Announcer:
Welcome to the Nation's Blind Podcast presented by the National Federation of the Blind. The transformative membership and advocacy organization of blind Americans. Live the life you want.
Melissa Riccobono:
Hello and welcome back to the Nation's Blind Podcast. I am Melissa Riccobono, and as almost always, I am here with my intrepid co-host and co-host, what is your name?
Anil Lewis:
This is Anil Lewis and I am pleased to be the intrepid co-host (Melissa laughs) with my equally intrepid co-host, Melissa Riccobono. It's the holidays, Melissa.
Melissa Riccobono:
It is absolutely positively the holidays. My email is bursting with every type of advertisement. Cyber Monday, Good Friday (Anil laughs), Giving Tuesday, anything you can possibly last minute, shipping, whatever it's there in my email. But the Riccobonos have a beautiful real Christmas tree that is up in our living room, making the house smell wonderful.
The kids decorated it. We have our plastic light up Santa Claus. It's about three feet tall that's in our front window. He lights the way, it's a good feeling. Are you ready for the holidays?
Anil Lewis:
My holidays were pretty interesting too. I am really doing a good job of doing this work-life balance. I spent some time with a very dear friend and I really enjoyed myself and had some good food, the whole deal, so it was very, very nice. So speaking of the holidays, one of the things that we get a lot of feedback on is individuals who are going to go visit friends and family.
And we're really going to talk today about those interesting social interactions and we have some guests to join us today. We have Marilyn Green, who is the president of the NFB of Illinois, and also a member of our national board of directors. Hi Marilyn.
Marilyn Green:
Hey, Anil. Hi Melissa. How are you today?
Melissa Riccobono:
I'm doing great. How are you?
Marilyn Green:
I'm good.
Melissa Riccobono:
Anil, should we have Marilyn introduce herself a little bit?
Anil Lewis:
Please!
Melissa Riccobono:
You told some things about her, but there's a lot more to Marilyn than just being the president of the NFB of Illinois and being on our national board and being our national PAC chairperson. And Marilyn, why don't you tell us a little more about yourself?
Marilyn Green:
Well, what is there to tell you? Let's see. You've mentioned all of the NFB stuff. I could talk about myself for a lot of other things, but I am a Chicagoan, so yay to snow and cold two four letter words that I don't like to talk about right now. I just finished a wonderful vacation on a beach, so not a four letter word, so very excited for that. Took a lot of pictures and spent just a lot of time relaxing. We Federationists like our fun and our relaxation after all of that. Building the federation.
Anil Lewis:
Yeah, you work hard, you play hard.
Marilyn Green:
I worked in public libraries for a little over 20 years and then about three years ago I pivoted and I now work at a blindness agency actually doing a lot of programming. So it's something that I found that I had a passion for and the opportunity presented itself. So I came to work at a blindness agency about three years ago.
Melissa Riccobono:
Wonderful.
Marilyn Green:
So that is what I do.
Melissa Riccobono:
Okay!
Anil Lewis:
We're going to have another guest that joins us, but we're going to be doing some interesting audio weaving in this. So if we do this well, you won't even know that Tracy Soforenko's not really here live. But our additional guest for this podcast will be Tracy Soforenko and we'll allow him to introduce himselfe's because he's also affiliate president in Virginia and also a member of our national board. So let's hear Tracy's introduction.
Tracy Soforenko:
Hi, I am Tracy Soforenko, president of the National Federation of the Blind of Virginia, member of the National Federation of the Blind board of directors. I live in Arlington, Virginia, right outside of Washington DC.
Melissa Riccobono:
Well, thanks so much, Tracy.
We have something from President Riccobono actually from a very recent presidential release that every chapter should be playing sometime during their chapter meeting. So let's take a listen to this.
President Riccobono:
Now, a couple other things I'd like to talk with you about on this release, and one of them is how we deal with family during this time of the year. For some, our families might have been the ones that were really surrounding us with low expectations. And so in the Federation we've found something different, something empowering, and when we go home for the holidays, that disconnect confronted with those low expectations from our loved ones can be very hard to deal with and can hurt even though we've faced it before.
When we asked to help during the holidays, we're told that there's nothing to do even though we notice that many others in the family are finding ways to help out and we're just allowed and expected to sit and wait. And that can be a lot to navigate as the family dynamics. You may not want to push back on that.
