Dawn Sanders

TRAVELLING OUTSIDE COMFORT ZONES: 2 Fingers Up to the Conventional and Systems

TRAVELLING OUTSIDE COMFORT ZONES: 2 Fingers Up to The Predictable And Systems

By Dawn M. Sanders

16/4/2019

Last autumn I met a rare kindred spirit in a place I would never have expected to.

I was at the Royal National College for the Blind to try an sharpen up some specialist IT skills I would need as a journalist who uses a screen reader, but nothing came to fruition.

In my wealth of life experience, when I have met or been around other people with a visual impairment (and this is a generalisation) due to lack of good vision, VIP’s tend to play things safe, stay within comfort zones or are just by in large conservative in many respects.
When I have met someone more flamboyant or daring who happens to be visually impaired, well they tend to stand out, especially if they happen to be adventurous, such as climbing Mount Everest or going sailing solo, in exceptionally high-profile cases that is, suffice to say they’re almost certainly held up as over-achievers or particularly ‘brave’.

For myself I never have seen immigrating on my own to the UK at twenty-four, especially brave, maybe a little stupid with hindsight, as I made little or know plans, just did it.

So, when I met Harmony Neil at the college and she told me how she went travelling on her own – not really knowing where she was going, bus routes etc. I was quietly pleased to have met her.
She also often lives of no fixed abode, not because of any misfortune or getting out of a bad situation, just because, and tends to float between visiting friends and family – I knew we would get on and we just started to, but then I left the college, yet her and I have kept in regular contact, which is great.
So right now she is travelling from visiting Finland for the second time and I wanted to do her blog more justice than the usual sharing on social media, so you can read her blog here as I don’t yet have a blogging newsletter to sign post.

Thing is, she doesn’t make a big deal of the fact she’s completely blind, in fact she doesn’t mention it at all apart from mentioning the way people some times grab at someone with a white cane.
So why not thrust it forward in the way others might expect? ‘So what’ as I can say on good allegiance, it’s really not a big deal.
Of course we all have to, as visually impaired people, get help with crossing unfamiliar roads, buses or taxis in maybe a foreign country, but it’s getting out and ‘doing it’ that usually brings about the all-prevailing awe factor.

I myself have lived off-grid in an eco-village and went travelling on my own as a single mum with a severe visual impairment – with my child in tow who has what would now be described as complex additional needs.
At the time in the late 90s, I was escaping professional types who were banging on about, ‘why can’t he do this yet or that yet’ as he was going on 2 and not quite walking or talking.
It was a time when I wasn’t writing or doing much apart from being a mum and navigating the often intimidating ‘system’ of special needs surrounding my son and quickly getting board and sick of it all, but will save that story for another time.

The over-riding theme here, is yes, it really is possible to live more adventurously, less conventionally and on one’s own terms without good vision – it’s often what I dub having ‘inner vision’ or heightened intuition.
There is this in-grained notion that, just because someone has an additional need of any kind, they must either wrap themselves in cotton wool or be wrapped up by others who make presumptions or assumptions without a second thought.
For example, I was in a meeting the other day and someone asked me what I enjoyed doing. When I replied that I love going walking, someone else chimed in that, he knew of a walking group for people with various types of ‘dis-abilities, as he described – some in wheelchairs and some not.
I immediately said to the affect of, ‘why should I need to be in a segregated group’?
I don’t need level ground; I climb stiles and in fact prefer the challenge of rugged terrain. All due respect to those in wheelchairs, but I’m not…
He caught my irritation and said he knew of someone with my own outlook and flair for adventure.
I have written passionately of this in my blog Discrimination to Walk.

I remember a conversation Harmony and I had while at the college. She spoke of going to a favourite spot in the middle of nowhere and just getting off the train, finding her way with her cane and exploring the ground with her feet.
So I only partially agree with Ashley Nemeth, who says: “Before hiking can be possible for someone with vision loss, safety needs to be the first thing to think about.”
Not only does this sound utterly restrictive and lacks in any notion that spontaneity can be possible in someone’s life with a visual impairment or other additional needs, it capitalises on the ever-present health and safety excuse used as smokescreen to take away from anyone’s need for adventure or just ‘living a little’.
Of course we need to be safe and I or anyone for that matter would never usually deliberately put themselves at risk, but statements like Nemeth’s leave the floodgates wide open for too much control over those who need more assistance in doing what most people take for granted.
For those who have no concept of danger and need possibly more help and support – they should get it from people who will help them to have the best experience possible and live life to the full.

Of course we don’t live in an ideal world, but if those of us who need more adventure, less convention and thrive on living more on the fringes of what society considers ‘normal’ – additional needs or not, it should be a given that being free-spirited or of a more bohemian persuasion won’t necessarily mean with full vision, hearing, walking mental capacity and anything else under the sun. At the end of the day all of our hearts beat to different drums.

Opinion: The UK held to Ransom, an Erosion of Democracy

By Dawn M. Sanders

I’ve been holding off for as long as possible on writing this article, because like everyone else I’m sick to death of Brexit-related stories, news and speculation.

