Crafts of the Unsighted

For as long as I can remember I have loved to work with my hands. The work I did was far from anything spectacular; for the most part, it was mediocre at best, but that didn’t slow me down. I still worked to build, maintain, and repair anything that I was able.

Things like woodworking, precision building, or anything artistic in nature was not my forte. I could put things together, but if any meticulousness, delicacy or gracefulness was needed I never have been and I’m still not your go-to guy.

Knowing more about my disorder and realizing just how far back it started I realize now why that is. The connection between my brain and my muscles doesn’t always fire properly and so my muscles, hands and sometimes limbs shake, and I sometimes have a hard time moving in precise or linear directions.

This also didn’t slow me down. I tried to build great projects that take a lot of skill but they always turned out — well, let’s say just enough to pass for whatever I was attempting to build.

Even tying flies, something I really enjoyed doing was a difficult task. The larger less complicated bugs I could recreate and they did a good job at catching fish.

The smaller more delicate flies were always something I could never perfect and I would end up with way more wasted material than finished flies.

Back in the day right after the extinction of the dinosaurs, motorized vehicles were introduced and I spent hours upon hours, days upon days, working on cars in an attempt to build the fastest car around. (Never came close but it was fun.)

This was something I could do because the tools were bulky and the work was fairly straight-forward. Yeah, I broke tools, and parts, some knuckles, a finger or two and ruined tons of clothes.

Sometimes I even misplaced parts or added them in the wrong place but eventually, it would get done. It might not run but it was together.

After losing my sight, I started looking (ha-ha, looking?) for things to occupy my time. For a while, I had a hard time thinking I could still do things with my hands when it seemed like everything I used to do involved sight and the ability to have a steady hand.

I wasn’t going to be defeated, so I started looking for things that would satisfy my need to work with my hands. I have found several things that my lack of motor skills and sight haven’t seemed to hinder my ability to accomplish.

One of the first things I learned is that even if my motor skills aren’t at the top of their game, given enough time, I can feel my way through just about anything.

Case in point — cutting the grass. It took me weeks to figure out the best way to accomplish this task without losing a limb, any of the dogs' limbs, or any other necessary accouterments but here I am, cutting my grass like a pro. (If I’m not, don’t tell me, I like the illusion.)

As long as I have time and enough dexterity to feel what I’m doing, I can accomplish tasks and revive that feeling of contentment. It all started with 550-paracord.

For anyone not familiar with paracord it is a nylon colored, sometimes multi-colored cord that is braided and knotted into bracelets, lanyards, leashes, and a plethora of other things. I started paracord bracelets when I was still sighted; making a few for friends and me, but that was about the extent.

After losing my sight, my drive to learn how to tie more complex patterns as well as broaden my scope of different products became a driving force in my sanity.

I learned that if I feel my way through the corded knots, I can achieve just about any pattern and length. The bracelets became more complex and I taught myself how to make leashes, lanyards, key fobs and any other construct that can be imagined with paracord.

There are also different sizes of paracord from 1/4 inch down to micro, which is about the size of a heavy sewing thread. I have learned to weave and sew different sizes together and have created some of my own patterns and designs.

I have even incorporated it into my world of sight by applying different patterns and designs on my walking canes.

When I was sighted I couldn't paint my deck and make it look respectable but now I have started painting glass cabochons. That’s a fancy way of saying glass eyeball jewelry.

I don’t mean like real human glass eyeballs, like, “Hey see this here glass eye that I got after that freak fishing accident? It was made by a blind guy.” Not!  Also, it's not a piece of glass jewelry that you would attach to your eye.

I know that having a bedazzled grill is all the rage right now but I would hate to start some new fad that causes great discomfort to the wearer by them trying to apply some sequins to their eyeball

It consists of applying different colors of fingernail polish to the back of a round polished glass bead. While the paint is wet you scratch it with several different sized sharp objects (everyone duck) then applying different colors over the scratches until it looks like an eyeball.

These creations are then attached to jewelry like necklaces and earrings. Granted, these are very unique pieces of jewelry and not everyone appreciates it, (only the nerdy, like me.)