And of course, all of that and more issues are complicated by the general family dynamics that have nothing to do with being blind. So one thing I would encourage you to do if this is an experience you have at the holidays, and it is for many of us is to center in yourself in your heart the feeling that you get from being in our convention assembled when you're with thousands of other blind people who share your hopes and dreams and who believe in blind people the way that you do.
Remember that when you're with your family, if you feel like you're all alone, you're not, you're not alone. You belong and you're part of the Federation family and know that you're not the only blind person having this struggle during the holidays, especially for those who may be in our movement who are newly blind. You're just learning to navigate this and I want you to know that you do have a source of federation family to call on in these times, and I do call to your attention the courtesy rules of blindness as one thing you might use as a tool to help you navigate the family dynamics as a blind person during this holiday season.
Anil Lewis:
And I think that's an appropriate powerful message during the holiday season because we hear, we talk about the holidays and how much we're enjoying ourselves and what President Riccobono was talking about is real. I mean, I remember instances when I've been in that holiday environment and I didn't necessarily have the holiday spirit because of some of the things I was dealing with, especially around my blindness, especially when I was newly blind, fitting into that traditional environment and not being able to interact in the ways I used to because I have had a lot of skills acquisition at that particular point. So I think that's very powerful.
Melissa Riccobono:
It's extremely powerful. And I would say too sometimes figuring out what is due to blindness and what's due to those family dynamics. When you come into my mom's house, blind, sighted, old, young, tall, short, she's going to serve you. That's what my mom does in her house. And if you ask her to help you, it has nothing to do with the fact that you're blind or you're sighted. She most likely is going to say no, or she's going to give you something like, "Well, here you can arrange the silverware on this tray."
Not because you're blind, but because that's just, she lives to serve others. People talk about love languages. That is my mom's love language. She bakes for people and she feeds them kind of in body and soul. And so when you step into her house and she offers to make you a plate, it has nothing to do with your blindness. It has everything to do that you are in her house and she wants you to be taken care of and as comfortable as possible.
And so it took me a little while, especially when I found some newfound skills as far as making my own plate and things, it took me a little while to sit back and really realize, oh, this isn't a blindness thing (laughs). This is my mom, my mom's offering to serve my little cousin who's three, and my cousin who's twenty and her grandson, who's twenty-three and my eighty-year-old Aunt Donna and whoever else because that's just who my mom is. So I think sometimes those dynamics are really difficult.
Anil Lewis:
Yeah, it's interesting that you share that as an example because I had a similar thing but from a different perspective. Before I was blind, one of the things I really enjoyed at the family gatherings was to be served. I mean, call it whatever you want, but I just took comfort in being able to sit there. But then when I became blind and like you said, learned the skills, I felt like I had to prove to everybody that no, I could do it myself.
Melissa Riccobono:
I can do it myself, right!
Anil Lewis:
And I realized I was depriving myself of an aspect of the gathering that I enjoyed. So it took me a while to come to that realization. So I'll just let me know what time I should show up at your mom's place. And then (Melissa and Marilyn laugh)...
Melissa Riccobono:
(Anil laughs) anytime Anil.
Anil Lewis:
So Marilyn, you're going to have to top this, but we'll give you time to think about it. We're going to pause for a brief message and we'll come back and we'll hear some of Marilyn's and Tracy's holiday memories.
Message:
Are you considering an end of year contribution? Now is the time. Thanks to a challenge grant from Humanware, during October, November and December, you can double your dollars and help blind people to choose the lives they want. Celebrate by visiting nfb.org/donate or you can call 410-659-9314, extension 2430.
Melissa Riccobono:
Well, welcome back. Thank you for that message. And Marilyn, you've had a little bit of time to think about this and we kind of went from, let's talk about the holidays to sort of the nitty gritty of like, ooh, this is why the holidays are really tough. So I want to ask you, do you have a really good happy memory that you'd like to share? And then of course, do you have other ones that maybe are difficult or other situations you found yourself in either with family or traveling to get to family? There's nothing like the airports during the holidays (chuckles), so I don't know if you have to fly to get to family, but boy oh boy, that can be challenging. So what are your thoughts, Marilyn?