That said, a week and a half on from joining a million others in London to march in the biggest demonstration since the Iraq War and ‘I really feel’ its about so much more than leaving the European Union, what we are witnessing is a real eroding of democracy.

“It means actually giving us a chance to decide on the truth and the real things that are going on and not going on misinformation.” Said Greta from South London who marched for a people’s vote on 23^rd March.

So, we all now know the 2016 referendum was all about mud-slinging on both sides, especially the leave campaign, which has had to be investigated, as its donors and funders either have been under investigation for corrupt motives or exceeding the limits in accordance to campaign rules.

The other major miscarriage of trust and data violation was of course the Facebook debacle – leading to a complex interaction of players, resulting in the shutting down of AIQ (AggregateIQ) the Canadian firm involved in the Cambridge Analytica scandal.

Getting back to the 2016 referendum, as has been recently pointed out by some commentator, which or where I lose track in the menagerie of press coverage, that it simply was a choice of in or out – not ‘what kind of Brexit’ if you choose leave – presumably that would have been too complicated and an insult to the intelligence of the electorate to not have taken that approach.

Now, with the grave threat to trade with are biggest partner, the EU, looming; restrictions on freedom of movement; the border between Northern and Southern Ireland and anything in between thrown into chaotic uncertainty, people are either rightfully changing their minds or simply want the chance to make coherent sense of the mess the government has landed us in.

However, despite the march for a People’s Vote, it seemingly was hardly acknowledged or mentioned in last week’s chaos and mellow drama. As the bickering and mess carries on inside the Houses of Parliament, the growing unrest and anger at the utter shambles is more vocal all the time outside. Crazily though, the Tories plod on with ‘party first, people second’ manoeuvres.

It wasn’t enough to act on Theresa May’s deal to 2 decisive outcomes, as she pressed for a third vote in which the deal was cut in half out of blatant desperation, none of the indicative votes resulted in anything decisive or definite, as none of them rendered a majority. There are extreme Brexiteers who would rather see no deal at all than dream of any compromise and of course there are those dead against a second referendum under the guise of ‘it wouldn’t solve anything or cause further polarisation’. Yet all of the obstructions to a much-needed democratic process, prevail because the government cannot manage it, amounting to what parliamentarians can’t or won’t face – bias toward their own ideology or party protection.

All of the above sentiments were voiced in speaking to people on the march.

Anyes, a French national who couldn’t vote on the referendum said: “I was actually very upset, I’ve been a resident for 20 years, paying my taxes, being married to a British national, as my children were born here – so it means everything. Also I think after the speech from the Prime Minister has embolden me even more to come today, because she said she spoke ‘for the people’. No, she doesn’t – she has refused us a vote…”

When asked ‘what does it mean for you to be here today’ James said: “A lot because I doing it for my children. I’ve lived abroad, worked abroad and went to university in Europe.” He continued, saying why should his children not have a chance to go to a French school – it’s a shame, what are we doing leaving Europe?

Another woman from North Hampton said her husband’s company was on hold due to the uncertainty of Brexit.

One of the many speakers on the day belted out, ‘why should Theresa May have 3 votes – we have had 1!

As the original date for our departure from the EU has passed, anger and unrest inside and outside parliament grows. With April upon us, a small extension of deadline from the EU and yet we witness another round of indicative votes for MP’s – not to mention another shameless attempt by May for a vote on a half-baked dead deal. The chaos carries on amid continued austerity and all the other domestic issues, as the government fixates on Brexit.

For instance, in our quarterly regional forum, it was highlighted just how dyer schools are faring, due to under-funding. Within the target-obsessed culture for schools – determining the deserving and undeserving, Devon had generally performed well, but has now fallen in line with some of the most deprived and demoralised with the threat of reduced numbers of qualified teachers or closures.

Someone in the forum piped up, with a deprived second referendum or the immediate affects of a no deal or bad Brexit, there could be civil disobedience – I think she might be right.

I have to agree with a good friend of mine who regularly muses: those in the ruling class as having the emotional intelligence of cockroaches.

REFLECTIONS: A YEAR IN WAITING AND ANTICIPATION

By Dawn M. Sanders

Well here we are again – that time of year when, not only is it fading fast before our eyes, we reflect on what could have been, what should have been and grasp for what actually did come to fruition in the last twelve months. That is, at least I do this tired old ritual every flaming old year ending/new year beginning.

New Year’s resolutions? I can’t think of a bigger waste of energy as they inevitably vaporise the minute they hit the light of day…

No, for me and I know so many others – it’s literally down to ‘staying sane’ keeping our heads above water and keeping it together, whatever defines that anymore.

Sounds cynical? Maybe it is, but I’m a realist, sometimes a pragmatist, but forever a warrior of determination.

This last year saw me try and try again, to jump start my journalism escapades, but it was like trying to jump start a powerful motorcycle with not enough petrol or an unskilled driver.

All the little linking up of publications to my own writings; all the quick and crafty social media guru-ship demanded by employers who, get so many applications for particularly entry-level jobs – only to take so many and cast the rest of the applications aside.

