Miss Ruth here! This is an article I wrote for the April 2024 issue of the New Jersey Council of the Blind’s publication, the Chronicle
With all the stress in our lives, it’s more important than ever to maintain work-life balance, and that’s a work in progress for me.
To that end, I’ve created a sacred space of sorts in my home: my prayer chair. Just a comfy chair by the fireplace where I can sit, listen to books, knit on my round loom, pat my cat, and, of course, pray. It helps me to decompress from my busy days.
To describe this chair, it’s an orange red that compliments the color of the bricks in the fireplace. It’s just big enough to fit one regulation Kindly-Auntie-type (me) and one zaftig feline (Squeaky, the tiger-striped tabby cat who secretly runs the household.)
As I sit in my prayer chair, every so often, I’ll receive what I call “words on my heart.”
Last year, I was feeling overwhelmed because I belonged to so many disability community boards and councils, and as I sat in my prayer chair, I got these three words on my heart:
“Of equal measure.”
I knew it meant that if I don’t get something of equal measure in return for the energy I put into a project, it’s time to walk away. If my contribution isn’t valued, or worse, if I feel I’m not being respected, then that commitment is complete.
I left a few long-standing projects and gave no explanation except that I was leaving. Explaining yourself to people who don’t value you or respect you is not necessary. This freed up time for projects that deserved my attention.
It’s also important to your mental health to know when you’ve bitten off more than you can chew.
My big project two years ago was creating an app that would list all the resources a person with vision loss might need.
I took a course on how to create a business to sell a product or service. I wanted to learn how designers create an app from the ground up, so I participated in a project in which people who are blind or have low vision tested a navigation app and gave feedback so that the app could be revised. I came up with a catchy name for my app: “Blind Finder: Vision Loss Resource Locator App.”
I consulted with Wanda (Williford, NJCB 1st VP) as I considered the order of the resources to include in my app.
Somewhere on the list, I’d put, “Learn how to use your phone non-visually,” but Wanda said, “No, that should be the first thing listed on this app.”
And she was right. The phone is our lifeline. Not just in case of emergency to call 911, it’s where our life lives, so to speak. It’s where our independence is. It contains all our contacts, appointments, emails, files, apps for entertainment like Netflix, Spotify, etc.
I listened to Wanda and changed the app’s layout so that a resource that would help one learn how to use a phone non-visually was listed first.
So I invested a great deal of time in this app project, but one day, while sitting in my prayer chair, I got some more — you guessed it — words on my heart. Those words were:
“Out of my depth.”
That project was for someone with the technical acumen and time to do it justice.
So when Wanda called and asked me to sit in on a Zoom meeting with two tech-savvy Princeton students looking for projects to help the vision loss community, I felt like God spoke. I gave them my idea, my business plan, my contacts and all the research I’d done and wished them luck.
Another big project that grabbed hold of me last year was to repurpose an unused horse racing track in a park into an Orientation and Mobility training area. I got to work on that full-bore. I contacted an accessibility architect to ask if this was possible and found out who was in charge at the parks department.
But one day, sitting in that prayer chair, I realized that this was a nice idea for someone, but again, it was not for me. I got some more — you guessed it — words on my heart.
“Let go for now.”
Finally, the last project that has captured me and has not yet let go is a platform for releasing trauma and accepting yourself as someone with disabilities. It is an accessible, interactive musical play called “Bring it Home.” The main themes are self-acceptance and focusing on what is good in life.
And so, this play has been my heart’s project for the last year or so. My hope is to involve people with disabilities as cast and crew. But this is the sticking point I’m grappling with: how to pay them.
I’m always saying to members of my vision loss community groups, “You should get paid for the work you do.”
To that end, I’ve told them about various “side hustles” I do to make ends meet, such as accessibility studies with Contact Design and Vision Loss Community consulting for various entities.
Even with these side hustles, I’m on a fixed income. So are many members of the community. I can’t turn around and say, “I’ve always told you to ask for the money you are due, sure, but do this play with me for free.” I need to find funding for it if I’m going to do it right and do right by my community.
I can visualize this play in living color, showing the world what people with disabilities are capable of: acting, singing, designing, directing, audio production, set building. All of it.
So is it a pipedream? Maybe. But it’s the one project that has yet to let me go. I’m trusting that it’s in Higher Hands than mine, and if it is meant to be, it will come to pass.
I’m hoping one day to be sitting in my prayer chair and hear these — you guessed it — words on my heart:
“Bring it Home.”