Marilyn Green:
Well, yeah, one of my favorite memories as a child, we used to, my grandmother, she moved around a lot, but the recent memories that I can think of were when she lived in Indiana and she lived in Fort Wayne and my dad would drive. And that was always the kind of joy of looking out the window and seeing the snow and the fields and things like that. And then my grandmother was one of those people that no matter where she lived, even if there was not a formal dining room, there was a formal dining room.
I didn't realize until I got older that there were times that she turned a bedroom into a dining room because that was just how important sitting down to a meal with family and friends was to her. But one of the funniest holidays that I spent with my grandma, well with my family in general, my mom and dad and my grandma was when she was living in Fort Wayne, we had this wonderful dinner and everyone at that time I couldn't see as well, but the ham was really kind of brown.
And my parents were saying, "Oh, what did you glaze the Turkey with?" And she said, "Oh, well, I just used some brown sugar and I did the regular stuff." And as we ate it, we're like, "Hmm, this is kind of sweet." And to kind of make a long story short, we found out later that my grandmother had glazed the ham with chocolate.
Anil Lewis:
Haha!
Melissa Riccobono:
Yum (Melissa and Anil laugh)! That's my kind of ham.
Marilyn Green:
Exactly.
Anil Lewis:
That's how these new innovative recipes get their start, right there.
Marilyn Green:
Yep. The salt and the sweet right there. Perfection.
Melissa Riccobono:
Oh my goodness, amazing (Anil laughs). That's a good memory (laughs).
Marilyn Green:
And my grandmother was fully excited, at least that we're aware of (laughs).
Melissa Riccobono:
That is great. Let's hear from Tracy. Tracy, how about you? A good holiday memory that you have?
Tracy Soforenko:
I have two favorite holiday memories. Recently we've started having events at our house and we first started calling them Hot Lola's Hanukkah. So I'm not Christian, I'm Jewish, and I am pleased to host our family celebrations in our home. We light candles, we make some stuff with hot oil, but we in particular had lately been doing Hot Lola's Hanukkah.
My daughter's first thought this was, we were inviting some kind of exotic dancer over to the holiday event, but instead, our goal here was to bring Nashville fried chicken and great delicious food and bake that into the celebration of Hanukkah where we focus primarily on giving lots of really small presents.
So you'll get socks and underwear and not necessarily the coolest presents, but you'll get some every day. The second story I can share is actually when my college roommate invited me over for the first time to help trim the tree and established the tree in his home with him.
And because it was all new and I was experiencing it for the first time in my late twenties, early thirties, having the opportunity to do this, it was so enjoyable and my wife and I had the opportunity to sort of do this together, and it was a blast and truly just this remarkable way to experience figuring out how to do stuff that many people had done all their lives.
And I was doing it anew and it was really awesome. I remember walking into a Costco and the one in my hometown is perhaps the busiest Costco in the entire country at the holiday season. And my shoes were untied, and someone comes up to one of my kids and says, "His shoes are untied."
And I was furious. Why are you telling my five-year-old kid about my shoes being untied? There are hundreds of people brushing into the store all at the same time, and as soon as I can get my kid aside, once we're through the doors, I'll go tie my shoes.
I gave this individual a piece of my mind, and probably honestly after that, his intent was probably to be helpful, and I was really furious. Fifteen, twenty years later, my kids still laugh about, "You remember when dad told off the guy at the Costco," blah, blah, blah. This is not how we should be, but we're not always going to be perfect at the holiday times.
At times, you're going to get frustrated or angry, and that's normal and natural, but it's surprising how much people are watching and paying attention. And when you lose your cool, they'll remember. So take that opportunity to educate, but also recognize that you're not always going to be perfect, Tracy, becasue I can guarantee you perfect Tracy does not exist.
Melissa Riccobono:
Anil, do you have one? Something that sticks out?
Anil Lewis:
My fondest memories, it has nothing to do with blindness when it comes around to Christmas season, of course, really mostly around when I was younger as a child, it's Christmas is just so special for a child, but for the overall holiday, my fond memories are the fact that I come from a large extended family. So my cousins and I grew up almost like brothers and sisters because we shared living space at any different points.
We all went to the same high school at any given time, that kind of thing. But my favorite overall holiday memory as a blind person when I lost my sight, was when I finally got to the place where I was able to really go back in those environments and enjoy it as a blind person.
