Beyond my Blur by Marie Elise

12/07/2024

🍃 it’s been a very wet summer here so far - and so I tried to catch some water droplets on these green leaves that are now turning red.

Have a nice weekend ❤️

09/06/2024

🐎 Please meet BERNADETTE 🐎

Bernadette is the pony I ride almost every week at the stables where I have my lessons! 🐴

These stables also offer classes for people with all sorts of mental/ physical disabilities. 🦯

💪🏽I find it important to showcase that you can learn a new sport AT ANY AGE, and with ANY DISABILITY! 💪🏽

I felt an instant connection with Bernadette from the first class I had on her.

She is strong-headed and stubborn, yet also sweet and so willing to work if she’s on fire 🔥

❤️ you Bernie.



❤️ ALL PDS in the Alt Text!! ❤️

09/06/2024

29/05/2024

📸 New Journey: Photography!

Sharing some of the very first images I have taken with my new camera, the CANON R10 with a 18-150 mm lens!

(I’m still very amateur 😂)

If anyone has experience with photography, I would love to receive tips (i.e. on YouTube channels, courses).

When I was researching what camera to buy, I was truly astounded by the PURE LACK of software installed to aid the visually impaired. 😤

This camera allows me to do some very basic magnification in the menu screen, but other than that, I’m having to learn all menu options BY HARD, as I can’t easily read the text. 😵

I’ll definitely make a couple of videos ro raise awareness about this issue.

Are you also interested in a longer-form video explaining why I chose the R10? 🤗

VISUALLY IMPAIRED PEOPLE DO PHOTO/VIDEOGRAPHY TOO!!! 😡

XO,
Marie

Ps. All descriptions of the photos are in the Alt text!!

22/05/2024

⏰ it’s that time again to learn about our incredible senses!

Text from the images below!

‘3 things you want to know about. Sense of touch.’

—> learn about your sense of touch and get motivated to haptically engage with locals, try Asian massages, explore heat sensations and be curious about texture!

1️⃣ Our sense of touch comprises the processing of multiple type of sensations from the surface and the inside of the body, such as pressure, vibration, temperature, pain and sexual touch.

2️⃣ We have a special system, made up of their own sensors and nerve fibers for emotional & social touch that ends up in its own unique part of our brain. A gentle caress such as a hug says I love you better than words!

3️⃣ Babies are born with a significantly further developed sense of touch than vision and hearing. This highlights its importance. Touch can have a therapeutic value at any age.

06/05/2024

🧘🏽‍♀️ Why don’t you try it, right now?!

What do you smell, listen, really feel?

Tuning into one single aspect can be very calming.

🦯 Of course, I mainly wrote travel stories for the visually impaired.

But I also hope they will motivate ANYONE, regardless of visual acuity, to use their senses more consciously. 🙏🏽

Our world has become more harsh and detached from all those simple things that surround us every day.

Using my disability to make the world a calmer place!

🥰,
Marie

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- PICTURE DESCRIPTIONS -
PD1: marie wearing a blue top, is smelling leaves of a rosemary plant.
PD2: two close ups of Marie.s hands, one touching blue mosaic and the other a bush with light blue flowers.
PD3: Marie is kneeling down, rubbing a flower between her fingers. Her cane is to her side.

30/04/2024

Real Talk Episode 3: Decision Making 😖

I don’t know about you, but making decisions (quickly) has never been my strong suit. I’m quite an analytical person and often try to make big decisions rationally, knowing it eventually always comes down to what FEELS best emotionally, and not IS best factually.

This June I am supposed to leave for Ecuador to do a volunteer project with horses 🐎 , during the dry season, at a breathtaking hacienda in the crater of a volcano (3 months). But with the recent diagnosis of my dog, it’s very unsure when she will pass away and I’m afraid I will not be in the Netherlands during the time my dog needs me the most.

I want to be able to say goodbye to her. ❤️

However, I had been planning to change jobs after my return from Ecuador. I feel very ready to move out of my parent’s place, where I have been living since the relapse of my mental illness. Postponing my trip to Ecuador also means I need to accept living in my hometown a while longer - not knowing for how much time.

The decision has been weighing on me, and though I’m trying to stick to my routine, yesterday I completely broke out into tears. I cannot rationalize my way out of this one, because there is simply ‘no good option’. 🙂‍↕️

Here’s to sticking to our gut and following our intuition, despite other people’s opinions.

