Thank you for giving me the opportunity to reflect on my journey so far.
I was born with perfect eye sight at Red Roofs Maternity Hospital in Dunedin, New Zealand. I was the third child to come along in our family and the only one not to have a "studio" photo taken! It's our family joke - the novelty ran out by the time it got to me! My Dad was a plumber and my Mum was a professional mother. She looked after us and my Dad took care of us. I don't remember my Dad ever growling at us and I don't remember my mother not being there for us. We were a happy family.
In 1974 we moved to a house my Mum and Dad built and there I got to go to a new school, Balaclava, which had 192 steps to climb down every day and then back up again! I went to Kenmure Intermediate which I loved - you got to do cooking, sewing, metalwork and woodwork - lots of creative things which I loved. I went on to our local high school, Kaikorai Valley High School and left in 1983, winning a prize in Japanese on my way out. I loved high school too. Loads of different people to meet and things to do. My mother and I persuaded the teachers as I entered the school to study "Home Economics" and "Japanese." This went against convention which often saw French and Latin as the standard subjects for more academic pupils. I didn't even know I was one of those! My mother and I won, so I spent two years of high school enjoying Home Economics and carried on my Japanese to my 7th form year (five years later).
When I look back I can remember not being able to read the bottom line of a math's equation on the blackboard in my last year at high school. I didn't think too much about it - my mother sent me down to the opticians and I came back with no glasses and an appointment to the eye department at Dunedin Public Hospital.
My visit to the hospital revealed an eye condition that could not be corrected optically. I was diagnosed at the time with StarGadtz disease, a diagnosis that later showed up to be incorrect, but meant that my central vision began to "blur" and life from that moment on seemed to be "hazy".
My mother took me to an eye specialist who confirmed the diagnosis and when asked by my mother "What support services were available?" she got a reply "What do you want support services for?"
I began University life in 1984 sitting in the back row of the lecture theatre and ending up, at the end of the year, sitting in the front row. My vision had deteriorated to the point where things on a blackboard were hazy and my note taking relied on listening to the lecturer rather than reading what he had put up on the overhead projector or the blackboard. Taking an extra year to complete my Bachelor of Commerce degree due to failing some papers in that first year, I graduated with an Economics major in the Dunedin Town Hall in December 1987.
I moved to Wellington in 1988 with my partner Mark. We had both studied together and met through a mutual friend. Mark got a job at AMP Insurance in their auditing department while I walked the streets to find a job. I did find one and started work pretty quickly at the Ministry of Education in the Education Service Payroll Division. The team was responsible for developing a payroll service for the education sector in New Zealand while I was responsible for the Training and Development area. Writing the manual for the system and training users of the system to input codes correctly, I loved this job as it took me all around the country. We left Wellington in 1991 and then went on to England to spend a year on a working holiday. It was more holiday than work and we were lucky enough to stay with Mark's uncle and wife in the West Midlands in a city called Kidderminster. We traveled around France, Spain, Scotland, Ireland and Wales in our Ford Escort and enjoyed much of the everyday culture of the United Kingdom. We enjoyed ourselves so much we returned home, unaware of the fact that we were about to have our first baby.
We were married in the April and had Zachary, our first son, in the August of 1993. Sebastian was born two years later, again in August, and life had finally settled.
Until, one day in late 1996, I noticed that the vinyl we had laid in our bathroom was shimmering. I went to the doctor and then back down to the hospital. Eventually, three months later, on the 27 March, 1997, what had started as a shimmer, then a blob, then a haze in my left eye, spread to my right eye and after losing most of my remaining vision, I became legally blind.
There was nothing they could do. I was given steroids to help settle the inflammation but nothing helped in gaining back my sight. I felt powerless, overwhelmed and had no idea of how I was going to cope. My boys were now aged 3 and 1 and I had no idea of how I was going to look after them. I began by asking for help at the Royal New Zealand Foundation of the Blind. I remember a conversation with the counselor from the Foundation of the Blind - she said - "You know there are two types of blind people Julie", "those who can see more but do less and those who can see less but do more." This didn't make sense to me. I thought the more you could see the more you could do. What I didn't realise she was talking about was attitude. I now know vision loss has much more to do with attitude than it does to do with sight loss and I've since met some amazing totally blind people who can do anything!
