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https://theconversation.com/the-magic-of-touch-how-deafblind-people-taught-us-to-see-the-world-differently-during-covid-191698>
"As someone who is severely deaf and completely blind, I felt overnight I
had lost a third sense, my sense of touch. To make matters worse, people
around me faded away – voices had become so quiet that there was an eerie
soundlessness all around. Nothing was making sense any more.
Issy McGrath has type 2 Usher syndrome. Completely blind and severely deaf, she
has a passion for music and plays the flute. Using a combination of touch,
smell and keen imagination – her “inner eye” – Issy says she frequently senses
things that are beyond the grasp of sight: the “almost solid” nature of the
winter air in the morning, or the enchanting atmosphere of a frozen landscape.
For Issy and many others like her, the COVID pandemic had a devastating effect
on day-to-day life. “Two-metre social distancing felt like the world had turned
its back on me,” she recalls. “It was too far for me to reach out and touch
everything around me. Yet it’s mainly through touch that I get a sense of what
a person is like.”
A retired teacher living in Glasgow, Scotland, Issy speaks poignantly about her
COVID struggles in an audio diary that was part of my research into the
experiences of deafblind people during the pandemic:
As I approach my garden gate, feeling around for the latch to open it, a
thought occurs to me. There is a pandemic sweeping the world and maybe I
will catch the virus from this wooden fence. Maybe it’s on the latch I have
just touched. I shake my hands to free myself from these thoughts. I make my
way back to my house and wash my hands thoroughly, trying to free my mind of
these fearful imaginings."
Cheers,
*** Xanni ***
--
mailto:xanni@xanadu.net Andrew Pam
http://xanadu.com.au/ Chief Scientist, Xanadu
https://glasswings.com.au/ Partner, Glass Wings
https://sericyb.com.au/ Manager, Serious Cybernetics