The craziest thing is the lack of dexterity that I mentioned, (not being able to move in direct or precise ways), makes the eyes turn out more 3 dimensional and realistic.

The shakiness and lack of vision create a non-conformity in the lines which makes for a more realistic looking eye, go figure? It takes a blind guy to make realistic Fantasy / Dragon eyes, irony anyone?

This, like the paracord, is totally by feel and by the end my fingers are covered in more paint than the cabochon but somehow they turn out.

       One of the most difficult and time-consuming crafts that I have learned is glass and metal etching. Metal etching is done by a chemical-electrical process and the glass is done with acid.

Both of these are tricky when you have enough sight to see what is going on and there is always a danger of, well — burns, fire, explosions.

This took me a while to even try because of the whole burning to death thing but I conquered that fear as well. The other reason that this is one of the most time-consuming and difficult is the fact that a stencil must be cut and applied to the object being etched and that sometimes is very delicate work.

Not everything I attempt turns out but I am getting better and hell, not too many people can say they have a designed glass, etched plaque or personalized beer mug, made by a blind guy.

     

Moral of the story, you never know what you are capable of until you try. I have learned how to do things that keep me occupied and my mind sane, ha-ha-ha-ha-ha — aaannnnnd sorry that was funny.

I am nowhere near done with my exploration. Next, a lathe; we all know how well I handle sharp instruments.

                                        

—SP

If It Wasn’t for Bad Luck

“If it wasn’t for bad luck, I wouldn’t have any luck at all.” I heard this all too many times from my father growing up. Every time something would go wrong or he would miss out on an opportunity he would shake his head and repeat this very phrase with disgust.

My family has always said that it’s the Paulsen curse. If your last name is Paulsen you can guarantee that there will be random bad things that will happen and there’s nothing that you, being a Paulsen, can do about it.

Now, that I am an adult — shut up! — I hear myself repeating this with the same frequency and disgust that my father had. As I was going through my testing and diagnosis with my disorder, I repeated with regularity, “if there’s a one in a million chance of something happening or going wrong,. I will be the one.”

The odds of things going wrong or the chance of me catching the disease that is one in a quadrillion are unfathomable, but if there is a chance, oh, oh, oh, Pick Me! Pick Me! I would give anything to have these kinds of odds in Vegas. I would be a millionaire in minutes; I just need to bet against myself and watch the money roll in. But as the title says, if it wasn’t for bad luck… even in Vegas, knowing that my odds are huge that I can’t win, I’d still lose.

I watch with great despair as my son and his wife fall into the same rut of bad luck as I had my whole life. However, my daughter, who had the same trouble, has now acquired a new last name and her life drastically changed. Her husband teases relentlessly about the Paulsen curse and how he saved her from a life of constant sorrow.

So as a new testament of the disaster that is my life, I was once again reminded of that all too familiar phrase. I visited my doctor for my annual testing and follow-up on my disease.

This year, however, I also needed to have allergy testing done. I have lived for 45 years of my life with only mild allergies and very infrequently at that.

“If it wasn’t for bad luck, I wouldn’t have any luck at all.”

Recently, I have become severely allergic to foods and other various inhalants — I huff paint in my spare time — actually like pollen and molds.

In this process, I developed some chronic sinus issues and was having difficulty breathing. I visited a specialist and was informed that because of the harshness of the sinus issues, I had developed a “horrendous staph infection” (Doctors own words) that would require surgery to alleviate the issues.

The surgery has been done millions of times and the surgeon doing my surgery has performed more than either of us wish to count. It’s routine, safe and effective.

“If it wasn’t for bad luck, I wouldn’t have any luck at all.”

After the surgery, I felt much better and believed that things were looking up — NOPE! The odds of the infection spreading and becoming worse after the surgery are so minuscule that no one has an accurate number.

My surgeon told me that in his 20 plus years of doing this surgery he has NEVER, let me repeat that, NEVER seen anything go awry, there has always been a complete recovery and in most cases two to three days.

“If it wasn’t for bad luck, I wouldn’t have any luck at all.”