I began receiving instruction from the Foundation of the Blind. Many instructors came to my house. I learned how to be guided by a sighted person. I learned how to use the telephone. I learned how to pour a cup of tea, butter a piece of bread and then four months later I started working with an orientation and mobility instructor to learn how to use a white cane. I was constantly learning new things. I learned how to use my talking book machine, how to touch type, how to fry steak and it went on and on and on.......
On June 15, 2001, my husband left our family. I was now a single blind parent. In New Zealand we have a welfare system that gives someone a minimum wage to live on if they are unable to work or find a job. I began life on an "invalids benefit".
On 30 June, 2001, (15 days later) I enrolled to learn braille at the Foundation of the blind. I wanted to do something positive while all this negative stuff was happening around me. I fell in love with braille and all it brought into my life. I was suddenly reunited with the written word. I had been unable to read print easily for 13 years and then not able to read it for four years when I went blind. I went braille mad - brailing everything in sight! My baking containers, my folders to store my household accounts in, my CD's and even my lipsticks!
The next year I sat my Braille Proficiency Certificate and at the end of 2002 applied for a job at the Royal New Zealand Foundation of the Blind as their Braille Awareness Consultant. And I got it!!!!
I began working in this national role in February 2003 until November 2007. The role was to heighten the awareness of braille and it's application in life. I did this by creating a collection of reading material for new braille readers, by throwing Braille Tea Parties and making braille biscuits!
I left the Foundation of the Blind to become a life coach and professional speaker. I did my life coaching training through Results Coaching Systems and began coaching clients from my home. The way I got into speaking was by saying "why not" to the question "Do you want to come and speak to a few donors at the Foundation of the Blind?" I started telling my story that day and haven't stopped since. I now travel around New Zealand telling everyone how I went from the waiting room of the eye department at Dunedin Public Hospital to the celebrations of my 10 years blind party!
I can not speak highly enough of the life changing opportunities that conferences bring. What going blind did for me was move me closer to a group of people who were like me. It gave me a huge sense of belonging and this was only highlighted even more at conference. I was asked to attend the leadership seminar at the Association of Blind Citizen's conference in October 2001. My husband had just left and I was thankful for the opportunity to have some time out and meet some new people. I had no idea that meeting other amazing blind people would be such an inspirational experience for me. I left that conference totally inspired!
Ron is the love of my life. We have been together now for five years. What he adds to my life is belief. He completely and utterly believes in me. Let me give you an example. It was Christmas 2005, our first Christmas together. He seemed to be disappearing at strange times, I didn't think too much of it. Then I found out why! On Christmas morning I opened his present to me. It was a piece of braille art he had created. It read the word "vision" in big braille dots with raised tactile letters making up the word vision also. It was completely white and had been beautifully framed. I ran my hands all over it, exploring it's dots. Ron believed that even though I couldn't see, that I still had vision. That is how much he believes in me.
Louis Braille was having his 200th birthday celebration in Paris in January, 2009. I wanted to go! It seemed odd to travel to the other side of the world just to go to Paris so Ron's part of the trip was to go to the Middle East, Egypt and Jordan in particular.
So - Ron and I left New Zealand on New Year’s Eve, 2008, flying to Paris to attend this conference and associated celebrations that commemorated this great day. On his actual birthday, January 4, 2009, we attended celebrations including a visit to the Pantheon where Louis Braille’s ashes were contained in the crypt. We attended a night time concert at Nottradame to hear a recital by five blind organists as Louis Braille himself was a keen organist.
The conference itself commenced on January 5, 2009, at UNESCO’s conference facilities where over 400 delegates from 46 countries from all over the world attended, including 10 New Zealanders. The three days were full of the contribution Louis Braille had made to the blind world through his system of reading and writing. Details of his life and code were shared and discussions held around braille and it’s future.
The conference was punctuated on Wednesday January 7 by a dinner held in the City Hall in Paris and attended by the Paris Mayor. The morning after involved a visit to Louis Braille’s birthplace in a small village 40 km east of Paris in which we travelled by bus to get there.