I talked to you earlier about the anxiety I felt about trying to prove myself and prove that I was independent. And I don't know exactly when or what really was the catalyst of it, but I do remember going to my family's gathering at Thanksgiving and at Christmas and actually feeling like I fit in again and I was able to feel comfortable and cut up like I would normally do without the anxiety of thinking, "Am I going to do something wrong?
Do people feel like they need to take care of me?" And that was also with the family. Fewer of them felt that they needed to (chuckles) to take care of me (Melissa laughs). Which was really a good, it was a positive and an interesting way. It really brought that whole family vibe and the holiday feeling back again.
Melissa Riccobono:
I would say, I mean, kind of similar. I remember, and of course you love all the presents and all the good feelings of those things as you're growing up, but I'm the youngest of four kids and I'm the youngest, almost the youngest on both sides of my family. And so coming back as a college student and feeling like, Oh my gosh, finally I'm being looked at as at least somewhat of an adult.
I think my two brothers still think I'm five, but in general, my aunts and uncles and everybody else and having discussions when I became a school counselor and talking to my cousin who was a teacher, and just things like that that I was like, oh, wow, now I'm enjoying my family in a whole new way.
And the other thing that I really liked was one year Pictionary was really big, and I remember everybody wanted to pull Pictionary out and it was fine to listen to them laugh, but I couldn't play Pictionary because I couldn't see the drawings.
But then other years we played things like outburst games that everybody could play, and I really appreciated that and enjoyed that. And that is actually one of my little tips and tricks. I don't know if we're going to have a tips and tricks segment at the end, but I will give mine just a little bit sooner. I guess I would say a couple things.
If you know that people are expected to bring something to the gathering, bring something. If you can cook it yourself at home, great. If you don't feel like you can cook, get something at the store that everybody likes, bring silverware, bring something so that you're feeling like you're able to give to the gathering in that way.
And then I would say if there's going to be some kind of an entertainment later or the possibility of some kind of an entertainment, or if you want to be kind of the person who's the catalyst, like, "Hey, let's all play such and such," bring a game.
Bring something that's print and braille or bring a game that you don't need to be able to see to play. Bring a thing of Jenga and have everybody piling up the Jenga blocks or bring just a deck of playing cards, whatever it is, bring something so that when that game breaks out or when you're thinking everybody's sitting around doesn't know what to do, you can sort of take the lead and say, why don't we do such and such? And it's something that you have control over that you're able to play and you won't be left out in that way.
Anil Lewis:
Yeah, it's all good advice. I think it's important to make sure that we take the initiative. I think that sometimes people sit back and they complain about the environment instead. They don't have any autonomy or agency toward encouraging the type of environment that they like it to be.
And I was guilty of that sitting back really complaining about what's not happening when I wasn't even initiating any effort to try to make it happen. So not to deteriorate into that space. Again, Marilyn (laughs), as I say that, I read the next prompt and it's asking you about awkward situations.
Melissa Riccobono:
Yeah I guess we're going to be in this space for a minute (Anil laughs). Was there awkward situations that you've had?
Anil Lewis:
I know it'd be depressing or sad, any awkward situations you've had over the holidays, Marilyn?
Marilyn Green:
Well, awkward situations. I think that when I first, after my mom first passed, a lot of the family hadn't really been around me, so they didn't quite know how to cope with this blind person. And I'm maneuvering through my house and they're kind of astonished in many ways. So I think for me, it was kind of teaching them how to be around me and not feeling awkward.
So even going into the kitchen to help with making dinner in my own house, it was that expectation of, "Oh, she won't know how to do anything. She won't know where anything is." But I knew where stuff was. I might not have known where everything was because I hadn't quite changed it to align with myself and not everything that my mom hadn't did, but I would say 90% of the time I was able to do stuff independently or work alongside my family members.
And I think that was kind of a surprise for them because they just kind of thought, "Oh, well, she won't be able to do anything. We'll have to bring the food to her and we'll have to look in the cabinets for the broth and to see if there's these different things that we're going to need to make the meal."
So it was nice to be able to do that, but as well, to be able to educate them because I'm sure that the low expectations were very real, but they just couldn't really articulate them. So that was kind of awkward, but in some ways, not the overt awkwardness I guess, of saying, "Oh, well you sit over here (Marilyn nad Melissa chuckle) and we will make dinner for you."
It was more of, "Oh, well, I'll come in the kitchen with you." And when they realized that I was able to assist, I could tell that there was that low expectation, but the tide kind of changed.
