Blindfold Activities

Friday was one of the most fun days in STAC so far. I loved running across the stage blindfolded for some reason. It didn't require any thought or effort. It was just so simple. It felt strange to hear so many people on the stage and then run across without bumping into anyone. It began to feel like me and the person guiding me were the only people on stage. I noticed both as the blindfolded person and as the running person that the way you held the person's arm would affect how fast they would run. The people who were rough with me or didn't use two hands made me feel a lot less secure than the people who were gentle and calm. Also, when I was running people across the stage, I forgot at first to use two hands. When I was reminded and started using two hands to help people across, they were a lot more relaxed and ran a little faster. When touch was the only sense we could use to determine if we could trust the person, it became really important.
I know it's obvious, but walking around with a blindfold, I found that my desire to see became greater than ever. Usually, if I saw someone walking towards me in a hallway, I would look the other way or down to avoid awkward eye contact. Blindfolded, when I heard someone's steps coming towards me, I found myself dying to know everything about this person. Is it a boy or a girl? What shoes are they wearing? Are they looking at me? Where are they going? Do they sense that I hear them? Do they care? And the only reason I wanted to know was because I couldn't find out. I noticed that without my vision, my other senses seemed to grow sharper. I realized that I could tell how big a room was by the sounds and the smell. The noises coming from the cafeteria seemed to spread out in all the space. The smaller rooms were warmer and had a stuffy smell to them. I began to resent doorways, turning sideways and sticking out my arm every time I realized I was approaching one. I was the second one to go around blindfolded, so I had already walked around the building for fifteen minutes. I wished that I had gone first because no matter how hard I tried to forget where I was, I couldn't do it. There were two times when I didn't know where I was, but I quickly figured it out when I touched something that I had seen the first time around. I wish we could do it in a bigger building that I was less acquainted with.