Kept in the dark

Yesterday I realised one of the events on my 'want to do' list and had lunch at Dans Le Noir  in TOTAL darkness. Not the darkness that sighted people experience when they wake in the wee small hours and, as our eyes gradually readjust, we are able to make out shapes and discern movement. But total, unrelenting, pitch black darkness. 

It was an interesting experience and, as I'd hoped, I had lots of learning - about myself, about others, and about how we make sense of our own worlds and interpret them for others. I imagine it will be a source of material for several blog posts over the coming weeks and months.

One insight came early on when the blind waiter (all tables are assigned a named non -sighted 'Guide') handed me my drink - a large tomato juice in a tall tumbler. As I raised it to my mouth I had an unexpected and uncomfortable sensation - I poked myself in the eye with the straw that, unbeknown to me, had been placed in my drink (why do some places service grown-ups drink with straws?). Apparently, I wasn't the only person to have had that experience. When our Guide asked us how we'd enjoyed the experience our food etc at the end of the meal I mentioned that it would have been helpful to have been told about the straw.

On my way home, I found myself wondering why he hadn't mentioned the straw. It was a small and seemingly unimportant detail - and one which caused me some discomfort - albeit very minor. And I was perhaps more sensitive to that that I would normally have been as I had participated in a 'world class service' workshop for the food and beverage industry only the day before so I had a heightened sense of awareness of what makes for 'world class' service in this environment.

And, of course, I don't know what his reasons were - but it occurred to me that it might have been that

·         He didn't know it was there - and that made me wonder about how often do we accuse people of keeping using the dark when in reality they haven't, because they are equally in the dark themselves - it's just that we think they should have known and can't quite believe that they didn't. Or maybe it was that

·         He was so used to it being there, that he'd stooped seeing it. And that got me thinking about how many times might I have failed to communicate something that would have been helpful to someone,  not because I meant I to be unhelpful, but just because it had become so commonplace to me that it no longer seemed important or relevant. So, it was a useful reminder, to look at things through others' eyes- particularly if it's me that's introducing them to what is for them, an unfamiliar situation or environment. Or maybe

·         If someone had served him, a drink, he would have explored it by touch first - feeling his way round the  glass, noticing everything about it (including the straw) in his own way. So he may have assumed, without even realising that was what he was doing, that I would have discovered it for myself - in the normal process of events - before it became a potential difficulty. And that got me thinking about the importance of remembering that we experience and make sense of things according to our own models of the world - they are unique to us and how we operate - and sometimes we will need to give others more information than others need to help them feel comfortable and able to cope with a situation. Or we may need to give it to them in different ways.

Now, just in case any of you are thinking 'for heaven's sake, Helen, It was only a straw! No harm was done. And yet you seem to be making a really big deal of this.' You're right.

It was only a straw,

No harm was done.

And I am  making a really big deal of this learning about how we can unwittingly keep others in the dark and how, with just a little thought, and rather more attention, we can help ourselves- and others - make sense of things which may be far more fundamental  and important than a straw in a tomato juice.