It was like, "Oh, okay, she knows where the brown sugar is. Oh, okay, this is the cinnamon over here," type of thing. So it's not always those overt experiences. Sometimes it's just those very subtle ones. And I think especially with my family, sometimes they're more subtle or you have to read between the lines.
Like Melissa mentioned earlier about going to her mom's house and whether sighted or blind, she's going to serve you, she's going to fix you a plate of food. She's going to ask you what you want and what are your portions and things like that. So it's always realizing that it's not always about the long white cane or the guide dog.
Anil Lewis:
Do you feel comfortable offering that to degree of education to your family members or does that give you still some anxiety that you feel like you have to prove to them that you're independent?
Marilyn Green:
I feel like it's been long enough that they should have higher expectations of me. But yeah, I guess unless it's one of those experiences, unless you're living it every single day, it does kind of fall away. And you come back next year for Christmas and they're like, "Oh, there's the cane and I forgot that she was blind and now let me do such and such," and then kind of reeducating them because that's not their everyday lived experience.
I don't live with them. I don't see them on a regular basis where it would just become second nature to them. Like, "Oh, let me tell Marilyn to go in the kitchen and make the cornbread," or whatever the case might be.
Anil Lewis:
Yeah and dealing with that, the strategy I've used that three members of my family die in power with the initiative to do that correction. So I don't have to all the time, like my cousin Darrell, my cousin Adrian, and my baby sister Dominique, I tell them, when you see people babying me or whatever, you just go ahead and call them out (Melissa laughs) because my family, I love my family, but if you know me, if you see me with the tie off, I'll say to see the real me, those individuals are me on exponential me and they in a funny but very direct way, give everybody else permission to just be okay with me to tease me, that kind of thing. So identifying and choosing your own, I guess I'll call them allies in that environment to kind of model behavior that you want the others to feel comfortable with is probably also a good strategy.
Melissa Riccobono:
I like that idea because really if you feel like you're the only one doing it, that can be exhausting. I mean, you want family gatherings to fill up your cup and not deplete you (laughs). And mostly they are filling, but sometimes they're not. I will educate as much as I can, but you know what if eventually they just don't get it, there are just those people that just aren't going to get it. And I can't, can't be that perfect person who is so rude and so angry whenever any help is offered to me, you can go that way too. And that's not a good way to be either.
So finding that balance is really important. And sometimes maybe just, okay, well, if great Aunt Fannie thinks that I need help to the bathroom, you know what? She's eighty-three years old. I'm just going to say, "Okay, great Aunt Fannie (Melissa and Anil laugh), come on. You can't go in with me." That's where I would draw the line (Anil laughs).
But if you want to help me to the bathroom door, even if I know exactly where it is, and again, that's kind of the thing, how old are they? How young are they? A little child? If they're going to ask me questions or they're going to, "Can I take your hand and show you?" I'm probably going to let them and then give them more of that education along the way.
Anil Lewis:
Yeah, I wonder whether our friend Tracy has anything.
Melissa Riccobono:
Yeah, I was going to say, yeah, Tracy, what do you have to say?
Tracy Soforenko:
The holiday times is often at times in by larger family where the expectations are, "Tracy, you sit there and we'll take care of you." And the way I've often solved that, some people know I love absolutely love washing dishes, and so I've taken on being the dishwasher at every family event. I come in and that's my gig, and I love it. And people have gotten to know that I love that as a way to sort of kick back on certain things.
I recognize when I come into your home, that is an area where at times people are uncomfortable with my or uncertain about my capabilities, and I don't know their home as well as they do. So in my own home, it's my rules, but in someone else's home, I get it and I carve out specific things that are my responsibility, whether that's love carving up a turkey and specifically carve out a role that I'm going to take responsibility for and make sure that that's clear.
I will say though, that one of the complexities is those low expectations sometimes mean I felt not a part of the conversation, the work and the doing. And I've realized that I have to express those concerns and at times just jump into the fray to try to take on certain responsibilities even if they weren't offered, because people really don't have a clue.
Even in my own family at times, they don't have a clue of how or why I would want to do that, and what they would want to explain and their intent is to make things easy and for family to be together. And I always recognize or strive to recognize that their intent is out of often love and/or cluelessness. And my family has lots of both love and cluelessness.
Melissa Riccobono:
Yeah.
