J'entends les murs

She dances. They watch her dance with their fingers. They place their hands on her and discover all her movements. That is how they recognize beauty: through their fingertips. I love watching people. That is what I do with my eyes. In airports, I can watch them for hours—kissing, embracing, saying goodbye; the gestures of tenderness. I also love seeing clothes, the stories they tell, how they transform us. When they begin to dance, their movement is unsettling, singular, inimitable. They are blind and have not learned through mimicry, by watching others. Since 2008, I have been interviewing visually impaired people; it allows me to observe what we do with our eyes, with our other senses. How does one fall in love when one cannot see? What is the place of the visual, of touch, in our lives? Who am I, deprived of what I look like? How does one give an image of oneself when one cannot see? How does one live in the dark?