This was a real highlight for me as we got to go into the Braille’s family kitchen and touched the board Louis’s father had made for him to learn the shape of print letters. We even got to go into the workshop where Louis had his accident at the age of three while playing with his father’s sharp saddle making tools. Upon leaving the Braille’s house I knelt down in the front garden and placed a NZ flag containing the silver fern, just to let the braille world know kiwis had visited this special place.
This conference was indeed a celebration of the life of Louis Braille and was an occasion I felt privileged to be part of. The main thing I took away from attending such a conference was that braille is the key to unlocking the potential of blind people.
Our way home started off with our Egyptian leg. We landed in Cairo and were picked up by the tour company and driven along the highway, accompanied by the tooting of many of the cars around us. I kept wondering why our guide Ramzes, a pleasant young Egyptian man, kept turning around and talking to us. “I wish you would keep your eyes on the road” I kept thinking until he broke out in Arabic. Turned out we didn’t only have a guide – but there was also a driver – something they neglected to tell this blind woman!
We explored the ancient city of Pyramids, artefacts and camels while moving down through Egypt to Luxor, Aswan and Abu Simbel. In Cairo my fingers were able to explore the Pyramids of Geeza as I walked up the outside of these mighty structures discovering in fact that they did not lay flat, but instead were placed out like giant Lego blocks! We visited a perfumery where Ron was encouraged to purchase some “lotus flower” perfume for his “beautiful lady” and we left the perfumery with very fragrant arms after having been shown all the perfumes on offer. The engravings of all the temples were fascinating. I was often afforded the luxury, due to being blind, of running my hand over the historic symbols. Symbols such as the key of life, famous cartoosh as well as Ramzes 2 upper leg were not safe from this blind woman’s exploration!
We then headed into Jordan where we visited the ancient city of Jerash before moving on to Petra, the red rose city. Our Bedouin guide navigated us peacefully through this ancient civilisation where we enjoyed meeting the Bedouin people as well as roaming our way around this wonder of the world! Petra came to life for me by way of its people. Its architecture was somewhat lost on my level of vision but the people were not. They were such gentle souls and I left Petra covered in jewelry and crystals the locals wanted to adorn me with.
Our departing adventure in Jordan was a dip in the Dead Sea on the way to the airport. For me this was one of the highlights of the trip. Being blind yet buoyant was an unforgettable experience. Ron and I bobbed around like voluptuous corks, laughing our heads off in stark contrast to our sedate bathing Germanic neighbours! The experience was purely sensory with the warm salty water keeping us afloat.
I returned home a different blind person! I loved Egypt and as the guides had told us “Egypt loves you!” Fancy nearly denying myself another amazing opportunity because of my fears and ignorance! This is why, upon our return, I emailed the Managing Director of Innovative Travel, the NZ company responsible for organising our tour, to say thank you. Robyn Galloway replied saying how pleased she was we had had a great time and that she was considering running tours for blind and vision impaired people and would Ron and I be interested in leading them?
Would we what? I had only two words to reply to her question - Why not?
Five tips for saying why not to your daring adventure!
- Ask yourself what’s the worst thing that can happen if you do this? If you are satisfied that the worst thing is actually not that bad then go for it!
- Make a list of the things you miss out on in life because you say no. What opportunities have you missed out on because of your negative stance?
- Carry a diary around with you. Take a note of all the things you turn down. Write down what you turned down and the emotion you felt just before you said no. Is there a pattern? Do you say No because you are scared?
- Ask yourself “what would it feel like if I did this?” Focus on the gain not the pain and see how inspired you get when you start thinking about having done this.
- If you keep giving the same response to the same question then you will be stuck in your life. For once just say “why not” when you would usually say no and see where it takes you. Then send an email and tell me all about it!
When I'd been blind for 10 years I decided to throw a party to say thank you to all those people who had helped me in my first 10 years as a blind person. We had balloons on the gate and drank champagne. It was a great night and it was a fantastic opportunity for me to reflect on what I had learned in my first 10 years as a blind person. What was it that took me from that hospital waiting room to my 10 years blind party. I began to think about, and then write down, my experiences and the guidelines I had used for myself in doing everything I had done.
My notebook turned into chapters and then I had myself a story as well as 8 keys I had identified for adapting to extraordinary change. I've always felt I am just an ordinary person who has found myself in extraordinary circumstances. Now my story was written, I had no idea how I was going to publish it.
