Those Who See Differently

I started to work with blind children out of personal interest. Since, however, most of them live in homes for the blind, it is difficult to bring to the city, so I went to them. I regularly took some guests with me such as students, teachers, and parents whose children can see. We were working with children who were born blind, as well as those who lost their sight due to some disease. There were kindergarteners, as well as school-aged children. I also spent time with children with multiple disabilities, like mentally or emotionally challenged ones and some with hearing deficiencies. 

Our music classes were allotted only a small portion of time from the daily programme of the institution. I sometimes saw the children only one or two afternoons a week while I was in Budapest. Some of the children had attended the course for years and others came back periodically, as their time and schedule allowed. There were always new visitors, friends and mates who also might attend initially and even return. Every now and then an interested pedagogue would come along with his or her group.

There is a timidity of not seeing. The permanent fear of bumping into obstacles has to be experienced personally but even that can’t be compared to the life-experience of the blind, although at least it gives one an inkling of it. 

Beyond empathy, we have to provide great energy, braveness, encouragement and the protection in their movement space. I would move around the dancing children with arms spread whispering encouragement into the music: “Be brave, spread your arms. You can fly safely, I am protecting you. You have space in every direction, to the sides as well. Reach high, everything is yours there…”. and all the while  Bach’s concerto is played saying the very same thing.

I continually hope – and have seen a few times – that Bach is enough without me. It would be so wonderful if the great pieces of music which have encouraged the children’s initial free movements could help them spontaneously recall those experiences of movement. This would yield unimaginable results.

It has been a source of renewal and deeper learning for me that I could not use a significant part of the nonverbal signals I had developed through the years working with sighted children. With them I mostly use my eyes, my facial expression and whole body movements to make connections and to communicate my instructions and requests. That is how I sent consolation, encouragement and other messages like a smiling acceptance for the latecomer.

But now I had to translate such nonverbal non tactile gestures into the language of the those who can’t see: into touching, whispering into the ear, murmuring and many other things. My “language” is constantly renewed - expanded in this way. For example, I lift and rock the latecomer on my back. It is important that they can’t feel anxiety, instead they experience a sense of being at home. 

I wanted to help their cumbersome walking with the idea of walking on clouds. To encourage such as idea, I had to experience walking on clouds among them much more intensively; so much so that it was almost real as in children’s reality. And – even though they have never seen a cloud – they imagined it with me.

As Böbi said: “It’s like some thick brightness”. Since then, I have perceived clouds, my most beautiful partners in nature, in this way. I look at their forms flooded with evening light in their constant, yet barely perceptible change of colour, I scan the boat, the dragon’s head, the wild goose, the pine branch, I walk in the golden rain, and follow them in their smooth progress from light to dark. Light keeps them – just like us – alive in their beauty. Without it, we would probably fall as raindrops to the ground.

Sighted children admire the instruments then go to dance. Our blind children would like to perceive the instruments from the closest proximity. Anna who was born blind, and is severely hard of hearing hugged the cello. When the instrument was not sounding anymore, she stuck to it and recalled the memories of the past tune. If the maker of the instrument could have seen that! Cellos are manufactured in series now, but if anyone, anywhere sticks together planks and lamellae and spreads lacquer on the back of this brown bear, he or she should think of Anna. She hears and sees in the Little Prince way: with her heart. 

Barnabás is very handsome, if our girls could see him, they would daydream about his beautiful face. They stroked his long, brown hair, beautiful eyes and smiling lips with their seeing fingers. His voice is young, rich and joyful, he is 18, and an artist. He could go to thousands of more exciting places but he took the tram to our class carrying his violin. He tells about the violin. He introduces it with its sound and demonstrates the sounds of tuning. He provides the bow and describes it’s length and textures. 

Ten children are listening to him, asking and touching him. They are from my old class, but there is a new child, too, Fatima, she is a guest. She came to our group a couple of weeks ago, and she mostly sits among us silently. Even now she is sitting, she doesn’t go to Barnabás, she does not want the violin. She is sitting, her back bending like a horseshoe, her head hangs droops to her chest.

Barnabás lifts his violin, places it under his chin, and plays. The moment is magical. The artist, the blessed one is revealed in the happy high-school graduate as he is playing Bach on his violin. The children wander apart in the room looking for a place to start their dance. Two little girls are dancing behind Barnabás so that they would remain close to him and Barnabás is careful with the bow even when he is full of zest. 

Fatima droops her head on her chest, her black hair covers her face, her blind eyes. Her two arms are raised halfway. She is dancing in herself. She has been sitting here wordless for weeks. Barnabás is uplifted by inspiration, he is playing his Bach non-stop from his soul. Fatima is already dancing with spread arms. I am whispering to her: “You have room, be brave Fatima” – and she is dancing. 

Barnabás said goodbye and leaves us.  Then Fatima begins: “Nobody loves me. Nobody loves me, the children here don’t love me, my mum doesn’t really love me, nobody loves me. I can’t speak to anyone, they all laugh at me…”. And she just goes on and on with her monotonous complaint, her head drooping. 

My colleague, Anna Szénásy, continued and enriched this work with her own conceptions.