Okay, so I had an interview in the summer up in Bristol.

It didn’t matter that, I not only got there on time – despite it being right across the city from Bristol Parkway in a tucked away little industrial estate, the employer seemed to take issue with the fact I came from Exeter.

Oh, and the 3 months wasted time, energy and bags of patience at the Royal National College (RNC) for the blind that is: a specialist college who, if I was going to have learned the specialist skills needed with being more social media savvy in tandem with using a screen reader – it should have been there, not the case and I walked away from it empty-handed and feeling cheated.

There has been the promise of a more localised programme to supposedly provide the bespoke training I didn’t get from the RNC, but again, that is yet to happen so, it’s been hurry up and try/wait, try/wait – leaving me more exasperated than when I started with any kind of initiative or ambition.

All that said, I’ve just started to gain footing with my local Labour party constituency and contributing even in the smallest way has been amazing.

I went to the party conference in September where, the air was full of opposing views, yet optimism and I was able to conduct a meaningful interview of one of our delegates.

As the momentum for change is building – almost by the day – so too is the desperate situation the UK is in, let alone the rest of the world.

The chorus of climate change denial has become deafening, the erosion of democracy has never been more visible and daily life is more and more life wading through quicksand.

But hey, I could sit here all damn night as an armchair activist – banging on about what’s wrong or messed up with the world on a political, social or personal level, but we’ve scoffed the Chinese take away and it’s time to get ready to go out and see in yet another new year.

What we all need is a huge injection of hope not hate; aligning ourselves in the fight for a better tomorrow, not alienation from the grim realities of what is happening around us.

I mean, if we can’t have hope, determination and staying power to see away the bad forces taking hold all around us, then its:

Mary Armageddon and jolly apocalypse…

So now off with my new partner (the one thing that I never saw coming out-of-the-blue) this year – like some peaceful bird flying over from the other side of life’s perspective – we’re off to the cheesy karaoke in a rough and ready neighbourhood pub.

Happy New Year!

DISCRIMINATION TO WALK

By Dawn M. Sanders

Today I was greeted with yet another example of barefaced discrimination and prejudice by none other than a supposed life coach and organiser of a women’s wellbeing group here in Exeter.

When the walk was posted on Hello Spark the meet-up group

, I was of course immediately interested and up for it as a keen walker and lover of the outdoors.

I ‘never disclose’ my visual impairment – whether it’s applying for a job or even something as simple as joining a group for a Sunday walk, because I’ve had so many instances as the one I’ve just been confronted with, yet again.

Despite a policy of not disclosing my visual impairment, the walk is to take place in a small village I probably can’t get to easily by bus or train without it taking ages on a Sunday service or not being familiar with the bus route – as it’s automatically assumed people are going to drive there.

So, I put out a reasonable request for someone to meet me off the train in 2 different locations – according to what would be convenient and even posted my phone number for someone to get in touch.

Yet, what I got was no response for a day – then only to wake up to a message from one Catheryn Hope:

“Hi Dawn, Becky & I have talked about your request but we feel that the Sunday walk is not suitable for you if you have a sight impairment as the ground is very varied from hilly to stoney plus 7 miles plus in total & we could not be responsible for your safety especially as it’s quite a large group. There will be other walks happening that are more leisurely & flatter in the future. Apologies for any disappointment, but we are thinking about overall safety. Hope you have a good weekend. ”

My response to this was of course in the form of reminding her that being visually impaired does not affect my legs, it isn’t up to her and someone else to ‘decide for me’ on how far I’m able to walk or in fact whether or not I can handle rough Touraine, my opening statement was:

“Yet another example of barefaced discrimination under the guise of health and safety.”

As, people often insist that, to have a visual impairment not only means you can’t walk up steps, feel the undulating ground under your feet or need to be wrapped in cotton wool – taking the ‘easy way’.

I also reminded her why, I usually don’t disclose my visual impairment, due to this very reaction and prejudgement and decisions made by people who don’t even know me – all this despite the eloquent waffling on her website.

The astonishing prejudice that comes from someone who is supposedly a life coach, not only means she herself and others like her have a lot to learn in their limited mind-set, but a lack of willingness to understand people in different situations with a view to appreciating diversity.

This is not the first time I have been prevented from a simple walk in lovely nature, to the tune of people who create ‘issues’ that don’t exist.

The stinging clincher being – people like Ms. Hope just put out these unwelcoming, discriminating messages, yet she’ll not want any angry reaction from me, any repercussion or debate – it’s just: “Sorry for the disappointment, have a good weekend.” End of story, but ‘I’ think not!

People of this mentality should never be organising a so-called wellbeing group if they think they yield the power to prevent the wellbeing of someone – based on their own prejudice or prejudgment.

So, I strongly suggest Ms. Hope tries a little practicing-what-she-preaches or walk her talk…

TRAINS AND BRAINS

By Dawn M. Sanders

Something happened on the train journey I just took at the weekend and I felt compelled to write the story.

It was one of those ironic life lessons that leave you reeling from shock or dismay.