“My life, my journey, my mistakes, my decisions”.

Love,
Marie

ps. If you have good decision-making hacks, let me know!

23/04/2024

👂🏽 🧠 Instagram can be an educative place, right?!

3 fascinating trivia about our incredible sense of hearing!

🎶 Tune in to those Sounds! 🎶

Text on the images is all in the Alt text!

17/04/2024

🙋🏽‍♀️For newbies, hello hello!!

I’ve added a new list to my ‘get to know me’ section: my favorites!

What are some of yours? 😄

*PDs*
Movie 🍿: Avatar
Book 📕: Big Panda & Tiny Dragon
Disney Princess 👑: Ariel
Pixar movie 🎥: Wall-E
Color: Red
Song 🎵: Dust in the Wind
Country: Spain 🇪🇸
Continent: South-America
Sport: Horse Riding 🏇🏽

08/04/2024

✍🏼 New Article ✍🏼

‘Hiking with Low Sight: navigating the unknown at the Prachov rock formations. ‘


1️⃣ how to dress your butt
2️⃣ how to put up with navigational struggles
3️⃣ how to compensate for low sight
4️⃣ how to know when to quit

Quotes in the

27/03/2024

🌺 The smell of sting is in the air on the northern hemisphere!

3 cool facts about the smell of flowers!

🌷 PDs: 🌷

1️⃣ no two flowers smell the same! Each flower produces its own distinct scent, even if we might not be able to detect the difference

2️⃣ different species of flour attract different insects smelling flowers attract bees butterflies, while musky flowers attract Beatles

3️⃣ Some flowers only produce scent at nightfall. This is because they want to attract moth and bats.

Do you have a favorite flower scent?

18/03/2024

✍🏼 New Article Online!

👉🏽 Every once in a while I write about visual impairment related topics.

👉🏽 In this one I’ve tried to capture the emotions I experience with the degenerative aspect of my condition.

I’ve also included tips on how I deal with it to hopefully help you navigate insecurity!!

Hope it helps ❤️
Marie

Ps. EVERY picture description is in the Alt text

04/03/2024

🦓🦛 NEW on my site: the smells of the African Savannah! 🐆 🐘

If you’ve been here for a while you’ll know how much I love animals and wildlife.

My parents organized a trip to Kenya & Tanzania shortly after my diagnosis to fulfill my dream of seeing Lion King characters in real life!

Luckily, I got to see many (swipe for photos), but apart from that, I also learnt how to appreciate scent and recognize íbero importance 👃🏼🤎

A safari with low sight is still a great experience, that’s for sure!

This article consists of 3 diary entries, written in ‘NatGeo’ style where I applied the techniques I’ve learnt so far.

Enjoy 🦁 🦒 🦏 🐘
Marie

All are in the

21/02/2024

💥 New on the website: the textures of Venice!

Did you know that Venice used to be an independent republic?

For decades, they ruled the Mediterranean Sea, importing valuable goods from the east such as cloths and spices! 🫚🌶️

Skillful artisans and merchants turned these materials into high quality, valuable reduces. Think of:

🛶 Wooden gondolas
🧣 Silk, velvet and lace
🍸 Glass art

Article also includes accessibility & practical tips!! ✅

🥰,
Marie

PDs in the ALT text! 🇮🇹 ❤️

05/02/2024

🤔 Are core values important?

At first I thought it was a bit silly to define three core values when starting my project.

But these values are not just tied to ‘Beyond my Blur’. These 3 words define how I want to love my life.

1️⃣ Authentically - by my own rules, for me and as me. Without masks or role plays.

2️⃣ Courageous a I chose courage rather than bravery, and very deliberately so. Fear is okey. Fearlessness is an unattainable, unnecessary goal. Learning how to befriend and be with fear: that’s my jam.

3️⃣ Connected - no human can thrive without some kind of relationship. Strong connections ground me. They are my network of roots that get me through storms. Whether those are my ties myself, earth, animals or loved ones.

Which 3 words describe how you live your life?

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includes all text on images.

24/01/2024

Opening up. 🫶🏽

Sometimes I find it hard to write about the negative emotions that come with vision loss - afraid to ‘feed’ the narrative that disabled individuals should merely be regarded as ‘victims’.

