My Dream: Weaving a vision

[Times photo: Jamie Francis] Becki Forsell weaves cotton and polyester ropes into a hammock at the Florida State Fair. She lost her sight five years ago and learned the skill two years ago: “I do it by touch, and it feels good,” she says.

By Interview by LANE DEGREGORY
© St. Petersburg Times
published February 23, 2002

Becki Forsell, 52, of Tampa, has been blind for five years. Last week, she demonstrated weaving hammocks in the Cracker Country section of the Florida State Fair in Tampa. Hammock weaver Max Dooley, 84, showed her the ropes.

I met Max last year, here at the State Fair. He saw my cane. He yelled at me, "Hey, come here! I want you to touch this. I'm making a hammock." So I went down and touched it, feeling my way up and down the ropes. So Max says, "How'd you like to make one?"

I can't, I tell him. Can't you see I'm blind?

"Of course you can!" Max says. "I'll get you started."

That was last year. Now, here I am doing it. I'm slow. Really slow. But I bet I'll finish this one by the end of the fair.

I want to hang it up at home, maybe rest a little in it.

I'm 52 years old. I have two daughters, they're 25 and 17, and a wonderful husband I've been married to for 32 years.

I lost my sight in a car accident. I've been blind for five years.

Can't see at all out of my left eye. In my right, there's a tiny pinpoint of light sometimes, like looking through a straw. That's why I wear these glasses: That little hole is my only window on the world.

But I'm a very determined woman. I'm just too young to give up. I have a big dream . . . even after all of this . . . because of all of this, actually. . . .

You see, if you're born with blindness, you have to learn to adapt. You don't know any other way. But when you lose your sight later in life, so many people, they just drop out of life, become vegetables, never leave the house. They're angry. They shut down.

I was an art teacher, an elementary school art teacher. Then, all of a sudden, I couldn't see. I had to go to the Lighthouse for the Blind in Tampa just to learn how to live again. They gave me eight weeks of training. And while I was there, they saw I had a skill. I learned Braille quickly. I knew how to teach. They gave me a job teaching other newly blind people how to read.

I needed to build my self-confidence, and the teaching helped. I found out I still could be useful. I still had a reason to exist.

Then the grant ran out.

I found out there was no place to go after the Lighthouse. You're either thrown back into the world, even if you're not ready. Or you retreat into a dark corner.

Tampa Bay needs a support group that's social. It needs to be a positive place, where you can meet other people whose vision is impaired. Not to commiserate. But to have fun.

I want to create a place where blind people can come to take self-defense classes, so we can ride the city buses without feeling so afraid; where you can go to have someone read your bills to you, where you won't have to worry about being taken advantage of; where you can go use a Braille computer to send an e-mail to a friend. A place where you could just meet other people to play dominoes or have a cup of coffee. Unless you're a senior citizen, there's no place like that.

I'm not talking about a blind advocacy group. A lot of people aren't ready to join those because they're so political, always lobbying for something. Important things. But I'm talking about something else. And I don't mean a rec center, either. More of a resource center.

Somewhere you could go to watch videos, the kind with a special descriptive service where a narrator actually describes the scenes, movies we could "see" but that you can't just rent at Blockbuster. We could have movie nights, with popcorn and everything. This is really important. There needs to be a place we can go just for fun.

And to talk about our fears. No one told me there was life after blindness. Just because my eyes don't work doesn't mean my brain stopped too!

My center would have a van that could go pick people up at their houses, so they wouldn't have to take the bus. It would have a reader machine, where you could put a copy of anything printed down on it, sort of like a Xerox, but a voice reads you all the words on the paper. Every blind person should have one of those. But they cost more than $5,000. Who can afford that? So if my center had one, it would give people more independence. You wouldn't have to rely on someone else to read your documents. I can't even read my prescriptions or the directions on my pill bottles. I don't want to always have to ask for help.

At the center, we could have people teach us how to ID our clothes, so we wouldn't have to worry about whether we match. We could have followup classes on how to cross the street, brush our teeth. I wish someone had shown me how to cut my fingernails or put on nail polish. Maybe a makeup artist could even come in and help. Just because I can't see how I look doesn't mean I stop wanting to look decent. It's just so hard. I don't know how. No one has helped me.

I just want a small place where blind people could go for free.

Where we could get help keeping our dignity.

Where we could just have fun and help each other find the faith to go on.

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