Here’s the thing I failed to take into account when I decided to bring Jeff to Disney World with me, and stay in the Animal Kingdom Lodge: The AKL is really dark. Dim, I mean. It’s an ambience thing, and I love the theme here, but it sure poses a challenge for Jeff.
Apart from a general tendency for his brain battery (and energy level) to run out of juice quickly, vision has been the striking winner in the race for most challenging deficit of the trip. Much of the wooden floor of the main lobby is polished to a high gleam. And while the lighting is low, it appears in abundant forms...Christmas tree lights, an impressive assortment of lamps, and highlighted African art in every nook. What this means is that Jeff cannot perceive the floor as a normal floor at all. It sparkles with so much reflected light (without the benefit of overall lighting,) that he steps onto that floor as if he’s either going to fall in a hole or trip over a tangled string of holiday twinkle-lights.
The stairwells, meanwhile, are carpeted in giraffe-spots WITHOUT that helpful strip of bright yellow paint we use to coat the front edge of the wooden treads at the Nags Head beach cottage. Hence, we traverse the hallways with me giving verbal directions such as: “The surface we’re on is completely flat. I will tell you when we get to steps.” And then I do. “One, two, three, four,” I say as we climb a flight. Then, at the landing: “Now it’s flat...u-turn!...Now more steps, one, two, three four...”
But I just thought of something. Even if we’d stayed at the brightly-lit Contemporary Resort we’d have had a problem. I know because we explored it today as part of my tour of holiday decorations. In the Contemp, the carpeting is a patchwork of primary colors, in blocks and patterns of assorted complexity. Jeff thought he was about to fall over objects strewn about the floor until I said “No, it’s flat. Just walk normally.”
Other visually-based problems are old friends. I’m used to him walking into doors if I don’t steer him through, or not knowing what on his plate is a finger food. (I try to make it all one or the other--forkable or not.) But difficulties perceiving the floor below him is a new gift, highlighted by the Disney interior design team.
1 comment:
We too have had a problem with old fashioned patterned carpet in some of the places we've visited. We just have to edge along. And then there's a perceived step when it is only a change in contrast on the pavement.
And we also 'count' the steps, it means were focusing on the steps.
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