Metro blindness

As explorer John Stilgoe, author of Outside Lies Magic, would realize seemingly innocuous pieces of our surroundings have a history and purpose. On my way back to the hotel, I saw a pair of blind people navigating through the metro. The woman waved a stick over the floor, and the man held onto her shoulder. She had to ask a stranger which way to go: Etoile or Nation, and finding the stairs she nimbly climbed up. I went in the opposite metro direction. My breathing caught when I saw the pair enter on the other side, walking closer and closer to the edge of the track until with certainty they stopped at the bumped stripe that runs along all tracks. From Dans Le Nior I learned the importance of our senses and the importance of being situated in our surroundings, but I never fully absorbed the reliance on certain set ups in Paris. I discovered the meaning of the bumped stripe and its vital importance, something which I never befored considered and wished I had explored.