Trains: these days our trains are over-priced, over-crowded, fraught with delays or replacement bus services due to engineering work on the line or just awkward passengers.

I was travelling from Hereford to Sheffield via changing at Stockport

The first leg of my journey was crowded and they didn’t announce any of the stops. In fact, the only announcement that was made was an apology for there not being any reserved seats on the train, but that was it.

I can never see the point of reserving a seat unless you have a particular need – to be near the toilet, wheelchair or pram access or a table to use a laptop.

On the whole though, we sit down and leave the train, so are on and gone, but people generally act as if sitting in a specific seat is their goddess-given right – no one pays more to reserve a seat, so what’s the big deal?

When I got out at Stockport I had this very conversation with my assistant. He made comments on how selfish people can be about seats – making mums with babies move, taking the spot of a wheelchair user or just putting their bag on the adjacent seat.

So, when I borded the next train to Sheffield, the guy just helped me find a seat, but he didn’t tell me or realise it was reserved.

Sure enough, a woman came up and said something like, ‘is that where your sitting’ and I said yes.

“It’s mine” she said firmly, but then I told her I had just been assisted to that seat.

She then started to protest that she had reserved it.

“How was I supposed to know that – I’ve just been helped here.” I said.

I then told her if she had a problem with it, to take it up with the conductor.

The young-sounding woman sitting next to me said:

“She can’t see…”

I said: “Uh, thanks, but that’s not the point and not how I operate.” In other words, it wasn’t or isn’t about having preferential treatment – just because I’m visually impaired. I heard the woman demanding the seat going behind me and talking to someone who turned out to be the conductor.

I heard someone saying ‘she was put into that seat’.

“No, I was helped to it.” I said aloud, making the correction I’m not a piece of luggage.

The long and short of it is, she, the woman wanting the seat, insisted she couldn’t go backwards.

I was then asked ‘if I was able to move’ – just to the seat opposite.

Oh yes, amazingly, I got up of my own accord, visual impairment in tow and moved.

The woman sat down still insisting she ‘couldn’t go backwards.

By that time I was annoyed.

“You probably ‘can go backward’ you’re just being awkward. You have your seat now, so chill out!”

As soon as those words fell from my mouth I regretted saying them. My next thought would later definitely be a precursor to what would happen.

I thought hang on, there could be all sorts of reasons someone can’t travel backwards, maybe she really does have some phobia – people feel vertigo from heights, so the assumption is …

The conductor then asked if we both were okay now and I told her I was fine and could care less as long as I had a seat.

Brains: We all have one, but they are the most complex organ in our bodies.

About ten minutes into the journey, the woman opposite me sank in her seat as I felt her legs come forward as she moaned and vocalised.

People started stirring, ‘oh hell’ I thought – something’s happening.

The conductor and someone else were summonsed – the woman was having a seizure.

I had never observed a seizure, so felt mildly traumatised by it happening right in front of me.

As the train staff tried to communicate with her, all she could do was try to speak in the form of moans.

When she could just about speak, the word she kept trying to say was ‘sorry’.

Even in someone’s worst moment that all-prevailing British overly apologetic trait comes beaming through…

Sitting there engulfed in having a seizure and she’s apologising?

During them trying to talk to her and keep her ‘with them’ epilepsy was mentioned as she had the medication in her bag.

When the conductor asked if she knew her name the woman said ‘no’ and struggled to tell the conductor to ring her daughter in law.

When she finally fully came to, the woman kept apologising, but refused water or taking a rest at Sheffield instead of going the length of her journey.

Fully regaining her awareness, she became awash with tears – saying: “If makes you feel so stupid – it makes you feel stupid when you can’t think…” – it was heart-breaking.

The train got to Sheffield and I disembarked, feeling utterly stricken with guilt and remorse at what I had said to her before the incident.

Maybe it was all chance – some synchronistic thing placed in front of me for not just getting off my own awkward butt from the start when she said that seat was reserved.

As someone helped with my suitcase I said:

“Are you a passenger?” “No I’m the conductor.”

“Is that lady gonna be okay?” I asked feeling slightly perturbed.

“Yes, she’s going to be okay.”

I said: “I feel absolutely awful.”

The conductor said reassuringly:

“Don’t feel bad, she shouldn’t have gotten on the train. We all say things when we’re annoyed.”

Maybe she was right, but I couldn’t help but feel like the greater deities in the universe were trying to show me something.

In her recent blog on assertiveness versus anger, Kirsty Major draws some parallels to this story.

So I walked to get a taxi from the front of the station – a bit jelly-legged

Suffice to say I was relieved to be getting to my son’s place for a much-needed visit and off that train.

NOT MY PRESIDENT: Open Letter to @RealDonaldTrump

By Dawn M. Sanders

13/7/2018

Hadley Freeman, an American expat who authored an opinion piece in the Guardian neatly captured what many of us could be feeling right now:

“It’s easy to feel overwhelmed by one’s feelings about Trump, but my feelings about his visit can be summed up in a single word: embarrassment.”

