, she’s already that,” I replied, taking the mother’s hand. “I’m only an enchanted admirer.”
There was a volley of waves and good-byes while they made their way down the street.
As I closed the door, I thanked God for the precious ray of sunlight he’d given us in Maria, and I prayed that we would all be transformed by its most divine brilliance. Funny that something blind could be so bright.