Anil Lewis:
I always like listening to Tracy always has any perspective to share, and the way he communicates is always very interesting to me.
Melissa Riccobono:
Yes.
Anil Lewis:
And looking at a lot of this, it really stems around how the public interacts with us as blind individuals. And I think that the question that really stands out is what is our preferred way for them to communicate with us? I know that part of the holiday season is a lot of society thinking that we are the beneficiaries in this whole giving environment and that kind of thing, and they don't recognize that we want to also be people that give.
An interesting thing is, I don't know, I haven't seen them anymore, but they used to have the Salvation Army ringing the bell outside of those spaces, which is a really cool non-visual way. So I'll take out a couple of bucks and I would just go toward the bell ringing and there'll be some people that would be like, no, no.
Melissa Riccobono:
Yes. I had the very same experience, Anil (Anil chuckles) and I was even with my kids, and here I was giving each of them, you put this in, you put that in, you put this in and I'll put this in. "Oh, no, no, no, ma'am, no, no." And I said, "Yes (Melissa and Anil laugh), yes, yes." And thinking to myself, we're very lucky. My husband has a job, we have a house. We can give this five, six, ten dollars, whatever we were giving at the time, it's not going to break us. We have it to give, and like everybody else during the holidays, we want to give to others who really, really need it.
Anil Lewis:
I guess if I was to sum it up in how would I like them, you go back to the old golden rule adage, treat people the way you want to be treated. And I don't think they would want someone to be patronizing them or making them feel lesser. So in the simple way, I would just say that for sighted individuals in interacting with me as a blind person, think of how you would like to be treated. At least that way I don't get treated badly. I usually ascribe to what I call the platinum rule rather than the golden rule.
And that's treat people the way they want to be treated, because (Anil and Melissa laugh) if I treated people the way I want to be treated, they may not necessarily like it (Anil and Melissa laugh), but trying to find a way to treat people the way they want to be treated, I think is really the platinum rule to follow. Marilyn, do you have any advice for people on how you like them to communicate with you?
Marilyn Green:
Well, I think one of the things you just mentioned, it really resonated with me. You talked about being given things. I think the best thing I could say is that yes, I do want to be given things. I do want to be given something. I want to be given an opportunity.
Give me the opportunity to tell you what it is that I want. Give me the opportunity to educate you, give me the opportunity to provide something or some things that you might not have from a perspective level. So I think in the season of giving, that's the best gift that you can give me or maybe any other blind person is give us the opportunity to show you our capacity no matter what it is, whether it's making the cornbread in the kitchen, whether it's making a plate for you at the holiday meal or whatever the case might be. I think that's the thing that I think of right now is to be of something to be given as an opportunity. And it extends past the holidays, of course.
Anil Lewis:
Yeah. Very nice. I love the way you word played with the term giving, and I like that, not to be confused with, you're not saying that people shouldn't give you gifts (Melissa laughs) during the holidays, so I understand the nuance there.
Marilyn Green:
Nope (Anil laughs).
Anil, I accept jewelry of all kinds (Anil and Melissa). My birthstone is a diamond, just so that you know (Anil laughs).
Melissa Riccobono:
Ooh, nice. Very nice.
Anil Lewis:
Let's go to Tracy. Let's see what (laughs)...
Melissa Riccobono:
Yes, let's go to Tracy (Marilyn and Anil laugh). Tracy, what do you think?
Tracy Soforenko:
I often find that the simplest solution is to forget I'm blind and simply talk to me as if they were talking to anybody else. And let me ask follow-up questions. We like to think we have some importance in their lives and that they've of course, met other blind people. And within our families, they don't often think of us as anybody but their little brother or uncle or whatever role we might play in their lives, but they also don't have any awareness, and so they're worried they're going to offend us.
And unless we can find a space to open up that conversation and educate and enable them to ask questions, even dumb questions that we find perhaps a little off-putting, they're not going to be able to bring those things up that are going on in their head.
Oftentimes, the most complicated things in the family dynamics are the things that go unsaid, and we have to bring those things out of people, or they're not going to be comfortable sharing them because most families, the family dynamics are messy. You didn't get to choose these people.
You grow into these relationships, and therefore everyone's worried about what they're going to say that might offend. And in order to create an open space, we need to make them welcome to speak their minds and share with us their questions so we can have an opportunity to educate and grow closer together.