I echo that sentiment completely, so am taking it along with the thousands of protesters on the streets of London and elsewhere, in an open letter directly to Trump himself…

To Mr. Trump,

Note: I am not lavishing you with ‘dear Mr. President’ Your Excellency or any other endearments you simply don’t deserve.

I have lived as a resident in the UK for 26 years and, at the ripe age of 51, can easily remember the America I grew up with.

Of course my home country has always run deep with racism, particularly in the south and more conservative quarters. There has never been a utopia, with gang wars for decades stretching from Los Angeles to Chicago and beyond.

We perpetrated the Cold War with successive invasions and backings of dictators in Latin America to the tune of our own interests, but on the ground at the grassroots of everyday people – human decency and helping one another mostly prevailed.

My mother was a single parent of 5 kids, uneducated and on welfare benefits and I remember one year someone left a parcel of food and toys on our doorstep for Christmas.

Even if one didn’t have much, in the America I grew up with it was somehow enough and it was okay to be poor and happy.

Despite the throwback to the years of segregation, my best friends at school were usually black or Mexican Americans because, I like most of them was poor, disadvantaged and different.

Nowadays under your dark and hateful influence of ‘zero acceptance’ means working people who happen to be of colour or another culture, can’t speak in their native language, because of your brand of brainwashing to demonise immigrants or penalise the poor.

You have blatantly downgraded women as sex objects and mocked a person with special needs.

You crisscross the world with a cavalier air of telling others how to implement policy; perpetuate cultural and trade wars, wars of words and seemingly thrive on spreading chaos and undoing piece wherever you go.

Your ripping away environmental policies which took years to carefully craft and put in place like delicate wall paper – favouring corporate dominance, will only put America in the pathway of catastrophic natural disaster.

I could go on and on and, I’m not saying anything new here, but just because the British government and state has decided to treat you like royalty, doesn’t mean for a second we the public or especially Americans you supposedly represent, invite your shallow, uninformed reckless antics and unpredictable ping-ponging to the tune of your inflated ego and whether or not you get your way in the world.

The American/British “special relationship” is special, because of historical ties, yet more so these days it is “special” due to a leader/follower kind of sick partnership in crime.

In the days when George W. Bush Jr. was president and the inside job of 9/11 was staged and the Twin Towers came down – American expats like me were too ashamed to admit to being American, because of the years of war that followed – based on lies – resulting in cultural polarisation between the West and Middle East.

With all that in mind Mr. Trump, the days of American hegemony are long over.

You have taken the sinister beginnings to the new millennium Bush Jr. signalled to a new and dangerous height.

Your increasingly Orwellian influence among the rich and powerful will only strengthen the resolve of the poor and disenfranchised and ordinary hard working people, regardless of race, cultural background, gender or visible/invisible difference.

All of this will of course fall on deaf ears and a delusional mind – detached from the reality most of us live in, from political/cultural polarisation, climate change to the effects of austerity.

So, as you set about playing golf on Scottish turf, blissfully wrapped in the finest cotton wool British security can muster, in the words of an American protestor who flew over just to cement solidarity on your unwelcome visit, He’s an ‘embarrassment’ to the United States: Echoing both Freeman and myself among expats.

ODE TO THE RED HOUSE

By Dawn M. Sanders

16/2/2018

‘The Red House’? I thought to myself as I was being temporarily rehoused in Exeter after seeking refuge at a friend’s place in Bristol for 5 weeks upon coming south, sounds like a flaming brothel!

In fact, if one has to be formal, it’s officially, the Red House Hotel – so I was told by several taxi drivers, used to be a good carvery and pub and hotel – not anymore…

The Red House

As I had finally touched down in Exeter – late September as the leaves just started to turn and the kids were back at school, my no-fixed-abode status was at least then, recognised.

The room was small, a wardrobe at the end of the bed, a bedside table, a small bathroom with shower, small kitchenette with an extended counter top for stowing my laptop and what soon became a mounting pile of letters.

It would be home until the council made its decision on whether or not ‘they thought’ I made myself homeless.

So the endless flat viewings ensued – ending in rejection by default – due to my jobless/benefit recipient status.

Shit-on-there-shoe – or at least that’s how, not only landlords, but most of the letting agents treated someone like me.

“We want um, young professionals” one snob actually finally came out and said to me – others were less condescending and explained that if a landlord had a certain type of mortgage, it wouldn’t allow housing benefit.

I thought to myself okay, so a lot of people are getting cut off and it throws everyone, the landlord and tenant into chaos, but for the most part, the Tories perpetuate the hated under-class culture of “those scroungers…”

It didn’t matter how I stressed on rental applications that, I’m a newly qualified journalist, mature and looking for journalism jobs i.e. respectable and all that, it was banging my head against a stone wall because, what used to be: right, I’ve got the money, I’ll take it… when it came to renting in the private sector, is now like applying for a job itself and if there’s an application by someone who has work, they’re automatically viewed as the glittering prize and your cast aside like unwanted junk mail.

Month after bloody month it went on and on and on and, what I had dubbed ‘the cage’ my little room at the Red House, had become my sanctuary.

