Last week, during rehearsal on the 3rd floor of CoMo, I left him under my chair, as I stepped out to get a drink. “It’s just a few steps to the nearest water fountain. I don’t need you for that," I told him with a laugh.
I closed Walton’s door behind me and took a confident right into the larger corridor. But when I heard the unmistakable sounds of people, many people, my feet hesitated. As I slowly weaved my way through crowds that stood like unmoving lampposts, almost grazing a door that stood wide open, I felt too vulnerable. As I took step after cautious step with my hands protectively curled into a circle in front of my body, I suddenly remembered with some wonder that there was a time when my hands weren’t curled around Riptide or even Napoleon. There was a time when they did not clear paths for me in swinging arcs, standing between me and the world like tall shields.
That was the time before Notre Dame. Before Notre Dame, I never walked with a cane. I never walked alone. There were always hands that led me — loving hands, understanding hands, kind hands, pitying hands. Before Notre Dame, I did not own many spaces. I did not stride through the corridors of my high school or the cracked sidewalks of my city. Before Notre Dame, the only space where I was truly free, the only space where I didn’t need hands, was my home.
But then I decided to apply to colleges in the U.S. and got accepted to Notre Dame. And I realized with a smile that it was finally time to gently let go of the hands that loved me. It was time to walk alone.
The first time I practiced walking was in the largest shopping mall in my city. My fingers curled around the cane, and I swung it in hesitant arcs over the smooth tiled floor. Are strangers staring? Pointing? It hurt the most when my younger brother laughed. Of course, he was too young to understand the doubts, the fears and the naked vulnerability that choked my throat. But it still hurt.
By the time I landed in the U.S., I had mastered the art of swinging my cane. I still did not know how to walk alone.
Then I encountered Notre Dame for the first time, the gigantic campus with its myriad paths that flowed in and out of each other. I had two days before my parents left to learn my most essential routes, Debartolo, CoMo and SDH.
The first few times I tried to walk, It was scary. There was too much to attend to, too many buildings to count and too many turns to memorize. The bones of my wrist creaked in protest as I forced it to swing my cane in never-ending arcs. “I can’t do this, Amma. I can’t do this, Jesus.”
I kept taking hesitant steps.
“Help me to do this, Jesus.”
My steps became slightly more confident.
“I can do all things through Christ who strengthens me.”
I walked.
This time, I led the way, and my family followed in silence. I came to a crosswalk, paused, then took a firm left. I whispered, “Alumni, Dillon,” ticking off the large looming shapes on my fingers. Then I came to the 3rd building. My cane touched the first step. I climbed all 4 of them, walked forward and placed my hands triumphantly on the smooth doors of South Dining Hall. The silence broke with the sound of applause. For the first time, I tasted independence on my tongue.
But that was just the beginning of all the learning. In my first year, I learned the route to the Huddle and then went on Friday midnight walks alone to get flaming hot doritos. I learned to count the carpeted corridors in Debartolo and watch out for the cracks on the sidewalk to Ryan. I learned to jerk my body backward when my cane suddenly dropped off the curb. I learned to be the cool, self-contained girl who called her parents as she walked to class. I learned to hold my cane closer to me when I approached crowds and angle it across my body like a shield or sword when I feared the attack of poles and barricades. I learnt that as much as I try I cannot avoid any of Notre Dame’s puddles.
In the last three years, I have learned so many routes to so many buildings. In the last three years, I witnessed the passing of two canes, Napoleon Bonaparte II, and my Riptide. Two days ago, I curled my hands around Astrid the Unstoppable.
In the last three years, I learned that there are days when walking alone is the best adventure, like all those times when you get lost for anywhere between five and 30 minutes, but somehow find your way miraculously back home. And there are days when walking feels like the worst adventure, like that day when you trip over a giant bolder and feel the humiliating hardness of the earth on your palms. There are days when walking alone is confusion and vulnerability and fear, like those walks from Jordan Hall. Walking with a cane is walking with your wrists, it's tiring. Walking alone is beauty, power, joy and gratitude.
But most blessed days, walking alone with your cane is easy, normal and something you have been doing for a very long time.
Hannah Alice Simon was born and raised in Kerala, India, and moved to the U.S. for college with the dream of thriving in an intellectual environment that celebrates people with disabilities. On campus, you will mostly see her taking the longest routes to classrooms with her loyal cane, Riptide, by her side. She studies psychology and English with minors in musical theatre and theology. You can contact Hannah at hsimon2@nd.edu.
