Naylor Jasmine and Arnica

1. Auflage 2010
ISBN: 978-1-908646-12-5
Verlag: Eye Press
Format: EPUB
Kopierschutz: 6 - ePub Watermark

E-Book, Englisch, Band 0, 250 Seiten

Reihe: Eye Classics

Since childhood, Nicola Naylor had been enthralled by India: 'Images of goddesses and temples with monkeys, elephants and colourfully dressed people crowded my imagination. I wanted to go there. But my travel fantasies dissolved when I lost my sight as I was finishing university.' Disregarding the warnings of others and her own private fears, Nicola Naylor set out on a journey through the India she had always imagined but had never seen. It was a dream she knew she must follow in order to come to terms with her blindness. As an aromatherapist, there was a practical aspect to her endeavor: to find instruction from the ancient techniques of the region which she could apply in healing others. But in daring to step into the unknown, Nicola found for herself a renewed trust in the world, and more importantly, rediscovered her self-belief. This is the inspiring account of her unique journey. Told with a vivid and evocative insight, Jasmine & Arnica is a story of a young woman's determination, a celebration of the power of vision beyond sight. It reveals what's closest to the heart and uncovers life's most precious, unseen joys.

Autoren/Hrsg.

Naylor, Nicola

Leseproben

SETTING OFF

Beyond the doors of the terminal building a mass of people heaved against metal barriers. Men shouted, “Hotel, very good hotel?” or, “You are wanting a taxi?”. The heady smell of curry, perfumes and incense rose above the crowd as they jostled and shoved. Entangled in this mêlée of hot damp bodies scrummaging for space, I tried to fold away my cane. Then Goutam’s voice said, “Nicola?”

Instantly I saw the figure I remembered: small, agile, with masses of bouncy brown curly hair, glasses, a fine moustache, slim except for his paunch. I thought he returned my smile. “Let’s go,” he said. He was concerned to get me out of the clamouring crowd. I placed my hand next to his on the handle of the trolley and followed as he steered. We snaked through the milling people and I snuck my cane into my shoulder bag.

I have always been enthralled by India, even as a child. Images of goddesses and temples with monkeys, elephants and colourfully dressed people crowded my imagination well before I saw pictures of these things or learnt to which part of the world they belonged. As soon as I was able to locate them in India I wanted to go there. But nine years ago, my travel fantasies dissolved when a congenital problem led to the total loss of my sight as I was finishing my degree at university.

It shattered my life at a time when my peers were progressing with their careers and planning their weddings. I broke down and found myself confined to hospital for a year unable to come to terms with what had happened to me. When I came out, I continued my treatment as an outpatient. Living seemed worse than dying but I could not commit myself to either. I continued in a shell-shocked stupor of indecision and hopeless rage. Well-intentioned consolation, comparison, cajolement and encouragement from professionals, friends and family increased my pain, fury and loneliness. I escaped into a world of madness, full of vivid phantasmagoric hallucinations which, however frightening, were less terrible than the dark blind reality they displaced.

From the devastation I discovered small ways that led me back to life. In the following years I busied myself with home-making, professional retraining as an aromatherapist and business building. But I had not forgotten the temples and goddesses and monkeys of my childhood. By autumn 1992, I had become comfortable but stuck in my home, my success at work and the reassurance of a few good friends. I seldom ventured beyond the safety of my daily life, having a morning swim, working from home, walking my dog with a friend, and going to bed by seven in time for my favourite radio soap. I had constructed these routines to support me through hard times but they slowly became more limiting than liberating. I wanted to shake up my rigidity, open up my boundaries, test my capabilities and challenge my concepts of how the world is or isn’t. India was suitably radical and provocative as it stands so climatically and culturally in contrast to my life in Britain, and I wanted the external travel to be significant enough to take me further on my internal journey in self-confidence, crossing borders which I would otherwise not cross, and experiencing new dimensions of myself by exposure to different aspects of life, and ways to live that life. My journey also had a professional motive. As a practising aromatherapist, I wanted to learn about massage and oil techniques in traditional Indian medicine.

I threw myself into three months of energetic planning — endless letters and telephone calls, networking to set up all the connections for touring the ayurvedic hospitals, which used traditional Indian herbal and healing techniques, aromatherapy centres, massage centres and private practitioners. To start with, I didn’t have any professional contacts but one address led to another. I also raised about £1,000 in sponsorship from the Paul Vander-Molen Foundation, the Guide Dogs for The Blind Association and The Metropolitan Society For The Blind, who seek to enable and enhance the quality of disabled people’s lives.

