AN HOUR OF DARKNESS

I am lucky enough to see the world. All of us are not that lucky.

This time, I don’t mean see the world through travel. I mean really see. I get to see the mountain which towers above me and visualize the deep blue ocean I was once at. Sometimes I take everything I have witnessed for granted. There are people out there who cannot see and will never see. They will never understand the color red, gaze over a skyline, or experience the feeling of awe in a mountains valley.

Although life has not always been easy, I think of how fortunate I am. I am brave enough to chase my dreams and bold enough to take chances others would be afraid of. And sometimes when I get caught up in my life, whether it is lying on a rocky beach or taking in the rolling green hills at sunset while on the road, I need to somehow be brought back to Earth. So what was one of those experiences? Becoming blind.

I’m all about experiences that open my mind and make me see life from a different perspective. So when I found out about O’noir, a restaurant in Toronto that takes away your sight for a meal, I couldn’t pass it up. Reservations are required and the process is to show up, order your two or three-course meal before heading into the pitch dark for the remainder of the time. The coolest part of the experience? The waiter/waitress of your meal is legally blind, which means you get to interact and share the experience with someone who lives it.

So Kalee and I got there and checked in for our reservation. After choosing our meals we were sat in a waiting area, our name was called and we were brought to a door. Our first hostess (not blind) knocked on the door to signal we were ready to be brought in. Our waiter then emerged and introduced himself. He explained that he was blind and that we too would be in complete darkness behind the door. To make our way to the table within the dining room we would rely on a chain made by placing our right hand on the left shoulder of the person in front of us. So we started the chain and off we went into the unknown darkness.

So when they say “complete darkness”, I was wondering if that meant it would be dark but eventually we would be able to make out outlines of everything around us.

Lol no.

Complete Darkness. You can’t see a hand in front of your face or a glow of light from the outside. There’s nothing. All phones, watches, or source of light anything must be removed or turned off before entering the room. The restaurant itself is underground and the dining area is behind two doors which block out any potential light.

So here we are. This is what it feels like to be blind. It’s not a blindfold I can take off or a light switch I can turn on.

Led to our table we were dropped off at our seats. “This is the back of your chair.” And I sat.  He continued, “In front of you, you will feel your plate and on top of it is a small butter. To your right is a fork, to your left a knife and above the plate is your napkin.”

Alright, simple enough.

We felt our surroundings trying to create an image in our head of the interior area. It probably looked nothing like I imagined, but I'll never know.

The real test began when he brought our dinner rolls out. ‘Did I actually open my butter? Is there butter on the knife? Did I spread the butter around? Let me poke the roll to see if it’s buttery…oh crap, I just stuck my hand in a mountain of butter. Now, where is my napkin? Cool, I dropped it on the floor somewhere. Excuse me while I blindly feel around on all fours with a buttered finger to try and find it.’

Oh, the struggle.

That’s when I started realizing how much of a mistake I made ordering pasta as my main meal.

Conversations were evident throughout the dining hall. Since you could not pass the time between meals with a phone or any form of visual distraction a difference became clear in the type of communication. Feelings were described more than anything. They say with the loss of sight, the other senses are heightened.  We never saw anything, but we constantly were attuned to the sound of a plate hitting the table, a sneeze behind us and even the steps of the waiter coming our way.

When my penne pasta first arrived at the table, I would stab my plate and have no idea if I was successful at somehow getting a piece of pasta on my fork. I would put it to my mouth, often nothing was there and when there was a noodle it was facing some weird direction that would make it hit a part of my face. Hello, sauce on the nose, cheek, and chin. I mean, I’m usually a mess when eating anyway, but this was just freakin’ ridiculous. Thank god I found my napkin.

Again my touch senses slowly started to heighten. By the end of the meal, I could feel if my fork had stabbed through a noodle. It was actually quite amazing. I had gone from eating like a one-year-old child to eating like a regular adult throughout the course of one meal. My body suddenly knew how to tell if I had a noodle on my fork, instead of me stabbing randomly and hoping I succeeded.

The last course was some chocolate mousse...YUM. A huge heaping glob of it. But I was already so full I hate to say I only ate about half of it...I'm ashamed of myself because usually, I can pile dessert in like it's my job.

Lastly, we sat around the table for a little while having good ol' conversation. We chatted about how lucky we were to get to go back into the light...that what we were experiencing in there was only temporary.

Our waiter, who we conversed with often, would never get that experience. In the darkness, he told us jokes, asked about our lives and we even decided he would be our Canadian father since it was Fathers Day weekend and Kalee and I were both away from home. From his spirits, you wouldn't have known he had never seen a rainbow or the way a drop of rain sits on a flower. Meeting him in his element made me realize that even though the blind may be blind, they see the world better than most of us do.

I have heard that there are other blind restaurants scattered across the globe, so I highly recommend researching locations. It is an unforgettable experience. It not only made me feel for the blind, but for the deaf, the weak and the wounded.

You can't be certain what's going to happen in your life. When you'll die, when you'll walk down the aisle or when you decide that life should not control you and instead, you should control it. Who knows how long you or I have left on this planet, but as of now we are here and we have control. So until that last day comes, I have learned to look at every mountains' unique beauty and enjoy the sound of every violin. Being blind was fun for an hour, but I know I can go back out and see the sun.