Two days later I was in the hospital with a complete systemic infection. A one in a butt-load chance that the infection would spread throughout my body, but like ‘The Price is Right,’ “Shawn Paulsen, come on down. You are the next contestant on if it can go wrong it will be you.”

 After I.V. antibiotics and hours in the hospital, I returned to the surgeon's office. The decision was made to repeat the surgery only this time, instead of just manipulating the tissue and bone, he will be removing the tissue and bone to open the drainage passages and allowing the infection to escape.

  Once again I was assured that this is a surgery that has been done millions of times and although it is more invasive it is more likely to work.

“If it wasn’t for bad luck, I wouldn’t have any luck at all.”

Knowing that this was necessary to rid my body of the infection I agreed to the second surgery. After scheduling and prepping for the relief that this would give me, we learn that my insurance will not cover the anesthesia necessary for the surgery. 

(Don’t get me started)

So I am going to have bone and tissue removed from my face and no anesthetic. Good times! Scratch that one off the bucket list. Yup, I had the surgery without any anesthetic; In fact, I had the surgery twice because you guessed it, the first time didn’t work.

“If it wasn’t for bad luck, I wouldn’t have any luck at all.”

After the second surgery didn’t work I was given the strongest antibiotic known to man, the one that is saved for things like meningitis and MRSA. The kind that they say you can only have 4 grams of because it will kill every bacteria in your body and some of them you need.

4 grams later and two days wait to see if it was effective I was back in the surgeon's office with the same systemic infection. Nope, that didn’t work, so third surgery here I come; the same removal of bone and tissue, same response from the insurance and same surgery without anesthesia.

In total it took 4 surgeries and 6 rounds of antibiotics to finally stop the infection. In the turmoil, my doctor decided that it would be best to find out what I am allergic to so that we could keep this from occurring again in the future.

“If it wasn’t for bad luck, I wouldn’t have any luck at all.”

Who in the hell is allergic to the testing process that is used to test for allergies? "I'll take one in a million chances for $1000 Alex." Buzz, "Who is Shawn Paulsen?" The first test that is administered is testing the carrier or allergen suspension that is injected into your skin.

90 seconds after the skin prick it had swollen to over double the original size. It usually needs to sit for 10 min and then looked at, 90 seconds, yes, 90 seconds and results were clear.      

No one is allergic to the allergy test. It’s a one in a tri-billion-dillion-schmillion chance that anyone would be allergic to the testing and Tra-la-la, like school, hand raised snapping my fingers so that I can for sure get its attention; I’m the one.

“If it wasn’t for bad luck…” Stop, just Stop.

I realize that curses and bad luck only exist in the minds of those who believe such things. I was convinced that I was a magnet for fecal matter and Darwin’s favorite social experiment, but in reality, it falls back on how you look at life and the cards that you are dealt.

All of the things that I could look at as bad luck or a curse; my disorder, infections, surgeries without anesthetic - the list goes on and on, and on and — ok you get it. All of those things have made me the person that I am today.

I realize that there are two sides to a coin and we have two ways of looking at life. I honestly don’t believe that it’s bad luck or a curse. I believe that its life, and honestly it makes it exciting never knowing what is next.

—SP

Picture if you will

Picture if you will, a serene and uninhabited wooded location with a river or lake, surrounded by wildflowers and grasses, with a beautiful cabin sitting majestically next to the water. A large cache of wood piled neatly and precisely next to the cabin, as a small light gray thread of smoke trickles from the chimney.

        This is what many believe to be the perfect scene, myself included.  It is believed to be the epitome of perfection. I have always been an outdoorsy person – to say the least – and a cabin in the deep woods next to a lake and in the mist of the animals and growth that are common in these locations gives me tremendous joy.

        There have been many memes and other pictures on the internet showing this exact scene, with the phrase “Live here free for one year.” Then the second shoe drops – Bum, Bum, Bummmmm, sang in the common suspense building tone that we all know and love – “but without internet” or “without football” or even “without bacon.”

        Would you do it?

        As if there was even a need to contemplate this question. The “YES!” would have left my lips before the question was even finished. The only way to make this better would be letting me live out the remainder of my life here, no matter what the thing we supposedly can’t live without is.