When I found myself waiting at an airport early last year, I reached for some boredom relief in my handbag. This came by way of some coaching cards I had made into flash cards using braille. The cards were what I carried around with me for exactly moments like these – when I had nothing to do but just stay still in one place and wait.
This March day my fingers found the phrase “visualize your goal” so I decided to move my attention to my upcoming publication of my first book – How to Make a Silver Lining. I wasn’t even sure if it was going to happen – with no publisher or funds to publish the book my outlook was more positive than my bank balance.
So – while awaiting my plane my thoughts moved in the direction of the symbol of every book publication – the launch itself. Where would a good place to hold a book launch be? I scoured my mind for possibilities and then – like a lightning bolt – it came to me – the hospital waiting room. The place, where 12 years prior, I had waited to be later declared legally blind. What a great setting – for it was where the book began. I had done it. I could see it in my mind's eye: myself standing in the waiting room of Dunedin Public Hospital.
I returned home from my travels and established a committee of friends to help me launch the book. After scheduling in the launch date and meeting times, we created a sponsorship scheme which asked people to pay $99 to sponsor a page in return for them dedicating that page to someone they knew. Two major sponsors also stepped forward for the book’s cover and recipe page and before we knew it, we had the money to print under a self published label of Silver Lined Creations.
4 months on from that March day, I found myself standing in that place– in the waiting room of the eye department amongst my family and friends, fans and sponsors. My visualised goal had now been realised. All the “how” of getting there was over. I now stood in the place I had visualised all those months earlier.
As far as my next book - everyone keeps asking me what my next book will be. They want it to be a cook book - but I'm thinking about telling some of the stories from my boys perspective. I might call it "Blind Potion" after the following story-
Lying in bed with Sebastian and Zac one morning, Zac said, “I had a dream last night. We were all in the Warehouse with Dad,” he said, “and you were there too Mum. We bought a k zone comic and you bought a blind potion. You drank it Mum,” he said excitedly, “and then you could see!”
Sebastian, unmoved by the words, said, “You mean unblind potion Zac. What would she want to drink blind potion for? It would make her even more blind! It must have been unblind potion!”
My hobbies are walking and cooking. I have walked five half marathons since I went blind. They started by saying "why not" to my friend Flo when she asked me to go walking at the weekend.
We decided to step it up so we could give some purpose to our weekly walks. Flo and I had sat in ante natal classes together, progressing from shopping malls to the streets of Dunedin at the weekend, walking and talking our way around our regular route. What connected us before was the fact that we had given birth to our first sons, two days apart from one another. What connected us now was a friendship and a small piece of rope, possibly 15 cm in length, with me at one end and Flo at the other.
With Flo’s continued communication of steps, gutters and puddles, she held one end of the rope with her left hand while I walked slightly behind her holding the other end of the rope in my right hand and together we would pound the pavements until we felt fit enough to fill out the registration forms.
But the registration forms were not going to get us across the finish line –it was going to be focusing on the gain not the pain that would do that.
The mild September morning arrived and we headed out 15 minutes ahead of the pack to avoid having to pass our fellow walkers. This was a ploy that helped a great deal as much of the route was on the footpath, and trying to overtake other participants would not have been easy. Heading out before them made a huge amount of difference but it’s not where we would stay for long. After half an hour of walking we were passed by our first competitor. Then they all started to over take us with finally the runners catching up from their even later start time. None of it mattered as it was completing the event which was our goal. Competing was something to be enjoyed by others. We crossed the finish line with a respectable time under our belt, blisters on our feet and a severe dose of dehydration.
The next day the effects of a long and hard work out were felt by us both but the worst impact of the race was my friend Flo discovering she had gone blind! Well – that’s what the Otago Daily Times reported as they mixed up our names in our local paper so when Flo opened her morning read the next day she discovered she was now a blind woman. Fortunately for Flo a short friendly phone call with a correction in the following day’s edition reversed her blindness very efficiently.
I also love cooking. That's why my truffle recipe has become so popular! You can download your free copy at www.thatblindwoman.co.nz
My major achievements are single blind parenting for four years, walking five half marathons, going to Paris for Louis Braille's Bi-centennial anniversary, writing my book and speaking to "Women affected by the bush fires" in Melbourne, Australia earlier this year.