3a.m, I’m sitting up in bed trawling twitter – there’s shouting out in the hall. They all mix, but not with me – forever the outsider among outsiders…

Once I stood outside the front door of the Red House – waiting for a taxi. Okay, so I was probably in an awkward spot – standing slightly in the way of cars coming into the car park, so instead of just reminding me, this lass gets up from their conversation at the picnic table, which had halted when I came outside, she was followed by a guy from the picnic table.

The girl tried to simply move me – as if I were a damn statue: What the fuck” I said, as they both closed in on me, like I was easy prey and they went to sit back down – keeping silent with stares burning into my back as I got into the taxi.

‘I haven’t got the patience for this shit’ I surmised in my mind and wasn’t bothered to mix with anyone. Any patience, resolve or efforts to form comraderies, simply didn’t exist in my frazzled state of mind and body.

A shame though, as I would think from time to time – we all had our own story, our own private hells to get through, yet coped in different ways.

My way had reached critical point: the depression, the constant demoralising manoeuvres of flat hunting, losing the best part of the court battle with Sheffield City council vultures…

And, that lovely place, that gorgeous cottage I had seen in Crediton, but finally decided not to take? I couldn’t stop crucifying myself over it, because the first landlord to be okay with housing and I go sketchy about being in a small town – out of Exeter and the things I want to get involved with.

The trips to and from Sheffield became exhausting, as of course did the flat hunting.

The decision finally came from Exeter’s housing benefit department – it was the one I already knew before it was read to me: I made myself homeless, wasn’t ‘their responsibility’ and had to be out of the Red House by the beginning of January.

So, yet another battle, yet another fight! Of course I was going to appeal or, have it reviewed as later the distinction was made clear.

In the meantime, I at least got an extension on when I had to be out.

I was getting nowhere not fast enough. The number of flat alerts in my in-box had dwindled, due to the time of year, everybody was running around in the usual xmas freak out in the run up to the one day everyone has an excuse to eat like pigs, drink like fish and have things things things they don’t need – my usual bah humbug was heightened with my own obsession with finding a home and recovering from it all.

Through it all though, the Red House was warm, safe and the support staff did what they could to make my stay, comfortable and supported.

Sweet Mary, cleaner for the Red House would knock on someone’s door: “It’s Monday, time to change your bedding.” She’d say in a good-natured, soft Devon voice.

I had, at the very least in the meantime, got myself onto the Devon home choice housing register, which meant I could start bidding on properties outside the rat race of the private sector.

The holiday period came and went with bitter sweet sadness and heavy hearted resolve: on one hand I was grateful to my trusty assistant to have invited me to spend the yule day with her and her lovely family, yet on the other hand, I missed my beautiful son.

He had just turned twenty-one and, despite my anti-xmas stance, I always spent it with him – just being a family, listening to music, a film or, just enjoying each other’s company – it was the first time we were apart for the holidays.

I think it was Boxing Day or so and I got a knock on my door. It was the owner of the Red House and her husband – they were delivering microwave Xmas meals of chicken and all the trimmings.

I was touched by the gesture, even though I had to decline – being vegetarian – it was the sort of thing that compensated for being in what seemed like, an isolated wilderness in the midst of hive minds.

The review finally came – still sticking to their original decision and, I now had to be out of the Red House by Valentine’s Day.

Jolted awake by the fire alarm being tested, hell’s bells! It’s Friday morning at the Red House and, what was I supposed to be doing?

I had started bidding, but did I really have a hope in hell? The last few Wednesdays a support worker would knock on my door or 9a.m.: “Are you ready to bid? Oh, I forgot all about it and I’m sure she was more optimistic than I was.

Far flung flats in back-of-beyond Devon locales I had never heard of – where I could never settle – What if I got a journalism job in Bristol an needed to commute from Exeter? And, small town/village life?

No thanks – not after the small town mentality and crap of living in West Wales an Derbyshire – been there and done it…

Then it finally came: a studio flat for £595 per month?

Ug – over-priced, but what the heck – I was running out of time getting desperate.

Alas, the landlord would accept housing benefits. The top-up gouging into my personal income was border line on what I couldn’t afford, but the flat was in a gorgeous semi-rural spot in the middle of Exeter, right on a bus route and its self-contained – everything I wanted except a bedroom.

So, the day came, my bags were packed and I had cleaned my little cage/sanctuary in preparation to leave.

It was all rush rush as I hurriedly shoved stuff I kept finding around the room into over-packed bin liners.

On the way out to the taxi, the owner handed me a card from all the staff.

My time at the Red House through me the lifeline I needed, just when I was sure I would sink in the quicksand of the cess pit this government has made of the socio/economic and class divide in the UK.

The security cameras, the over-powering unnatural smell of the air fresheners – the rules and restrictions at the Red House – none of it mattered, because for nearly 5 months during my darkest hours and the darkest days outside my room – I wasn’t on the streets or knocking at someone’s door in London asking to be taken in – despite my friends and their love and generosity.

