Helen

nd muscle, go skimming lightly over glistening, tilting waves, and to feel the steady, imperious surge of the water!  I suppose you will smile when I say that I especially like it on moonlight nights.  I cannot, it is true, see the moon climb up the sky behind the pines and steal softly across the heavens, making a shining path for us to follow; but I know she is there, and as I lie back among the pillows and put my hand in the water, I fancy that I feel the shimmer of her garments as she passes.In 1901, I visited Nova Scotia and had opportunities such as I had not enjoyed before to make the acquaintance of the ocean.  Miss Sullivan and I went to Halifax and that harbor was our joy, our paradise.  Oh, it was all so interesting, so beautiful!  The memory of it is a joy forever.

Frequently, as we emerge from the shelter of a cove or an inlet, I am suddenly conscious of the spaciousness of the air about me.  A luminous warmth seems to enfold me.  Whether it comes from the trees heated by the sun, or from the water, I can never discover.  I have had the same strange sensation even in the heart of the city.  I have felt it on cold, stormy days and at night.  It is like the kiss of warm lips on my face.

It seems to me that there is in each of us a capacity to comprehend the impressions and emotions which have been experienced by mankind from the beginning.  Each individual has a subconscious memory of the green earth and the murmuring waters, and blindness and deafness cannot rob him of this gift from past generations.  This inherited capacity is a sort of sixth sense—a soul-sense which sees, hears, feels, all in one.

People who think that all sensations reach us through the eye and the ear have expressed surprise that I should notice any difference, except possibly the absence of pavements, between waking in the city streets and in the country roads.  They forget that my whole body is alive to the conditions about me.  The rumble and roar of the city smites the nerves of my face, and I feel the ceaseless tramp of an unseen multitude and the dissonant tumult frets my spirit.

What a joy it is to feel the soft springy earth under my feet once more, to follow the grassy roads that lead to ferny brooks where I can bathe my fingers in a cataract of rippling notes; or climb over a stone wall to the green fields that tumble, roll and climb in riotess gladness!

If there are children around, nothing pleases me so much as to frolic with them.  I find even the smallest child excellent company, and I am glad to say that children usually like me.  They lead me about and show me the things they are interested in.  Of course the little ones cannot spell on their fingers; but I manage to read their lips.  Sometimes I make a mistake and do the wrong thing.   A burst of childish laughter greets my blunder, and the pantomime begins all over again.  I often tell them stories or teach them a game, and the winged hours depart and leave us good and happy.

Is it not true, then, that my life with all its limitations touches at many points the life of the World Beautiful?  Everything has its wonders, even darkness and silence, and I learn, whatever state I may be in, therein to be content.  Sometimes, it is true, a sense of isolation enfolds me like a cold mist as I sit alone and wait at life’s shut gate.  Beyond there is light, and music, and sweet companionship; but I may not enter.  Fate, silent, pitiless, bars the way. 

Fain would I question his imperious decree; for my heart is still undisciplined and passionate; but my tongue will not utter the bitter, futile words that rise to my lips, and they fall back into my heart like unshed tears.  Silence sits immense upon my soul.  Then comes hope with a smile and whispers, “There is joy in self-forgetfulness.”  So I try to make the light in others’ eyes my sun, the music in others’ ears my symphony, the smile on others’ lips my happiness."

The Story of My Life by Helen Keller

Chapter 22, pp. 119-131 (edited)

USA: Grosset & Dunlap, pub., 1905