My writing experience v.s. Helen Keller's

When writing, the two senses I draw upon the most are my sight and hearing. Before I put pen to paper I think about what I am going to write, and I hear myself saying it in my head before anything is written. I use my eyes to see what I am actually putting on the page, and to check it over after it is written. I re read each sentence after it is written to make sure it still makes sense, again hearing the words in my voice in my head. For Helen Keller, writing is a very different experience. She isn’t able to say the words aloud in her head, for she has never experienced what they sound like. She couldn’t use her eyes to see if the words were properly placed because she was unable to see. Even with these substantial differences in what our bodies are capable of, both Helen and I are able to tell a story with our words. Everything Helen learned was through feeling; she did not hear nor see words, but she felt them. First she felt them being written on her hands through her teacher. She later learned to write them by feeling her letters, and learned speak them by feeling her voice and her lips. I have spent very little time thinking about how language feels, and that is the only way Helen knew language. However, after reading Helen’s story, I realized we use the same language the same way to describe our experiences.