I even had a few good chats in the car park with a few of the others. I went out just after midnight to get some air and somehow welcome in the new year on new year’s eve night.

A guy told me how, he had lost his home, because days after his father died – his landlord decided to rent to students where she could charge more, but he had nowhere else to go.

Yes, we all had a story to tell, a journey to trudge through and, at the Red House we could somehow connect, if only for a moment.

NOT A RAG DOLL: KEEP YOUR GRABBING HANDS TO YOURSELF

NOT A PASSIVE RAGDOLL: KEEP YOUR GRABBING HANDS TO YOURSELF

By Dawn M. Sanders

If I wrote a case-by-case story of every time I was either grabbed at or pushed this way or that, because of the way people often react to me as a woman with a visual impairment, on first sight – I could fill a library.

So, you would think I would be used to it – never!

It would seem that being a woman with a visual impairment, not only (in the main) strips you as potentially social/sexual material – a good majority of Jane/Joe public will immediately perceive you as helpless and child-like grabbing at you irrespective of whether you asked for help or not.

Standing waiting for a helping hand at Sainsbury’s the other day to do my weekly shopping, at the customer help desk, I was slightly out of the queue.

Okay, so all anyone needed to say was, move a little to the left. Instead, someone grabs my coat and of course I reacted – having just had my physical space accosted.

“What the hell?” I protested, but then she walked away murmuring “I’m not bothered.”

So, it apparently isn’t okay for me to protest, be offended or forthright, as another woman in the queue said the exhausted statement:

“She was only trying to help.” As I had reminded the first woman, the one who grabbed me that, she wasn’t ‘asking me’ anything – she was grabbing.

The second woman, who was clearly affronted by the fact I didn’t just accept being grabbed, spoke to me in this disgusted voice.

Once I got up from where I sat outside a pub to walk inside to the toilet – I was confident of how to get there, as someone had shown me the way.

Yet, as I walked past this guy’s table, he reached out and grabbed my arm. On that occasion, I had had enough and turned around and grabbed what ended up to be the hood of his coat.

“Now, how does that feel”, I said with flared fury. “Sorry” he said. I retorted: “good! And don’t do it again, ever!”

In this day and age of over-sensitivities and misinterpretations, if I was fully sighted, these types of behaviours would automatically be either taken as sexual-harassment or common assault.

Yet, being visually impaired seemingly renders you exempt from unwanted physical invasion, because societies ingrained perceptions are, that I or someone like me is automatically an object of ‘care’ or ‘needy’ rather than strong and capable.

I’m not saying for a second that I would prefer unwanted sexual advances to being grabbed out of the assumption of needing help by default – but why is it seemingly not okay to protect/defend my physical space?

People often can’t think of their left or right when trying to give simple directions.

So often what happens, is I get someone literally getting me by the shoulders and trying to turn me this way or that, as if I’m a rag doll or piece of inactive furniture, rather than a living, breathing person.

Again, I won’t allow it and anyone trying to permeate my physical space is likely to get told off or pushed away. It has got to the point when someone is trying to ‘turn me’ I physically stiffen/recoil and say, ‘um, just describe or say left or right’ – not rocket science…

Other visually impaired people don’t always see it as so invasive and, I’ve heard countless stories where someone was dragged somewhere, but without protest or taking charge of their own physical destiny in the situation.

I also get other visually impaired people suggesting to “chill out” when I’ve described how infuriating it is.

The underlying message seems to be, just accept it, it’s the way it is and take the help (whether you need it or not).

No thanks! I’ll take the high road and take charge of my person and physical presence. As far as I’m concerned – societal attitudes won’t change until people know ‘it’s not okay’ to grab, push or turn a visually impaired person any more than it is for someone sighted.

Confrontational? I think not, then that means it’s supposedly confrontational for a woman (or man) to defend themselves against physical handling be it sexual advance or otherwise.

Bottom line is: unless a visually impaired person asks for help – they more often than not don’t need it. I have been told from a male visually impaired ex-colleague, it happens more to his partner than it does to him. So as the age-old question goes: do men automatically carry more agency or presumed capability because of their sex – it would seem that way when it comes to men with a visual impairment…

I’ve been accused before by dial-a-ride drivers trying to bundle me into a vehicle or reach across me on the presumption I can’t do my own seatbelt, of ‘not liking to be touched’.

When I casually remind them I’m not an old lady just yet or, that doing their job should never mean a one-size-fits-all approach – they usually don’t like hearing it – the unpopular truth.

Of course I don’t mind being touched. A flirty peck on the lips or pinch of my butt would go down just fine that is, after a good chat-up and consensual connection…

So here’s a tip: next time a guy looks at a visually impaired woman on her own or detached, try talking/chatting up… Don’t ask “do you ‘need a hand’ unless she asks.

HALF WAY

By Dawn M. Sanders

Half way?

My life has been this steep uphill climb. Poised at the base, meek and not able to see the perils I faced ahead or able to realise the torment involved with my choice of parent.

Kept in a dresser drawer as a baby, because my mother, a single mum with three other mouths to already feed, was too poor to afford a crib (cot).