Melissa Riccobono:
Yeah, very nice. And I guess I would say a couple things. If I don't want help with one thing, don't force it upon me, but if I do ask for help when there's something else, don't withhold that help. Sometimes it's people want to give you the help that they think you need. Sometimes you'll say, "No thank you. I can get my own soda and I can pour it into a cup." And then later, maybe there's a lot of things on the buffet table, and it'd be really helpful to have somebody tell you what's there and maybe even scoop stuff for you. And I've sometimes come across people that have said things like, not so much family, I guess, but other people, "Well, you didn't want any help with that soda. Why should I help you now?"
And that's just the wrong way to look at it. It goes right back to that platinum rule, I guess. I would like to be treated as a person who is interdependent, so some things I don't need help with, and I shouldn't have to get every single ounce of help you're willing to give me just because you think that's what I need. But then if there's something that really is something I could use help with, making it comfortable for me to ask, because sometimes it's very difficult for me to ask for help.
And unfortunately, I've passed this on to at least two, if not three. I think Oriana has kind of got a good balance there, but Cynthia and Elizabeth, oh, they will, I don't know. They'd walk across the desert barefoot before they ask for somebody to help them get shoes (Anil laughs). Borders on, this is going to be a problem for you guys. And I always say, of all the things I could have given you, why is it this quality within myself (Melissa laughs)?
Anil Lewis:
But I wouldn't necessarily label that a bad thing. Yeah, it is helpful to know what you're willing to and whatnot.
Melissa Riccobono:
Yeah, it's good in a lot of ways, and they're going to be very independent adults, but there have been times that I have and resilient, but there have been times that I have struggled very needlessly or have been afraid. I mean, let's just take an example of one of my best friends. She is a lovely, lovely human. She's a very quiet talker. She's just a quiet person. And it would give me a lot of anxiety to try to follow her in a crowd because I couldn't always tell where she was.
And she would get busy looking at things and maybe not really even talking because she's also just sort of introverted by her nature. And it was probably, I don't know, a year into our friendship before I felt comfortable saying, "Hey, could I just take your arm so I have an easier time being with you?" And it was no big deal. But that anxiety that I put upon myself of like, "Oh, what's she going to think? Is she going to think I can't do anything then?
And what that's going to mean? She's going to think she has to help me with everything." And it wasn't that at all. But I think that sometimes I think we put our own barriers up, but I do think sometimes people do make it difficult, so it's very complicated. I think asking for help and receiving help can be very complicated.
Anil Lewis:
Well, there's so many variables because what you're talking about is people who don't ask for help and end up making their lives a little more challenging. But it's also equally is disabling when the person defaults to asking for help, and it makes them even more dependent.
So we have to remember that it's fluid. But even more important based on me, you, Marilyn, Tracy, the thing is that there are individual decisions that people make. So I hope that no one's on this podcast ever listening and saying, hearing me say, this is the way I like it, and then saying, this is the way we should treat all blind people.
Melissa Riccobono:
Oh my gosh.
Anil Lewis:
I think most and foremost, when you're talking about how you wish they would communicate to blind people, I wish they would communicate to blind people as individuals. And I think that that's really what's important.
Melissa Riccobono:
That is so true. And can we please, please, please, for the love of everything, stop this perception of each other and ourselves as bad blind people. I saw somebody on Facebook just the other day, again, say, "I was talking to these people and I realized all the things I didn't know, and I said, I'm just a bad blind person."
And I just, right away I wanted to hug her. I was like, you are not a bad blind person. There's no such thing. Maybe you would like to learn more, but she's only been blind a few years. Give yourself time. Give yourself grace. Don't right away say that you're bad just because you haven't conquered something.
Anil Lewis:
There'll never be a point where you get to that place where these things don't happen to you. So you have to just really embrace being comfortable with who you are and recognizing that life has so many different variables. You have to learn to be flexible and recognize that life is fluid. But this has been an interesting podcast overall. I think it went in a little bit different direction than what we originally thought, but I think it was very helpful. Marilyn, do you have any final comments you'd like to offer to our listeners?
Marilyn Green:
I think taking a little bit of what Melissa just said about understanding. So it made me think about when I was recently having Thanksgiving dinner and we were out and it was a buffet, and it really made me think of Dr. Jernigan and the nature of independence. When I was asked the question about, I wasn't even asked which this goes to show that the person was educated about blind people. She asked me if I wanted to go with her to the buffet to get the food.