But if I were to only forcefully spread ‘disability joy’, I would completely disregard that even ‘champions’ face painful times.

I suffered a bad anxiety disorder in the second half of my twenties - batt;img panic attacks for many years - in part because I had not accepted my vision loss in a healthy way. 

After years of therapy, I can now say I have a good relationship with my disability. But even then, the grief can still hit hard.

The past weeks I have been noticing something in my vision I didn’t have before, and so another round of mind games has begun:

“Is it degeneration?” ‘Is it just fatigue?” “Was it there yesterday?”

It becomes hard to know what is ‘real’ and what is not. Work continues, social engagements continue, but the ‘visual police’ is continuously there, subconsciously controlling every observation.

Where there is joy, there can be pain. Someone can be independent, and also need help.

These things CAN co-exist.

No toxic positivity on this page. If you have been struggling, please remember it is okey to show vulnerability, even for disability activists!

Take care ❣️
Love,
Marie

19/01/2024

❣️Swipe for images ❣️

✍🏼 New article live on my website! Amongst others, it answers the following questions:

1️⃣ why does the Perito Moreno have so many rupture events?

2️⃣ Why are the accoustics of these ruptures so impressive?

3️⃣ What do these sounds day about the qualities of water?

4️⃣ What can we learn if we listen to the glacier?

I hope you enjoy! ❤️
Marie

- PD -
Text on the first two slides included in the alt text.

3-8 are images that of the glacier. The glacier lies in a valley, flanked by mountains, floating into Lake Argenrimo. Noteworthy is the color of the ice, which is not white, but an almost fluorescent electric blue

12/01/2024

✍🏼 Becoming a writer in this digital age with mostly short video content and intelligent chat bots isn’t easy…

But I’m going for it anyway ✨

📌 I upload a new article to my website every other week. They feature a key non-visual experience of a destination around the world.

Text on the slides is in the and first comment.

❤️,
Marie

26/12/2023

🥺 Celebrating NINE years of “Christmas picture with my dog!!” 🎄

A little tradition i started when I got my second dog 🐶 Quinta.

I love the family & friends time during the holidays, but I also feel it can expose the complexity of Inter-human relationships and family dynamics.

Not everyone is blessed with a harmonious family 👨‍👩‍👦‍👦, or can pose with a partner in front of the tree (including myself).

And so I feel extra,grateful for the stable and never-disappointing relationships I do have, like the one with my pet (and this online community🥰).

In the past I’ve spent (too) much time trying to fix (other people’s) feuds, investing energy in relationships where the same care structurally wasn’t reciprocated.

Please remember that we can choose ourselves in which ones we invest our energy and time. It is brave to distance yourself from energy-draining relationships, especially if it seems unconventional to do.

Take people for how they are, let them show you their true colors so YOU can decide how you want to relate yourself to them for your ówn internal peace and harmony.

❤️ With love from Quinta & me ❤️
Marie

22/11/2023

‘Disability’.

I have a love-hate relationship with the word.

Love, because it promotes accessibility and self-advocacy.

Hate, because it unnecessarily puts me in a box.

You see, I believe that all of us, at some point in our lives, will be disabled in some way.

🫱🏼‍🫲🏿 All. Of. Us.

Not able to move a certain limb, unable to keep it all together. Unable to leave an unhappy relationship, unable to secure the desired job.

And yes, whilst these ‘disabilities’ may be temporary and mine is permanent, I believe that people not labeled as ‘disabled’ can, in fact, experience permanent ‘disabilities’ too.

Such as an inability to forgive. To love themselves, to heal old wounds.

🫠 Without even realizing it.

Yes, I am (for now) not able to see 88% of what’s around me. But I am able to recognize that the moment in which I allow that to fully become my label will be the moment in which I TRULY disable myself.

The takeaway? Your fellow disabled humans are no different from you. You are no different from able-bodied humans.

😌 Ultimately, deep down, we’re all just human beings who simply… can;t do it all.

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25/09/2023

‘What on earth is this woman doing?!”

I can hear the thoughts and feel the stares of the people around me.

And though for a long time that triggered a wave of shame, let me now explain you what this woman is doing.

This woman is curious.

This woman wants to be exactly where she is.

No, not vía a mobile screen.