I grew up in a volatile house with my mother’s unforgiving scorn and torturous personality.

We all weathered the storm in our own way, through it all – I walked alone.

My teenage years were painful and exceptionally awkward. I wasn’t allowed to have opinions or speak my mind, and when I asserted I was dubbed demanding or with “attitude”.

So, breaking away at seventeen was the best thing I did and mum and I even got on better – as much as it was possible.

As I walked through my journey – climbing with every step, falling down ditches, getting up and dusting myself off only to saunter on, the time came to leave my place of firth, the life as I knew it, since I never really fit in there.

Standing at the water’s edge of change, new horizons and shores afar – I crossed the ocean.

When I got to the UK with a 6 month work visa – intending never to return to California again, I hadn’t planned a thing.

I didn’t notice the cultural fog when I had come here the first time, just knew everything was familiar and I was home – wherever home really was…

At twenty-four/nearly twenty-five, I had no idea my identity would be thrown into question as a woman with a visual impairment, I mean, it never really was the ‘issue’ it suddenly seemed to be.

Suddenly, the uphill climb became more steep and crowded with obstacles.

I never, ever heard, or been the subject of, such absurd labels, presumptions of my supposed lack of capability and all to the patronising sing-song tune of: “Are you alright?”

When my son found me, I was right at the bottom of a steep and imprisoning ditch, with no home and little hope – he saved me and dragged me up again.

So, walking hand in hand with someone to show the way, protect and look out for – I at least had someone to share the uphill climb with, as we steadied each other on the way.

Seasons came and went as he changed and grew and I gradually got wearier from the climbing, but I had to be there for him.

As he became a man, I helped him over the threshold into the scary arena of the adult world.

As I’ve guided him through landmarks – fighting for us both as the obstacles are forever put in our path, vultures swoop and monsters appear, it has finally come – the milestone where, one stops, looks around, susses out where they’ve come from and where the hell they’re going…

Some things make more sense, like that cultural fog – it still gathers around me when I walk outside my front door, stand at bus stops or walk into a crowded pub.

And the milestone? It’s as tall as the ones seen as Stonehenge where I can perch myself high above the pathway of the journey, for a panoramic view within the field of my third eye, my inner wisdom and intuition.

When yesterday came and, at 10 past 1 in the afternoon, I was exactly fifty years old, I climbed atop the milestone and sang, danced, cried and laughed.

With special people all around me, I celebrated the journey so far.

As my son and soulmate sat next to me by the fire, I felt strong, humbled and able to continue the fight!

The obstacle which has been placed right in front of us, must be overcome – like crossing that vast ocean or climbing out of yet another steep and muddy ditch.

Yet, turning fifty is something to come to terms with.

Standing at the half way point with more stairs, boulders or trees to clamber, what is it half way to?

No one really makes the summit and the few that make 100 years in this life on this earth, probably couldn’t be bothered whether they got to that point or not – it’s all chance.

So, what actually stands at the summit, what’s at the top of the tree?

I’m now half way to where?

THE BLAME GAME

By Dawn M. Sanders

I’m getting sick and bored of this finger-pointing at every slight disaster or unpopular stance for and within the Labour party and Jeremy Corbyn probably is too.

It takes less than a drop of a hat within the opposition and advocates for the parliamentary Labour Party and others, start sounding off about leadership challenges.

Yet, Theresa May drops the Dubs scheme, spearheads mass surveillance, dithers over Brexit – not to mention cozys up to the likes of Donald Trump and all his reckless policies and loose cannon mentality, but no one is calling for May’s resignation, why?

Why can’t the truth be said: Corbyn is primarily a Socialist – the mainstream media and establishment politicians are intrinsically biased against that.

Finally, a voice of reason and rationale has come from Clive Lewis and others on social media.

So Labour lost a long-standing stronghold – get over it and so what.

The Tories won Copeland because the candidate pressed all the right buttons for the local industry – if one can even dub nuclear an industry… The point is, just as Trump’s rednecks and disgruntled progressives in the US, the short-sighted view in Copeland prevailed over the long term effects of Sellafield and its dangers.

Why isn’t there the same kind of scrutinising over the fact that, the Tories lost in Stoke – not just to Labour, but to UKIP – why aren’t the media or anyone in her party asking May if she’s worried?

How the people of Copeland think the new Tory MP will do more for the LOCAL NHS than May is doing for it nationally, is beyond me!

The blame game, as rightfully pointed out by Lewis, will never change Labour’s woes.

Unless the Blairite contingency or beyond, unite behind their leader and stop the in-fighting, Labour is doomed.

Corbyn is far from a perfect leader – then again, there is no perfect leader.

Some leaders are exceptional such as Nelson Mandela, but mostly what a democracy gets is mediocrity or close either side of it.

For leaders like Corbyn, who largely stick to their guns, the journey is tough – not just in opposition, but in standing outside what the establishment dictates is okay.

Unless Labour’s grassroots flourish and there is an overhaul of current right-wing policies, in favour of the original pro working-class principles on which Labour was founded, who is to blame?