She didn't just ask me what it was that I wanted, because ultimately there was a variety, large variety of items. So it would've taken her forever to tell me what was there, as well as kind of think of what things I wanted.
But it was just really nice to have someone go with me to the buffet and tell me what things were there, and then to make the plate, as we talked about earlier, to make that plate for me, but just I knew that I could do it myself, but it's about navigating that large room with all of those tables and chairs and people getting up to get items. So it was nice to take an elbow and say, yes, I would like some Turkey. Yes, I would like some stuffing. Whatever the items were.
Anil Lewis:
Don't forget that cranberry sauce. Yeah, go right ahead (Melissa laughs).
Marilyn Green:
Not so much the cranberry sauce, but okay (Anil laughs).
Melissa Riccobono:
Mashed potatoes, mashed potatoes?
Marilyn Green:
Maybe if they're creamy enough.
Melissa Riccobono:
Oh, you're a creamy mashed potato woman.
Marilyn Green:
Yeah, yeah. Creamy. So yeah, that's what really came to my mind is a lot of times I think that we just talked about, we feel so much we have to prove ourselves as blind people. We have to be that super hero, that just wonderful blind person that can leap tall buildings in a single bound (Melissa laughs).
Anil Lewis:
Yeah, super blind.
Marilyn Green:
Yeah, exactly, but as long as we remember what Dr. Jernigan talked about with the nature of independence, maybe we can make our own plate, but maybe having someone to assist us will make things easier and we can enjoy conversation for longer with those people that we don't get to see every day.
Anil Lewis:
We want to live with as little inconvenience to ourselves and to others. But I personally, I just don't like, I love the family buffet environment, but I'm just not a good public buffet kind of person (chuckles). But that's neither here nor there.
Melissa Riccobono:
In fact, President Riccobono said at our wedding, "Oh, we should have a buffet dinner." And I said, "Are you out of your mind (Melissa and Anil laughs)?" And he said, "Well, you're the bride. They'll make you a plate." I'm like, "I don't, no, let's have a nice plated dinner, please." And we did (laughs).
Anil Lewis:
I wonder whether Tracy has any closing comments for us. I bet that he does.
Melissa Riccobono:
I can't imagine he wouldn't. Let's take a listen.
Tracy Soforenko:
Oftentimes I try to find ways to build rapport with different communities, whether it's some of my older relatives or some of the kids in the family. How do I build that rapport. Sometimes that it's giving them the opportunity to help. At times when you are a senior, there's not an opportunity, and this is more generally for the overall general public, to help out in certain ways, and people want to get that opportunity to help.
And by giving them that opportunity to help, you're also letting them be noticed and impactful in the family. One of the things I observe is that in my family, a lot of that older generation is now gone, and the few remaining individuals in that older generation don't have that much time or as many times to be able to be helpful.
And so if they can be helpful and we go find the bathroom together at someplace, that creates an opportunity for us to connect and bond, that's not a bad thing.
Sometimes we take these family interactions way too seriously. Maybe it's just an opportunity for our family to get to know each other and get to care for each other. The holidays should be a time for warmth and good cheer, and an opportunity for people to really get to know their family. We live at a time where at times family dynamics can be really rough. And so what I sometimes find is some of the odd pieces.
People want a topic in their families that can be something that everyone can get behind. And our work in the National Federation of the Blind, our advocacy efforts creates this topic that most people actually, they know a blind person, you! They know that it's important, some of the things we're doing, and it can often be a great opportunity to educate by sharing some of the work we're doing in our organization and the work that our members are doing, you are doing that can actually have people realize, "Wow, this blind person in my family actually is doing more than I am to make the world a better place."
That's part of the holiday season, is to make the world a better place. So people feel really excited and may find that learning more about the work we do together can actually be something that brings them all joy in the holidays.
Anil Lewis:
I've enjoyed the conversation. It's been helpful in this holiday season, and I'm glad that we were able to revisit some of the, I don't want to call them problems, but situations that emerge in these environments amongst everyone else who's trying to be jolly. So I think that hopefully it will resonate with some of our listeners and help them navigate through this season in a way that's more positive and more enjoyable.
Melissa Riccobono:
Absolutely. And remember, you can live the life you want.
Anil Lewis:
Blindness is not what holds you back.
Announcer:
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