July 23, 2026

Happy Peers

Long before I had learned to do a sum in arithmetic or describe the shape of the earth, Miss Sullivan had taught me to find beauty in the fragrant woods, in every blade of grass, and in the curves and dimples of my baby sister's hand. She linked my earliest thoughts with nature, and made me feel that birds and flowers and I were happy peers.

Helen Keller lost her sight and hearing before she was two years old, cut off from the sounds and sights most people rely on to know the world. When Anne Sullivan arrived as her teacher in 1887, she chose not to begin with books or grammar but with the outdoors itself, guiding young Helen's hands over grass, water, tree bark, and flowers. This passage recalls how that early, physical education taught Keller that nature was not something to observe from a distance but something to be touched, held, and lived inside. Her body, and especially her hands, became the instrument through which the natural world first reached her.