My friends were astonished when I told them my plans, which challenged their ideas of what a blind person can do. I too am often dumbfounded by the way non-sighted sight, my ‘third eye’ perception or a sixth sense can enrich my experiences of the world.

In India I survived, indeed thrived, on people’s fellowship and generosity, and gained an insight and involvement in the family and working lives of people from all parts of India. I stayed with Sikhs, Parsis, Syrian Christians, Hindus and Muslims, some anglicised Indians, some indianised Britons, some very ‘British’ ex-colonials and some very Indian Rajput (warrior class) Indians. This richness and diversity of cultural exchange came my way as a result of the close contact necessitated by my blindness. Each family I stayed with wanted to make arrangements with any relatives or friends to befriend and help me in other places I intended to visit. My eyes were opened to India by the privilege of this intimacy.

This account is an attempt to share an experience and an appreciation of life which most travellers cannot see to enjoy. I say ‘see’ because I am celebrating the non-sighted sight that sighted people struggle to comprehend. They find it hard to believe that I do what I do without physical sight, especially since I ‘look so sighted’. I see the world through a ‘third eye’: it includes mental mapping, memorising, calculating probabilities, and intuition. We all have these skills but since I lost my sight I have developed them — in a similar way, one of my friends, John, has built up his shoulder muscles so that he can propel himself on his crutches because he has no legs.

Despite the ways in which I have learnt to adapt, I am still dominated by sight. When I hear a tennis ball thud I turn my head, like most sighted people, and assume my eyes tell me where the ball has hit the ground. But, of course, it is my ears. Sighted people believe they are informed first and foremost by sight. My third eye is uncannily accurate and I trust my survival to it. “How did you know the dog was standing behind you? How did you know I just looked at my watch? How did you reach for that cup without fumbling?” I am often asked these questions — and, indeed, my prospective publishers requested justification of the visual descriptions I have given in this book. I have endeavoured to share my experience as lucidly as possible but when someone tells me that an object is yellow, I do not ask, “How do you know it is yellow? Are you sure your eyes see yellow?”

In India, I learnt how to let go of some of my solitude and privacy, I stopped retiring early to bed and found myself in more than one-to-one company. I was able at last to bring the fantasies of my childhood into reality. At last, the visual pictures I created in my mind’s eye came from this outer reality. My English teacher at school said, “William Blake sees angels in trees.” We all tittered and sniggered. I am older and wiser now.

It was with the unblinkered perception of my third eye that I set off for India: it makes sense of the inner as well as the outer world, and I kept it wide open.

I did not go to India in search of my soul or to ‘find’ myself. I had done that in the early years after I lost my sight. When I realised that I could carry on in a world I would never see again, I emerged with a powerful inner confidence and knew that I had found a new way of seeing the world.

On the plane to Bombay I itched to take the in-flight magazine from the pocket on the back of the seat in front of me. It was not because I wanted to pretend I could read it, but because I find it reassuring to flick through pages.

As a child with little sight and as an adult with none, I have behaved naturally in a sighted way. I put lights on when I don’t need them in the dark, I read hardback books before I go to sleep, and I look in mirrors to check my appearance.

My fingers plucked the textured fabric covering my seat as I worried about what my fellow passengers would assume if I picked up the magazine. No doubt they would draw the obvious conclusion based on the evidence of their eyes: I was seeing and reading. It would make explanations complicated if I needed a helping hand later to find the loo.

The air hostess came down the aisle distributing embarkation forms to be filled in by the non-national arrivals. She passed me one and disappeared, returning a little later to hand out menu cards. I wondered what was for lunch. When I had boarded not so long ago she had helped me to my seat. Soon she returned to collect the completed cards. I sensed her hovering over me expectantly. I passed her my card and asked, “Would you mind filling this in for me?”

She hesitated, momentarily confused. Then, disconcerted, she said quickly, “I’ll do it later. Have you got your passport?”

I found it deftly and caught her eye again when I handed it over. I sensed her wriggle inside, even though her movements were stiff. I felt mean — at least I hadn’t been reading the magazine as well.

Suddenly I was frightened of the honesty I would need to judge each encounter and to guide me on my travels. I would have to find the courage to be different from how blind people are expected to be. For the first time I felt a foreboding about the journey ahead.

When I first announced my plans to travel alone round...