        I understand that in this day and age there are many who would forget to breathe if they didn’t have their handheld multi-function device.  Without constant contact with all the social media sources and the ability to show everyone how their life is progressing through the photos that they so wholeheartedly believe that everyone wants to see, they would simply die.

        For some reason beyond my comprehension, if you don’t post photos on Snapchat, Facebook, or Instagram, you actually do not exist. It also stands to reason that if no one likes or views the pictures you so painstakingly uploaded, you don’t exist either.

        Therefore this location, in my humble opinion, the most beautiful place in the world cannot exist. The only possible explanation for this picture is Photoshop, because we all know there can be no place on earth that wouldn’t allow internet; otherwise, how did we get the picture, HUH? HUH?

It’s not like there are such things as cameras that are not attached to our handheld lifelines, nor are there ways to get pictures on the web that you would have to live without, therefore this place cannot exist.

        Then there are those of you who, once again, I just do not understand - live for professional sports. Football, Baseball, Hockey, Soccer or whatever the sport of the season is.

For some reason you sports fans believe it to be simple, “If I don’t watch and support ‘MY TEAM’ the world will just stop spinning. Without sports, my life just wouldn’t be worth living.”

I am at a bigger loss here than with the internet – face in their phone 24/7 junkies. Sports are great to play or even watch when your child or other family is playing but to just watch a bunch of strangers play a game that they are getting paid millions of dollars to play and who wouldn’t give a rat’s ass if you watch or not just makes zero sense.

Not only do people believe that their team belongs to them, they will defend these strangers to the extent of brawling over a team name or player. Most of these people will defend their ‘Team’ over their own children, mothers, or other family members. It is so important that parties and great gatherings are held to honor these complete strangers.

Again, the thought of living in a location where there ‘team’ could not be watched and their lifeblood nourished would be worse than any torture that has been thought up. Nature, what is nature? Is that the grass that my team plays on? In that case, I could live there.

I’ve said it before and I will say it again, professional sports are like gay porn; I know it exists, I know some men like it, but I don’t want to know about it.

Back to the picture that I asked you to imagine at the beginning of this blog; remove the cabin and replace it with a tent and that is pretty close to how I spent the last week.

Every June my family makes a trek to Yellowstone and we spend a week in the great outdoors in just such a tranquil location. We camp just outside the park where there is little to no contact with other people.

We gather around a campfire and tell stories and laugh all the while having no contact with the outside world. There’s no internet, television or phones, just us; and at the end of the week, we all realize how quickly the time went by and how much fun we had.

"WAIT, WHAT?!? THE HELL YOU SAY?"

There’s no way that you can have fun without watching sports or having access to the internet to show everyone just how much fun you are really having. Without pictures, it didn’t happen and your stories just don’t make any sense.

Trust me. Google primitive camping and there will be pages of information about this imaginary and frightening thing that is called the great outdoors.

This is the greatest existence that I can imagine. I only wish I was able to spend the remainder of my days here without any access to the outside world. I can live without ever accessing any social media, or even believing that sports exist.

Neither of these things make my life better; if it doesn’t make me smarter, wealthier, or healthier then it isn’t worth my time. I gain none of these through the internet or sports and let’s face it, in most cases these things actually make a person thoughtless, poor and unhealthy.

As far as bacon, now that’s just stupid we all know that we can’t live without bacon, I mean its bacon. So we all know this can’t be a real question.

—SP

Unconditional Love

“Let me tell you a secret about a father's love, a secret that my daddy said was just between us. He said daddies don't just love their children every now and then, it's a love without end, amen…”

Eeeerrrrrkkkkkkkk, wait, stop, back up. 

If you are unfamiliar with, ‘It’s a love without end…Amen’ by George Strait I highly recommend it. Even if you are not a country music fan, the lyrics are so heartfelt and really hit home for me. I would like to believe that my kids and grandkids would agree that I have shown them a love without end.

I have realized late in this life that children, grandchildren, and great-grandchildren are the greatest gifts that a person could ever receive.

When it comes to a love without end, I would really hope that I have shown my kids that there is nothing in life that I will not give up for them.