My ambitions - I have two of them.
As for the Blind techniques I use: Braille, speech software on my computer (JAWS), white cane, talking cell phone Perkins Brailler. No Guide Dog yet - I'm still training two boys!
Technology provided me with access to information. It also gave me a voice. I wouldn't be speaking to you now unless it was for all the skills I had learned using all the technology I have available to me.
To all Blind women, I say: You are still beautiful. I thought when I went blind I had become very unattractive. I soon realised that being attractive was about being confident. I think people are still amazed when I turn up to speak that I have matching clothes and that I still wear make up! I like being feminine and just because I've gone blind doesn't mean that I had to stop taking an interest in how I dress or look!
No one had ever told me I was beautiful until I went blind!
Finally, I wish to add to address the Blind Society with just one more story:
I will never forget the overwhelming feeling of helplessness when I sat in that hospital waiting room that March day in 1997, the day I would be declared legally blind. I had no idea of what lay ahead or how I was going to cope. I could never have imagined that dark day that I would be living the life I am now – inspirational speaker and coach who has written my own book called “How to make a silver lining”. This book takes a journey from the hospital waiting room of the eye Department at Dunedin hospital to the celebration of my 10 years blind party – a way to say thank you to all those people who helped me in my first 10 years as a blind person. In this book I identify 8 keys for adapting to extraordinary change and right now – I’m going to share one of those keys with you.
And here’s how I discovered it. It was not too long after I’d gone blind and I got asked a question by someone at the Royal New Zealand Foundation of the Blind. The Foundation were going away on a weekend trip to a spectacular part of New Zealand and they were going cross country grass skiing.
“Cross country skiing” I asked myself? “I don’t even like cross country grass skiing” “No thank you” I declined politely. “I won’t go” I responded while retreating to the safety of my house.
Hang on there Julie. I’ve never been cross country skiing. What do I mean I don’t like it? How did I know? I had never tried it, and at this rate, I never would. I felt foolish. I had let my own fears and ignorance deny me an opportunity that may never come my way again. From that early moment on, I decided I would take the opportunities that came my way and if faced with the question “Would you like to have a go”?, my automatic response would be “Why not”? I would try something once and then decide whether I wanted to do it again. At least this way the return experience would be an informed one. It was a decision making process that, in the main, did not let me down. As you will soon discover, it would be one that would lead me into places and situations I had never gone before. Following is a list of just some of the questions I have been asked since I went blind – but more importantly because I had said “why not” and been willing to try something once:
To which I said “why not”.
And all that happened because I changed my thinking to try something once! All it took was changing my answer from no into not – why not. There may have been many reasons why I shouldn’t walk a half marathon along a busy road, or ride a tandom along an uneven rail trail. Or what about the embarrassment if I were to fall down the steps of Dunedin’s town hall when I was modelling.
Helen Keller once said “Life was a daring adventure or nothing”. Next time someone asks you to go on a daring adventure - turn your no into not – and say “why not”.
To contact Ms. Woods:
Email: julie@thatblindwoman.co.nz
Website: http://www.thatblindwoman.co.nz/
Ms. Woods recommends you to visit the following websites:
- To be NZ's best speaker!
- To set up "JULIEWOOD" - like HOLLYWOOD and BOLLYWOOD - only better! It's a theme park in the dark aimed at raising awareness that being blind can be fun!
- Would you like to go walking at the weekend?
- Are you happy to be interviewed for that’s Life magazine?
- Would you like to learn how to touch type?
- Would you like to come out for dinner with some of us blindies on Saturday night?
- Will you be my bridesmaid?
- Would you like to go up and meet Bill Bryson?
- Would you like to guest speak at our donor function Julie?
- Would you like to model in our town hall?
- Would you like to learn braille?
- Would you like to walk the Dunedin half marathon?
- How would you like to learn how to use the computer?
- Do you want to do a creative writing course with us Julie?
- Will you come and speak at our national conference?
- Have you thought about writing a book Julie?
- If you get yourself to Wellington would you like to make those bloody truffles again on Good Morning TV?
- Will you be my matron of honour?
- Shall we ride a tandem along the rail trail at Labour Weekend?
- Do you want to go to the Middle East?