Sacheta and I were at the supermarket. We were standing in the checkout line when she remembered something, told me to hold our place and was gone. I was wearing my glasses and had the vOICe running. My first thought was “Woo hm”, how do I keep our place? My second thought was “hmm, I am sighted so lets see what I can do.” I studied the view in greater detail and moved my head a bit to the left and then to the right. I could see a constant shape in front of me. I heard the rustle of a plastic bag ahead of me and confirmed that the constant shape was probably the back of a person.
I then turned my head to the left and checked the view. I could see more objects. I did the same on the right and the view was similar. I now knew that I was focused on the right object. I stepped a few paces in front until almost the full left to right panning was filled by that constant shape. I did not want to invaid the stranger’s personal space so also used other blindness skills like passive echo location. The individual moved away and the view opened up. It was my turn at the cash counter.
The key takeaway for me was the checking I did. In this situation, the narrower view given by the glasses helped because I was able to associate a physical action with the change of the scene when I turned my head sideways. I could have done the same thing with a wide angle view but would have had to pay more attention to perspective.