I wish I could say that this was passed down from father to son, just as the song says, but in my case, it just didn’t happen that way. I did learn about unconditional love and sacrifice, but it was my mom that taught me that very valuable lesson.

A father’s love may be a love without end, however, a mother’s love is unconditional and in the case of my mom, seemingly limitless.

Like most things in my life, I grew up a stubborn — well — asshole. But no matter how much turmoil or the numerous trials that I put my mother through, she was always there for me, stood by me and at times even carried me. I wish that, as I was growing up, I would have seen her for what she was and the hard work and dedication she had for her family.

Like I said, I was an asshole and I really took everything for granted. I mistook the love and care that my mother offered as “Her Duty” or “That was her job as a mother.”

I never realized how much she did for each of us until recently, when life dealt me a hand off the bottom of the deck. I was thinking that I was sitting pretty with three of a kind; instead, I faced a dealer with a stacked deck and a royal flush in his hand.

It’s amazing what a little hindsight and humility does for a person’s clarity. I am ashamed, nay, disgusted with myself in the way I acted and treated her throughout my life (especially my teenage years).

My mom always said ‘I would never live to see 13.’ She believed, as most people did that knew me, that my last words would be “well shit, that didn’t work,” as I plunged to my death in some ungodly manner that no one would believe could be accomplished by a human.

As I reflect on my life now, I would like to believe I can see all the love she gave to us, and the time she gave for us. Her sacrifices were beyond scope and I do not think I could ever do her justice in the way of a thank you, but I would be remiss if I didn’t give it my best try.

As I have stated before, I grew up in a family that was on the lower income scale, — Ok we were poor. My father, as hard as he worked, didn’t bring home enough to support me and my 5 sisters. (Total estrogen overload.)

My mom always found a way to stretch the money and make sure we all had what we needed. I don’t remember a time that we were without a necessity. I remember many times I was without a want, but never a need.

The crazy thing is that somehow we even ended up with most of our wants. I never really understood how she did it and how she would come up the money or find the time to make sure that we had the best life we could. I wish I had some of her magic at times.

When I was in Jr. High — other than we had to chisel all of our homework on stone tablets — it was much like the kid's needs and wants of today. Fashion was and still is what makes or breaks a young person.

The fashion of the time — typical Stone Age, Fred Flintstone era clothing — was very expensive, and try as she might, she couldn’t afford to equip me to ‘fit in’ as the hip youngsters would say.

As most of you know, Jr. High and High School is a fashion show and the popular vote is whatever jocks and cheerleaders are wearing.

Now, the Star-Belly Sneetches had bellies with stars. The Plain-Belly Sneetches had none upon thars. But, because they had stars, all the Star-Belly Sneetches Would brag, "We're the best kind of Sneetch on the Beaches."  With their snoots in the air, they would sniff and they'd snort "We'll have nothing to do with the Plain-Belly sort!"

—Dr. Seuss

However, mom wasn’t content to just leave me out in the cold and ruthless desert of childhood ridicule. She found a pattern at the local fabric shop and the correct denim fabric and set out to make me a pair of those most coveted pants.

After many painstaking hours, I had the same type of “needed” jeans that everyone in my school was wearing. The only difference was mine was missing the tag that proudly displayed the brand, but no one seemed to notice.

My mom made sure that nothing would interfere with her desire to give her children what they needed, even if that need was only a want. She spent hours of love, tears and I’m sure some blood to make sure that my clothes were as close to the real thing as possible.

“My coat of many colors that my momma made for me; made only from rags but I wore it so proudly. Although we had no money, I was rich as I could be; in my coat of many colors, my momma made for me.

My coat of many colors was worth more than all their clothes.”

—Dolly Pardon

As I walked around the school, I felt like the words of this song. I felt just like all the other students that had the spiffy new clothes that made them feel superior to the others who were not able to afford them. (Damn Sneetches.)

There is no greater gift in life than that of being a parent. My mom was the epitome of that statement. I now realize how much love and care she put into making sure we were happy and treated like everyone else.

I wish that I would have realized it when I was dressed in my handmade jeans and shirt, feeling like I was one of the popular kids.

Thank you mom; for all the ways you love me.

—SP