✨ But via her nose. Her fingers. Her ears. Whatever is left of the eyes. ✨

This woman loves the silly touch of flowers. And the sweet-spicy scent of rosemary.

It makes this woman feel…. Happy.

So let me reverse the question.

If you find yourself in such a beautiful place and you’re not touching or smelling anything:

What on earth are YOU doing?

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PD: all pictures described in the

27/08/2023

Feel its cry for help with your very own finger tips… 💦

🧊 TEMPERATE glaciers, (as opposed to polar glaciers) are glaciers that are essentially at melting point.

🌡️ In such glaciers, liquid water coexists with glacier ice. This means that even a small change in temperature can have a major impact on temperate glacier melting, area and volume.

Laying your hand on such ancient ice is as impressive as it is tragic.

✋🏽 Study the temperature, texture, humidity; all your fingertips allow to feel & make a change!

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PD: all text in this carrousel is listed under the alternative text

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🇫🇷

12/08/2023

🦯 🌎 Seek & discover! Whether with or without a cane, wheelchair, sensory -, mental or other type of disability, never lose sight of that one important goal we all share:

ENJOY❤️

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PD: Marie is standing in front of a commercial board at the airport reading: ‘seek, discover, enjoy! She is wearing an orange jumpsuit and her symbol cane.

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03/08/2023

‼️ DISABILITY PRIDE IS NOT A GIVEN

How is it already August? The first solid summer month has flown by, but what a month it was! I got to launch my own website right in the middle of this 'disability pride month'! A platform designed for the visually impaired & blind traveler and anyone willing to explore beyond the visual domain.

'Pride' is much more than just 'a feeling'. It's a mentality, capable of breaking down barriers, building bridges and producing powerful language shifts (see images!). But in a world which is still filled with inclusivity issues, developing a mindset of acceptance and self-advocacy is not a given, especially for disabled individuals living in the often forgotten (least) developing countries.

It is one of the fundamental reasons why I started 'Beyond my Blur'. To instil PRIDE in the hearts of others by spreading contagious emotions and out-of-the-box travel stories.

If you would like to contribute, please share this post and follow my page for updates & new article releases!

Warmest wishes,
Marie Elise

01/08/2023

📍 Bolivian Altiplano - Uyuni region

Question: what is the most memorable item (vegetation, fabric, food, etc) you ever touched in another country?

For me, it is definitely this funky-looking ‘moss’ of the first photo. 🪴 It felt soft, spongy, somewhat slippery and rubbery. It was so interesting!

The Altiplano as a whole is full of intriguing textures, vegetation and soil types due to the high average elevation. 🇧🇴

🌋 My feet touched volcanic rock, colored lake bottoms, enormous salt flats, cacti islands and elusive wetlands all in the same trip.

Would love to know your suggestions.

Love,
Marie

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PD: included in the alt text for this series.

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🇧🇴

20/07/2023

📍Salinas Grandes - Argentina 🇦🇷

It’s funny how focused we are on the visual elements of our travel destinations, and at the same time find so much appreciation in visually ‘very simplistic’ environments.

🧂 Like this flat white salt plain contrasting against a bright blue sky.

🌊 Or a golden beach greeted by an azure sea.

🏔️ Or a pyramid-shaped mountain topped owith a snow-cloaked peak.

It confirms my belief that our brains were not designed for todays stimuli-filled environments and find peace in something as ‘ordinary’ as a striking color, a shape or a perspective.

Or a smell, a sound, a texture or a flavor.

Non-visual features shape our travel experiences much more than we think and I can’t wait to uncover them all with your help!

Speak soon 🫶🏽,
Marie

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18/07/2023

Turning a mutation into an advantage, loss into gain and passion into words:

Welcome to the FB page of Beyond my Blur! Thé travel platform designed for the visually impaired and blind adventurer and anyone interested in exploring beyond the visual domain!

It covers intimate & intriguing non-visual experiences of various destinations worldwide, enriching our understanding of the environment around us and the body to earth connection. In a world which seems to be getting more chaotic and unstable by the day, a strong tie between these two homes helps us maintain a feeling of aliveness and stability.

Follow this page for updates & new article releases, and of course, to support me in my dream of becoming a visually impaired National Geographic explorer.

THANK YOU!!

Love,
Beyond my Blur by Marie Elise